Talk Amongst Yourselves: The nuts & bolts of using Zoom breakout rooms to get your audience talking
If you want to host an event online and make it feel like a community rather than a video lecture, try using Zoom breakout rooms. (It's a paid feature.) Here's how to set them up.
Check to make sure capabilities are turned on
Make sure you have Zoom breakout sessions enabled in your account (you'll have to go to the account settings in your browser to do this).
Give your audience warning
We also recommend telling your attendees in advance to set up the Zoom mobile or desktop app. Otherwise, they may not be able to join a breakout room (we learned this the hard way). Also, communicate before you switch. Some of your participants may not have used Zoom breakout rooms before, so let them know they'll be invited to join a room and they have to accept. They'll be transported out of the main Zoom session and into the room. They'll have the ability to ask for help (call you into the room) or leave the room on their own and return to the main Zoom meeting. Help your participants feel safe in breakout rooms by having a clear Code of Conduct and making sure everyone knows how to report violations.
Put people in rooms
You can decide how many breakout rooms to create, and thus how many participants to have in a room. If you're doing an activity where not everyone may be participating, we recommend creating small groups of at least 3, so no one is left alone if someone doesn't participate. After you assign, check to see if everyone entered and rearrange folks if needed. If for whatever reason a couple of people can't join, you can treat the main Zoom room as their "breakout room."
Give attendees a prompt
This might come more naturally if you're using breakout rooms for a workshop or meeting discussion, but if you're using it to allow attendees to network, give folks an ice-breaker prompt. It will help them get the conversation started.
Utilize notifications
You can broadcast messages to attendees with notifications. We recommend using this to tell attendees how much time they have left, when to switch if they are doing a paired exercise, etc. You can also remind participants of exercises or share prompts.
Time it out
We recommend keeping exercises short and providing participants with time prompts. That way, you can help the meeting or event continue to move forward and participants feel secure. You can send a notification when they have one minute left, when they need to switch partners, etc. When you are ready to bring everyone back and close the Zoom rooms, Zoom gives participants 60 seconds to come back to the meeting on their own before they're automatically moved.
Don't forget to test
As we'd always recommend when present, especially remotely, test your tech! Try a Zoom breakout for your next family or friend hangout, or test in advance with a small group of peers. Things can and will go wrong and testing ensures most of the worst of the errors happens when it doesn't matter so much.
|
