The Breakout Rooms function allows you to split your participants up into multiple smaller Zoom sessions. This is a useful function for facilitating discussion, as participants can be grouped into smaller groups that allow for more interaction and dialogue. Instructors have used break-out rooms for ice-breakers as well as small group settings for working on course deliverables. Read about creating and managing breakout rooms.
Break-out rooms can be organized in the following ways:
- You can have students randomly assigned to Break-out Rooms
- You can manually assign students to Breakout Rooms during the Zoom session.
- You can allow students to self-select Breakout Rooms. They will be prompted to do this after you select “Open All Rooms”
As the host, you will not be sorted into one of the breakout rooms, and cannot hear what is being discussed in the Breakout Rooms. However, you can visit individual Breakout Rooms to check in on the discussions happening in a particular room. Meeting co-hosts have the same privileges to manage breakout rooms as the host (Zoom 5.4.6 and above). If you would like to learn about recording Breakout Rooms, please see our guide on Recording a Zoom Meeting.