Using Breakout Rooms in Zoom

When teaching synchronously on Zoom, hosts and co-hosts can use the Breakout Room tool to divide students into smaller meeting spaces for group work. Activities like discussion, collaboration, and problem-solving are often more effective and manageable in small groups, making them a powerful strategy for fostering student engagement through active learning.

How to Get Started

1. Determine your goal(s) for using Breakout Rooms.

You might decide to use breakout rooms to:

  • Help students get to know each other and build community
  • Create a less intimidating space for reluctant speakers
  • Encourage discussion, brainstorming, or case study analysis
  • Support collaborative project work.

2. Identify and practice the Breakout Room assignment strategy that best aligns with your goals, along with the steps for managing the rooms effectively.

Consider whether grouping quieter students together might encourage more balanced participation. Decide if you want to keep the same groupings across meetings or mix them up. Aim to place at least three students per room—groups of two risk leaving one student alone if the other steps away.

You have six options for creating breakout rooms. Note: you can always manually move a student into a different group, regardless of the method you choose. Find detailed instructions for each in Zoom support article on managing breakout rooms.

  1. Automatic (i.e., random) assignment is best for informal or ad hoc discussion groups during class.
  2. Manual assignment can be time-consuming and is most appropriate in smaller classes.  
  3. Participant choice is an option when you want students to sort themselves when you open the rooms.
  4. Using saved breakout room assignments is possible if you have groups that remain from meeting to meeting.
  5. Poll results can be used to create breakout rooms.
  6. Pre-assigning students before the meeting begins helps if you have a large class and set groups, especially groups that you want to maintain from class meeting to class meeting.

3. Take important steps to avoid issues and navigate a few Breakout Room quirks.

General Breakout Room Considerations and Troubleshooting

  1. Do not count on items placed in the main room chat being visible to students in their breakout rooms. (There have been reports that it does not happen with some operating systems/devices.)
  2. If you want your participants to be able to screen share, annotate, and chat in Breakout Rooms, make sure that ability is enabled (under the Host Tools icon) before starting the Breakout Rooms.
  3. Cloud recording only records the main room, so be sure to pause any cloud recording when your students are in breakout rooms.

Pre-assigned Breakout Room Limitations

  1. If you pre-assign with a .csv file, you must format the file according to this template (click to download). 
  2. Email addresses used to pre-assign students must match the ones they sign into your Zoom session with for Zoom to assign them correctly.
  3. For recurring meeting, you must select “Edit All” (not edit one occurrence) to pre-assign breakout rooms.
  4. You can’t make more than one set of pre-assigned groups per meeting.

Best Practices

Give students clear directions for breakout rooms

Unclear instructions waste time. Be explicit about what students should discuss, and if directions are lengthy, post them in a Google Doc and share the link in the Zoom chat. Encourage students to open the link before entering breakout rooms, as the main room chat may not carry over (depending on their operating system).

Tips for Communicating During Breakout Sessions:

  • Share Screen and Audio to All Rooms. In the main room, click “Share Screen,” check “Share to breakout rooms” at the bottom, select “Share sound” if needed, and click “Share.” This will override any active shares in breakout rooms, but annotations will be saved.
  • Broadcast a Message. To send a quick note to all rooms, click “Breakout Rooms,” then “Broadcast,” and type your message. It will display for 10 seconds to all participants.

Consider pairing Breakout Rooms with collaborative tools that help facilitate interaction and capture group discussions

Advantages to this include:

  • Continued Access and Reference. Documents created during breakout sessions can be referenced in the main session and remain available afterward, supporting ongoing learning and review.
  • Post-Class Feedback Opportunities. Instructors can provide comments and feedback directly in the document, reinforcing learning and extending engagement beyond the live session.
  • Real-Time Monitoring and Insight. Instructors can observe group progress live. As Dr. Sarah Egan Warren, Head of Technical Communication at the Institute for Advanced Analytics, explains: “I was able to read the notes on the Google Doc as they were being generated… When I called the students back to the main Zoom room, I was able to ask leading questions based on the themes I noted.”
  • More Inclusive Participation. Shared documents allow all students to contribute at their own pace, creating space for introverted learners to participate without being overshadowed by more vocal peers. As Dr. Egan Warren notes: “Extroverted learners did not dominate… our introverted learners had time to compose thoughts and contribute.”
  • Increased Accountability. When students know their work will be seen by peers or the instructor, they often engage more thoughtfully and take the task more seriously.
  • Built-In Record of Learning. The collaborative document serves as a record of group thinking and learning that can be revisited later for study, reflection, or scaffolding future assignments.
  • Facilitates Group Roles and Structure. Tools like shared docs can support assigning group roles (e.g., scribe, timekeeper, presenter) to promote structure and equitable participation in breakout sessions.

