How Breakout Rooms Can Make Virtual Learning Far Reaching

11th November 2021

If students are missing one thing during this time, it’s the sense of connection. Breakout rooms can do more than just facilitate discussion and brainstorm. Online teaching is way better when educator understands the essence of meaningful engagement, which is not just helping students to be engaged in the learning but to ensure they find meaning and enjoy the process of learning – a space to think, grow and collaborate.

Breakout rooms are an excellent way to take charge of the virtual learning setting. As educators, we know how important it is to create opportunities for our learners to actively participate and experience the subject matter beyond listening to lectures. Online tools when put to use can allow us to customize students learning experiences to achieve our learning objectives.

Online International teaching diploma course comes with a new and innovative curriculum for educators to take the leap for taking control of their teaching sessions in a virtual setting.

Here are the top 3 strategies you can use in your virtual learning environment to utilize breakout rooms activitely –

Instruction With Clear Expectation

Online educators can promote productive engagement in breakout sessions by creating some ground rules for students. The ground rules can help students to stay centered and aligned with the purpose of the breakout room. These rules are more meant to keep learners be aware of what the teacher is expecting from the group – how they are supposed to contribute and the possible outcome of the session. It is better to share the instruction in the chat where students can see when they are in the breakout room.

Define Student’s Role

Breakout sessions are aimed to facilitate student interaction. In the virtual setting when you are trying to create a learning environment that is composed of a learner-centric approach, you ought to promote ownership. breakout rooms can be efficiently utilized when you can assign a volunteer or a group leader.

This can help you to keep up with the objective of the breakout session and also allow students to be on track. You can also create multiple roles for students in accordance with the need of the activity such as notetaker, timekeeper, reporter. A customized set of roles for different tasks are the best way to practice this. Defining their roles within the group will help learners to start conversations and continue participation throughout.
 

Curate Collaborative Activities

Breakout rooms allow teachers to utilize the power of working in teams. With collaborative activity and by forming small teams, there is a greater chance of each student’s active participation. Breakout rooms are meant to give students the opportunity to explore peer connection and build up a sense of community within the group where they can work towards completing their tasks and engage themselves in full-blown participation.

When students feel comfortable with each other, they are better at expressing and sharing their ideas. Especially for introverted learning, it can help in creating such an intimate setting. This is what makes it a potent strategy to make learners more comfortable in discussing ideas in smaller virtual groups.

Breakout room utilization can look different for each teacher. It majorly depends on what subject you are teaching and which age groups. Also, it is essential to keep track of what works for you and your learning environment. As working in the virtual setup is quite different from in-class teaching, teachers can make use of the innovative tools to get out of the stress and fatigue of constant staring on the screens. Breakout rooms have that opportunity to help students use their learning time by indulging in group interaction.

As educators we can adapt to the changes and help students grow no matter which medium they are in. trial and error is something that never gets old in education. understand the role of 21st century teacher with Online International teaching diploma course and take the opportunity to vision your virtual classroom with a new perspective.

Written By : Anita Shah