Breakouts
Overview
Breakout rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting in up to 50 separate sessions. The meeting host can choose to assign the participants into breakout rooms (1.) automatically at random, (2.) manually or (3.) allow participants to choose their room.
You can also pre-assign participants to breakout rooms when you schedule the meeting instead of managing them during the meeting.
Breakout room participants have full audio, video, and screen share capabilities.
- Creating breakout rooms during the session
Click breakout rooms /Sección de grupos in the menu bar.
2. Select the number of rooms you would like to create, and how you would like to assign your participants to those rooms:
Automatically: Randomly. Let Zoom split your participants up evenly into each of the rooms.
Manually: Choose which participants you would like in each room.
Let participants choose room: Here students can self-select into the breakout room created for each team.
3. Click Create breakout rooms.
4. Your rooms will be created, but will not start automatically. You can make some modifications and manage room options prior to starting them by following the instructions below.
Make modifications:
When you hoover over the breakout room with your mouse, you will see the options to rename and delete the respective room.
In the below menu, you find the option to add an additional breakout room.
You can go to Options (more detail below) to make adjustments in the configuration of the breakout rooms.
Launch the breakout room session.
If you chose the self-select option, you can prepare the rooms (e.g. create and name rooms) right before the start of the class. During the session, this information will be maintained. For example, if you have multiple short breakout sessions, the empty rooms "Team A", "Team B" will be maintained and you can easily go from whole class to small groups and back. However, from one session to the next, Zoom does not save the breakout rooms. You will have to create them anew at the beginning of the next session.
Options for breakout rooms
After creating the breakout rooms, click Options to view additional breakout rooms options.
Check any options that you would like to use.
Move all participants into breakout rooms automatically: This will move all participants into the breakout rooms automatically. If this option is unchecked, the participants will need to click "Join" to be added to the breakout room.
Allow participants to return to the main session at any time: If this option is checked, the participants can move back to the main session from their meeting controls.(Recommended because they can go back in case they are in the wrong group). If this is disabled, they need to wait for the host to end the breakout rooms.
Breakout rooms close automatically after X minutes: If this option is checked, the breakout rooms will automatically end after the configured time. Notify me when the time is up: If this is checked, the host will be notified when the breakout room time is up.
Countdown after closing breakout rooms: Participants will be given a countdown of how much time they have left before being returned to the main room.
Follow the steps below to manually assign participants to rooms or click "Open All Rooms" to start automatically created breakouts.
Manually assigning students (one by one)
To assign participants to your rooms, select Assign next to the room you wish to assign participants to and select participants you want to assign to that room. Repeat this for each room.
Once a participant has been assigned (manually or automatically), the number of participants will show in place of the Assign button.
2. Pre-assigning students to breakout rooms
In preparation of your teaching you can pre-assign students to specific work group in advance.
Important - during the live session you will have to RECREATE / RECOVER TO PRE-ASSINGNED ROOMS, as explained below. This is when the system matches the pre-loaded email addresses with the actual information of the students connected to your session in the moment of launching breakout groups. If you skip this important step, the pre-assigned breakout rooms will appear as empty.
Sign in to the Zoom web portal https://ieuniversity.zoom.us
Select the meeting
In the Meeting Options section, select Breakout Room pre-assign
4. Now you can select between creating the rooms manually or by importing the information with a CSV file.
2.1 Create breakout rooms manually
Click "+ Create Rooms" to assign students MANUALLY.
In the "Add participants" text box, search for participants' name or email address to add them to the breakout room. As you type the student name, the system will make suggestions IF the student has already activated her account. Otherwise, you have to enter the full student email address.
If you want to change the room name, for example from Breakout Room 1 to Group A, hover with your mouse over the default breakout room name, then click the pencil icon to edit.
2.2 Create breakout rooms with CSV file
Click "Import form CSV" to upload student information at bulk.
This is a great option to manage large groups of students. However, the CSV file format is very sensitive to changes, including imperceptible changes on the file, which easily prompts errors during the uploading process.
For best results, download the template from Zoom and work directly on that template. Once finished, just drag&drop the file or select by browsing your computer.
All rooms will be create simultaneously. You can verify by clicking on each room.
2.3 Save your pre-assigne breakout rooms correctly!
You have to save the pre-assigned breakout rooms twice.
Safe the changes you made on the pop-up window "Breakout Room Assignment"
Safe the changes you made in the meeting for which you have created the pre-assigned breakout rooms.
