Mix it up: Add Movement to your Breakout Rooms in Zoom

Breakout Rooms: it’s the best Zoom tool for getting students talking in small groups.

You have a few choices on how to start Breakroom Rooms:

• Preassign your rooms or do it in the meeting (see this helpful video on how to preassign)
• Automatic or manual
• Decide how many students per room

Looking for more options? You can experiment with letting some or all students float from room to room. This might be helpful if there are multiple discussions or presentations going on simultaneously, if you have some students serving in a TA-type role, or just to mix up class for a few minutes.

Only the meeting Host can start a Breakout Room, but once the meeting is underway, the Host can assign one or more Co-Hosts. A Co-Host cannot start a Breakout Room, but once assigned to a room, can move from room to room, just like how the Host can move from room to room. Please review the Roles in a Meeting Grid for important information about the difference between a Host and Co-Host. Be aware that Co-Hosts are granted powerful security roles, including the ability to remove regular Participants from the meeting.

In order to allow all students to migrate from room to room, you would need to make them all Co-Hosts. Is this a little dangerous? Yes it is, but if you still want to mix it up, here’s what to do:

• Talk to your students first and set guidelines for the activity
• Follow one of the two methods of assigning a Co-Host in a meeting
• Launch your Breakout Rooms
• Add the Co-hosts to the Breakout Rooms
• Keep an eye on your Breakout Rooms to make sure that the activity is going well

Wish is were possible to allow students to change Breakout Rooms without making them Co-Hosts? Zoom is working on this feature, but is not yet available.