Making the impossible possible with Zoom breakout room

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Smart use of technologies, such as Zoom and Google Slides, can help instructors better facilitate group discussions, monitor group progress in a large class setting, and be more effectively involved in students’ learning process. At the same time, students can enjoy more meaningful conversations without distractions from other groups. 

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Sherry Lin, Texas A&M University - College Station

Dr. Sherry Lin is an Instructional Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy & Management at Texas A&M University. Dr. Lin teaches undergraduate courses in public health, health policy, and data management and assessment. She has developed multiple undergraduate courses and worked with faculty across the school and University on curriculum-related issues. Dr. Lin's research focuses on children with special health care needs and public health teaching pedagogy.

Extended Abstract

Modern classrooms are designed with active learning in mind. However, many instructors still teach in traditional lecture halls or auditoriums where the physical space can act as a barrier to promoting students' active learning and collaboration. There are many simple active learning strategies, such as "muddiest points" or "think-pair-share," that many instructors are already familiar with and using profoundly in the classroom. However, some of these strategies only allow students to share individually with the instructor or with neighboring classmates. Also, many students are hesitant to share in a large classroom; some students need clarification about the topics of the discussion, and some pairs do not discuss the learning due to a lack of effective monitoring tools. For the instructors, ensuring all the students have the same opportunity to participate and answer questions on time to promote fruitful discussion is also challenging. In this presentation, the presenters share how they use different strategies to break the physical barriers in large lecture halls to promote active learning. 

In an upper-level undergraduate course, the instructor implemented a "Zoom class day," where the traditional in-person class is brought to the Zoom platform. Students are asked to attend the synchronous Zoom class with a working webcam, headphones, and microphone. The instructor provides short instructions and discussion criteria for the groups at the beginning of the class and then sends the students to breakout rooms. The instructor shares a Google Slides file with discussion questions and activity prompts with the students. Groups are asked to put their discussion points, a summary of the discussions, and questions related to the topics in their designated slides. Using the Zoom breakout room, students can "raise" their hands when having questions, and the instructor can join the breakout room to address any issues that students have. Using the Google slide grid view, instructors can monitor the progression of the groups in real-time to ensure students are completing the required tasks. After the discussion, instructors can bring the students to the main room for group reporting and discussion.  

The Zoom breakout room provides an opportunity for instructors to break the barrier of the limited physical space, minimize time lost by physically transitioning between each group, and provide a virtual space for students to have group discussions that are free of the interference of other students and groups. Instructors can share resources and assess students' engagement in real time by monitoring the progress of each group's slides and the edit history to track group members' participation. Taking advantage of the different technologies in a traditional classroom promotes active student learning and allows instructors to engage better in students' learning process.