Breaking Away from Breakout Rooms 

Virtual meetings have their benefits. With some preparation, they are great for collaborative document editing, screen sharing, and allowing for spoken, typed, or emoji participation. Captioning is helpful to all, along with names of participants appearing with their photo or video. And of course, having a meeting (or conference) online can save the time and resources required for travel to another location.  

Now, think about the last time you attended a virtual conference, webinar or Zoom meeting. Especially in larger professional development-type calls, was there a moment when the facilitator cheerfully announced, “Next, we’re going to split up into breakout rooms,” and the number of participants immediately dropped?  

Having witnessed this exodus on several occasions, I took a minute to explore what folks say online about breakout rooms. One description that kept coming up in posts and comments was “awkward.” In my experience, that is accurate.  

Even among colleagues, a breakout room puts participants on the spot. Often, someone will share that they are at a service point or on call, so they will contribute to the chat but might be interrupted. Someone else might be trying to eat lunch while they listen because their day is booked. Occasionally, a supervisor or administrator is part of the random grouping, which can add to anxiety. And especially in large sessions of strangers, the breakout room small talk/silence/small talk combination creates a weird energy, or lack thereof, that can detract from the session’s focus. 

If breakout rooms are the only option, or your co-facilitator or host insists that a smaller group will be more engaged, consider trying to make the experience more comfortable. Some ideas: 

• Note in the invitation that breakout rooms will be part of the session, so that participants know what to expect.  
• Provide a facilitator for each breakout room to guide the conversation, monitor the chat, and answer questions about what the group is being asked to do. The facilitator might also be the person to recap their group’s discussion when the regular session resumes. 
• Create a separate collaborative document for each room with topics or questions listed to guide responses. Make sure document permissions allow anyone to edit.   
• Give participants choices. Set up breakout rooms by topic; participants can then join the discussion that interests them. 

If you can, try alternatives to breakout rooms. Consider asking those who will be participating what they’d prefer in advance of the event date. Within Zoom, features like polling, chat and Q&A are options to generate discussion and feedback. Online workshops I recently attended used Padlet, Mentimeter, and Poll Everywhere to prompt and collect attendee responses, which often carried over into audio or chat contributions. Because time was provided to independently respond, participants had a moment to reflect on the prompt or question as well (metacognition!). After the session, a Padlet or shared document can be an excellent resource for future reference.   

Whether you are a meeting facilitator, instructor, or part of a committee planning a virtual event, keep these ideas in mind. You could “take a chance, make a change, and break away*” from breakout rooms.  

*as sung by Kelly Clarkson, of course!