Example collaborative tools include:

  • Google Docs, which are excellent for real-time collaborative note-taking, writing, or planning. Everyone can contribute simultaneously, and you can monitor progress live. Here is a Google Doc template and a Google Slides template you can use or adapt for your purposes (clicking on these links will prompt you to make your own copy for editing).
  • Padlet, is highly visual and user-friendly; students can post text, images, or links to a shared board. Good for showcasing group ideas or reflections.
  • Zoom whiteboard, a robust whiteboard tool with templates for diagrams, mind maps, and visual planning. Great for visual thinkers or more complex activities.

Be clear about what students should expect

Let students know

  • How long they will have in the breakout rooms.
  • Whether to expect you or a co-host to join their room at any point.
  • Whether a warning will alert them before breakout rooms close.
  • What they will be asked to do once they are back in the main room.

Consider what level of involvement is appropriate for you or a TA to have in the actual breakout rooms

Hosts and co-hosts can monitor activity levels in each breakout room—but this must be enabled in Zoom settings under In Meeting (Advanced) > Breakout room. Once enabled, you’ll be able to see video and audio status, active screen shares, and non-verbal reactions from the main room. Participants will be notified before joining if this feature is active.

By default, the host—and the co-host who started the breakout rooms—will remain in the main session until they manually join a room.

Communication Tools During Breakout Sessions:

  • Broadcast a Message: Sends a short text message to all rooms (visible for 10 seconds).
  • Ask for Help: Allows students to invite the host into their room.
  • Co-host Movement: If a co-host is assigned to a breakout room, they can freely move between rooms to assist.

Should You Join Rooms Uninvited?

Dr. Sarah Egan Warren, Head of Technical Communication at the Institute for Advanced Analytics, cautions against it: “The sudden appearance of the instructor in the breakout room causes a disruption and halts the conversation.” Instead, she recommends monitoring group progress from the main room using a shared Google Doc or Slides, which allows instructors to stay informed without interrupting the flow of discussion.

Ideas for Using Breakout Rooms

Break the (virtual) ice. Start the session with a very informal breakout activity to get students talking. The comfort and rapport they build here can carry into the rest of the session. 

Prime students to learn. Use breakout rooms to activate prior knowledge or set the stage for the day’s topic:

  • Ask students to review key concepts from a previous class or discuss pre-class readings.
  • Pair this with a Google Form survey or quiz:
    • Share the link in the chat.
    • Keep responses anonymous by disabling email collection.
    • After submission, share your screen to show real-time graphs or results.
    • Ask breakout groups to summarize or interpret the data before reconvening.
  • Watch this video for more ideas about pairing Google Forms and Breakout Rooms

Think/pair*/share. A classic active learning strategy adapted for Zoom:

  • Pose a thought-provoking question.
  • Give students a few minutes to think and jot down a response.
  • Automatically assign breakout rooms (3 per room works well).
  • After discussion, return to the main room and invite a few groups to share.

Case study analysis. Send groups to work through different scenarios or case studies. This encourages application of course concepts and collaborative problem-solving.

Prepare for student-led discussion. Assign groups different topics or readings. After a breakout discussion, each group leads a brief discussion in the main session on their assigned topic.

Jigsaw technique. Use breakout rooms to structure peer teaching:

  • Initial groups dive into different topics.
  • Then, reassign students into new groups where each person becomes the “expert” on a topic.
  • Optional: Use a Google Slide deck where each group creates a slide. Here is a template; you can make a copy of for your own use.

Group project work. Give groups time in breakout rooms to meet, brainstorm, or co-develop project content. This gives structure to collaborative work and ensures progress during synchronous time.

Debates or structured controversy. Assign students to breakout rooms with opposing positions on a controversial topic. Let them prepare arguments, then come back for a moderated whole-class debate.

Peer review or feedback rounds: Have students bring in drafts or ideas for feedback. Assign peer reviewers or rotate partners in breakout rooms to ensure multiple perspectives.

Role play or simulation. Assign roles (e.g., stakeholders in an environmental issue, historical figures, etc.), and use breakout rooms to act out a scenario before returning to debrief as a class.

Resources

Video Tutorials & Learning Center Items

Support Articles

Related Teaching Resources Page

DELTA Resources

External Resources

Technologies referenced

  • Google Docs – Here is a Google Doc template  you can use or adapt for your purposes. (Clicking the link will prompt you to make your own copy for editing.)
  • Google Slides – Here is a Google Slides template you can use or adapt for your purposes. (Clicking on the link will prompt you to make your own copy for editing.)