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Breakout rooms: A tool available to the host of a Zoom meeting that allows for the assignment of students into different groups. The groups can then "breakout" into separate "rooms" and have sessions of their own. The host can join any of the sessions and switch between any of the sessions at any time. The sessions can be vacated, and students can come back to the main meeting. The main meeting is akin to a plenary session and the breakout rooms are the different sub-sessions.
This tool/feature is turned on and available by default on all Whitman Zoom accounts, if you do not see the Breakout Rooms tool in the meeting controls toolbar, nor the option to create pre-assigned breakout rooms when scheduling in the web portal, check your individual account settings. Please make sure that the Zoom client you and your attendees are using is the latest version. To check for Zoom updates, see this article.
There are two methods of creating breakout rooms (both are documented in this article):
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Pre-planning breakout rooms can be a time saver, if done properly, - and the pre-assignments can be saved as a CSV file to use in later class sessions. Pre-planning break out rooms is accomplished during the scheduling phase of a meeting via the Zoom scheduling interface, and/or by uploading a spreadsheet (saved in CSV format only) of your room assignments. Both methods rely on assigning participants by the email address you think they will use when joining a meeting. Since some participants may join a Zoom meeting by clicking on a zoom invitation link without ever having signed into their Whitman zoom account, selecting Require authentication to join, with the sub-option of Sign in with Whitman SSO (whitman.zoom.us) forces all attendees to sign-in with their Whitman e-mail address before they join. This then allows Zoom to assign all the participants who join to the breakout room you assigned by using the same Whitman e-mail address you used in planning the breakout rooms. Note, selecting Sign in with Whitman SSO (whitman.zoom.us) also prevents any participants that do not have a whitman.edu email address from joining a class session. If you need an outside member to join the class and you are using breakout rooms, then then choose the Sign in with any Zoom account sub-option.
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- sign into whitman.zoom.us
- Click on the Schedule a Meeting button on the far right of the screen
- Fill out and select all the parameters of your meeting, before you save - make sure you do the following:
- Select Require Authentication to Join
- In the dropdown menu, select Sign in with Whitman SSO (whitman.zoom.us)
- Under Meeting Options, select Breakout Room pre-assign
- Click on + Create Rooms
- Click on the + (next to Rooms) to create a room, click on + again to create another room, and so on and so forth. Each room will be labeled as Breakout Room"X" (x being the number of the room)
- Click on the room you want to assign students to (it will be highlighted in blue), and add the student's email address under the Breakout Room"X"
- Repeat for every room, until there are no students left to assign
- Click on Save
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- If you edit your meeting at all, even if it does not involve the breakout rooms feature, be sure to check that the breakout rooms are still pre-assigned after you save your meeting edits. Sometimes, adding an alternative host, or changing a meeting parameter causes Zoom to drop the pre-assigned breakout rooms. This is a known fault that Zoom is working on. This is part of the reason creating breakout rooms after a meeting starts is recommended. Having the CSV file of your pre-assigned breakout rooms is handy, in case you have to quickly reload it before the session starts. Alternatively, reloading your preassigned breakout rooms could be the last thing you do after any meeting edits.
- If you select the Require Authentication to Join box with the drop-down option set to Sign in with Whitman SSO (whitman.zoom.us) when scheduling your meeting, only those participants who have authenticated through a Whitman authentication service will be able to join. Outside guests will be excluded.
- If participants show up late, they will be directed to a waiting room, and will not be automatically placed in the breakout rooms. Check your participant list to see if someone is in the waiting room. Once a new participant is admitted, you can place them in a breakout room from the Breakout Room list window.
- Once the breakout rooms are open, you cannot use the Chat feature to send a message to everyone in a meeting. Rather, use the Broadcast a message to all button instead. The button is located on the bottom of the Breakout Rooms - In Progress window.
- It is easiest to share a document with attendees via the Chat feature before you open the breakout rooms.
- Each participant in a breakout room has the ability to press an Ask for Help button in their toolbar. When pressed this will send the host a message, giving the name of the person who asked for help, the breakout room they are in, and will present to the host the option to press a Join Breakout Room button.
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