Trends from SITT 2020 | Part 5 of 5: Breakout Rooms

Lillian Jones, guest blogger for The Wheel, is the author of this series. Lillian is a doctoral student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, studying Hispanic linguistics and second language acquisition. Her research interests include educational technologies, computer-mediated communication, computer-assisted language learning, and pedagogical applications of messaging apps and social media. In her free time, Lillian enjoys traveling, running, playing soccer, practicing yoga, cooking, writing, learning languages, laughing, drinking coffee, and tasting Old World red wines.

This entry is Part 5 of the 2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology five-part blog series, which includes write-ups on (1) Equity & Accessibility, (2) Community & Connection, (3) Video, (4) Multimodal, Multitasking, and (5) Breakout Rooms

Part 5. Breakout Rooms

Four and I'm totally in agreement with that...I’m going to suggest to you that the ideal size for a breakout room is the same as a cocktail party.- Dr. Robert Blake, SITT 2020 Keynote Presenter

It is rumored that playwright William Shakespeare practiced the conversational “rule of four” by never including more than four on-stage characters in meaningful conversations. Why is four, plus or minus one, the ideal number for fruitful, dynamic, and well-balanced conversations? Participants can focus more on their own ideas, more effectively track the ideas of others, and experience fewer cognitive constraints, allowing for deeper exploration and understanding of the content (McAndrew, 2017; Stillman, 2018).  

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Over 200 UC Davis faculty attended the 2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology (SITT). The 25th instance of this event was slated to be a buzzing affair, with presenters and attendees darting this way and that, listening, sharing, and interacting. Participants were geared up to attend in-person lecture-style presentations, participate in faculty forums, and of course hustle off to the smaller breakout sessions. Breakout sessions provide perhaps the most meaningful conversations, where new ideas are ignited, where introverts may feel more comfortable expressing their ideas or asking questions, and where deeper connections can be made, either among group participants or with the topics raised. 

UC Davis offers hundreds of large lecture classes each term. Many faculty take advantage of the effective social dynamics of smaller groups by splitting students up into weekly labs and smaller seminars comprised of, say, 20-25 students. During class time, these smaller sections are often broken down even further into groups of three to five, an ideal size for collaboration, peer instruction, and discovery. 

But what are we to do when the participants, either students in a class or faculty at a conference, do not share the same physical space, but rather leverage technology to connect remotely? How are we to facilitate these smaller sessions? Why, using the now familiar Zoom breakout rooms of course! SITT participants used breakout rooms to engage in substantial conversations about teaching in a remote environment, including anecdotes about using breakout rooms in their virtual classrooms.

As UC Davis instructors, we are most likely using Zoom to carry out both asynchronous and synchronous portions of our classes. Regarding the latter, part of the synchronicity is using breakout rooms to split students up into smaller groups. While in these smaller pods, students can make deeper connections with each other and the course content. 

Below are a few ideas and best practices for using this breakout feature which were utilized and discussed during this year’s SITT: 

• Include no more than four to five participants Smaller groups ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute and participate while not feeling pressured or burdened to carry the conversation on their own.

• Incorporate Think, Pair, Share for class discussions Breakout rooms are ideal for executing the second step in a Think, Pair, Share activity, where students can talk about their thoughts and reflections with one another before bringing them back to discuss as a larger group.

• Save time by pre-assigning breakout rooms prior to lecture If your students are working on a group project throughout the course of a few weeks or for the entire quarter, or you just wish to determine the groups prior to class starting, pre-assigning Zoom breakout rooms can save valuable class time.

• Set students up for success by providing them a basic best practices guide Prior to sending students into breakout rooms, provide them with an orientation on how best to navigate this space. For example, you might include a quick video or voice-over PowerPoint guide in your class orientation. Topics to include would be basic logistics (such as tool features, buttons, and how-to’s), as well as conversational strategies (such as calling on students by name, pausing for appropriate lengths, keeping one’s camera turned on, etc.). It can be surprising how just a few helpful hints can make breakout rooms more effective. 

• Rename oneself as a way to self-select into breakout rooms A quick way to organize students into a theme-based breakout room is to use the Zoom renaming feature. For example, ask students to change their display name using a single letter or number. This makes it easy for the instructor to quickly sort students into breakout rooms. For example, an instructor may give the students the option to join groups Alpha, Beta, or Charlie, and a student wishing to join the Alpha team would rename themselves by putting an A at the beginning of their name. Then the instructor will drag all participants with the (A) into the same room and so on. 

 *Pro tip: Name change notation should go at the beginning of the name, for efficient sorting and alphabetization when pulling reports later on.

Below are a couple examples of how UC Davis faculty effectively utilized breakout rooms during the 2020 SITT:

  • Drs. Jeanette Ruiz and Kem Saichaie leveraged a version of Think, Pair, Share in their presentation, “Strategies for designing equitable online learning environments.” Before sharing strategies for designing equitable online learning environments, participants warmed up to the topic by breaking into small groups and sharing their definitions and examples of Educational Equity. After spending a few minutes discussing ideas in small groups, everyone came back together to share what they had discovered and discussed.
  • Drs. Susan P. Gentry, Colleen E. Bronner and Julia M. Chamberlain used breakout rooms during their presentation, “Rapid development of an online seminar: Student strategies for successful remote learning.” The faculty team presented the new course they designed in spring 2020, “Student strategies for successful remote learning,” including motivation behind creating the course, the methodology, and (preliminary) results. After the SITT participants listened to and digested the initial information, they were sectioned into breakout rooms to discuss reflection, wellness, planning, and skills, and ways they could incorporate these topics into their own classes. Starting big and going small allowed participants to wrap their heads around the general concepts, and then brainstorm and deeply consider how they apply these tangible updates to their specific courses.

“To think of breakout rooms as the regular face-to-face discussions that we would normally have in a face-to-face classroom, they don't work if you approach them that way...It is really important to nurture the culture of importance of these breakout rooms, and ethics associated with it, initially.” - Dr. Narine Yegiyan at the Daily Debrief, SITT 2020 Day 1

For additional support in planning your breakout rooms for success, check out the following resources:

Moving back and forth between the main room and breakout rooms was a central part of the 2020 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology. Faculty took turns sending participants to small groups to discuss and brainstorm various topics, before reeling them back in for larger group discussions. SITT participants enjoyed sitting in the passenger seat, experiencing the sessions and conversations from the learner’s point of view. Both of these perspectives, facilitating instructor and participating student, are equally important in the discussion of best practices for leveraging Zoom breakout rooms in an educational environment.

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Who knows what Shakespeare would have done with the logistics of Zoom breakout rooms, but his careful strategy of cultivating meaningful conversations by keeping groups small is a craft that UC Davis faculty can also master. Each time an instructor sends students into smaller sessions, they are creating mini-communities within the class. When implemented with intentional design and strategy, these mini-communities can catalyze significant learning.

Post Event Resources:

  1. Keep Teaching Student Resources
  2. Keep Teaching Faculty Webinars
  3. Center for Educational Effectiveness
  4. Email Instructionaldesign@ucdavis.edu for consulting and advice on how to implement instructional technologies in your specific UC Davis course.
  5. Find SITT snippets from Twitter by following @ucdaviswheel and @Lily_Jones20, using the hashtag #UCDavisSITT.

References:

McAndrew, F.T. (2017, July 18). What Is the Right Size for a Group Conversation? Psychology Today.

Stillman, J. (2018, September 19). 4 Is the Magic Number for Great Conversations, New Research Reveals. Inc.com.

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