If you don't save the changes to the meeting link, your work will be lost!
2.4 Deploy pre-assigned breakout rooms during live session
To use the pre-assigned breakout rooms during your live session, click Breakout Rooms /Sección de Grupos on the menu bar.
ENGLISH:
The following pop-up will appear:
Important step BEFORE opening all rooms:
Click the little arrow next to "Recreate"
Click "Recover to pre-assigned rooms"
Now you can "Open All Rooms", and initiate the small group discussions with the pre-assigned groups.
ESPAÑOL:
Aparecerá lal siguiente interfaz:
Pasos importnates ANTES de inicar todas las sesiones :
Desplegar flecha junto a "Volver a crear"
Selecionar "Restablecer salas resasignadas"
Ahora puedes "Iniciar todas las sesiones" para arrancar con las conversaciones en los grupos preasignados.
Note that if a participant joins or rejoins the meeting AFTER you started the breakout rooms, he/she won't be assigned to their respective group as the system could not match them in the moment you launched breakouts. You can easily assign that particular student manually (see above: Manually assign students (one by one))
2.5 Make changes in pre-assigned breakout rooms to reassign students
3. Managing break out rooms in progress
Once the breakout rooms have been launched, the host will stay in the main meeting until joining a session manually. Students are moved into the breakout session automatically if you have ticked that option. Otherwise, students will be asked to join the Breakout Session with a pop-up. If a student has not joined the session yet, it will be noted by (not joined) next to their name.
Join: Join the breakout room.
Leave: Leave the room and return to the main meeting (only shows when in a breakout room).
Broadcast a message to all: The host can broadcast a message to all breakout rooms to share information with all participants. The message will now appear for all participants in Breakout Rooms.
Close All Rooms: Stops all rooms after a 60 second countdown, shown to the host and participants, and returns all participants back to the main meeting.
3.1 Important for co-teaching
Only the meeting host can join breakout rooms, and only one of the professors will be host of the meeting (the one who has created the meeting link). If you want to split the "dropping in on the teams", the host needs to first assign the co-teacher to one of the groups. After this first assignment, the co-teacher can move freely from one group to another.
3.2 Connected with two devices?
Similarly, if you are connected from two devices (e.g. class room computer and personal laptop), on the second device you will be co-host. To join group conversations, you need to join from the device where you have the host function!
You can easily switch the host from the class room computer to your personal laptop by hovering over your name, click more and selecting "make host"
3.3 The chat function for breakout rooms
Within each breakout room, students can chat with everyone in the breakout room or a specific person in the breakout room even if participant chat is disabled in the main room.
Breakout room chat is only viewable in that breakout room.
Main room chat does not show in breakout room chat. (If you want to communicate with all breakout rooms at the same time you have to broadcast a message, see instructions below).
Each time a breakout room is opened, the chat starts empty (it does not include a previous instance of the breakout room's chat nor the main room chat).
Anyone in a breakout room can click “Ask For Help” to request that the Host join the breakout room.
3.4 Broadcasting a message to all students
Click on the Breakout Room icon
Click "Broadcast a message to all" and type in your message.
Click "Broadcast" and this message will be displayed immediately to all participants in the different breakout rooms.
FAQ about breakout rooms
How can you assign people to breakout rooms? If you do nothing, are they assigned randomly? Yes only the host and co-host (which you can assign during a meeting if need be) are able to assign people to breakout rooms. There’s a setting where you can either choose or assign randomly.
What happens if you want to change the groups, or if someone comes in late? If someone joins late and they are not automatically assigned you can send them to a room. You can move people from one group to another at any time. To bring them back together, you can either set a timer to expire the breakout room meetings before they start (and participants will see 1 min left for example) and then reassign them back into the same or different groups; or you can end the meeting from your host screen and they will have 60 seconds (or the time you select) to return to the main room.
Can people move between breakout rooms? No, only the host and co-host control breakout room participants.
Can I move in and out of breakout rooms? Yes, you can join any room at any time.
Can those in the breakout rooms see my main screen for instructions, information, etc.? No, they can´t. You can broadcast instructions to all groups during their meetings. Another way around this is to attach a Google doc or Google sheet link to your meeting, and give everyone view or comment access.
How do they come back together when their discussions are finished? The host or co-host can set a timer to end breakout room discussions, after which everyone rejoins the main room meeting, or they can end the breakout meetings at any time. They can return to their rooms or be reassigned to others later if need be.
Additional resources
