This message is labelled ‘important’ in the breakout room chat, so everyone in all the breakout rooms can see it and respond to it, including the organizer to get his or her attention, if required. In the pop-up box, write your announcement then press Send. Click the ellipsis (…) in the breakout rooms panel and select Make an announcement. How do I communicate with participants in their breakout rooms?Īs the meeting organiser, you can broadcast an announcement message via meeting chat to all breakout rooms so everyone in all rooms is informed of updates, changes, or timings during their breakout sessions. You may need to be fairly directive when putting the students into breakout rooms, telling them how long they have for each activity and when they need to come back to the main room.

The tutor will need to assess when to move from one activity to the next, based on what is going on in the room.

The Teams chat function persists beyond the end of the meeting, keeping a record of the class discussion, in a similar way that the summing up would operate in an in-person meeting.

When setting up the rooms, you may also add materials to the chat within each toom – for example, a short paper for the group members to read.

Ensure that students are aware of the tools – you may even devise a short orientation activity to allow them to practise.

Each room features the same range of tools that a ‘normal’ Teams meeting features, e.g.

Note that the rooms will remain in place if you use the same Teams meeting link in follow-up meetings.

You will need time to assign people to breakout rooms – consider a short activity for students to complete on their own whilst this is occurring.

For example, each group may choose a nominated leader who can write feedback from their breakout group into the whole group chat so that everyone can see and comment on ideas from the other groups (once everyone is back in the main meeting). Using breakout rooms in a Teams meeting for a tutorial or small group session allows students to work in pairs/threes etc.

How do breakout rooms work in teams