{"id":18897,"date":"2020-12-09T14:00:57","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T19:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/it\/dev\/kb\/?post_type=ht_kb&p=18897"},"modified":"2024-11-11T13:59:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T18:59:45","slug":"breakout-rooms","status":"publish","type":"ht_kb","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/it\/dev\/kb\/article\/breakout-rooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Teams – Breakout Rooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breakout Rooms enable Meeting Organizers to separate participants of a meeting into several meetings. Organizers may randomly or manually assign participants, and can move freely between these Breakout Rooms to check-in on ongoing subgroup discussions. Also, Organizers have the opportunity to pre-enroll participants into breakout rooms before a meeting begins.<\/p>\n

This popular feature is effective for classes and teams of all sizes, enabling more rapid creation of small groups for dealing with specific tasks or having subgroup discussions.<\/p>\n \t\t

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Requirements for Joining or Hosting Breakout Rooms<\/h3><\/div>\r\n \t\t\t
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\n \t\t\tBoth Organizer and Participant devices must meet these requirements<\/span> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n \t\t\t\t\tMeeting Organizers with devices that do not meet these requirements may not see the option to start a breakout room. Likewise, participants with devices that do not meet the requirements may have issues being assigned to breakout rooms. \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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For access to Breakout Rooms and some other Microsoft 365 and Teams features, please ensure your device meets the following requirements<\/p>\n

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  1. Updated and supported Operating System (OS)\n
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    1. Apple only officially supports the three most recent versions of macOS. Please ensure you are running macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, or 15 Sequoia. Click here for details and upgrade information<\/a>.<\/li>\n
    2. Windows users should ensure they are running Windows 10 or Windows 11 and are fully updated.<\/li>\n
    3. Android and iOS users can be placed into Breakout Rooms but cannot create or manage Breakout Rooms. Please ensure your device is fully updated.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    4. Updated Teams Desktop Client<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \n \t\t\tCannot check manually<\/span> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

      Client updates are periodically pushed to your device. Modern versions of Teams do not allow manual checks for updates.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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      Should you use Teams Channels rather than Teams Breakout Rooms for Small Groups?<\/h3><\/div>\r\n \t\t\t
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      \r\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

      Breakout Rooms can be pre-enrolled or organized on-the-fly (with manually or automatically generated groupings) and work well for discussions. If your team or class doesn’t often break into small groups, it’s probably the right choice to use Breakout Rooms.<\/p>\n

      However, for teams that more regularly work in subgroups, or who will consistently collaborate or share documents or files with members of their subgroups, creating small group channels<\/a> may be the right solution.<\/p>\n

      \n \t\t\tYou can host a Breakout Room in a Channel Meeting<\/span> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

      \n \t\t\t\t\tWhile most people use either Channel Meetings or Breakout rooms, some teams may choose to use these small group solutions in tandem. For example, if you are teaching a large class with a number of TAs, you may want to first send students to a Channel with their TA, have the TA start a meeting, then have the TA break that subset of students into even smaller breakout rooms that the TA pops in and out of. \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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      Comparison Chart: Channel Meetings & Breakout Rooms<\/h6>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
      Channel Meetings for Small Groups<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\nBreakout Rooms<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Channel Pros:<\/b><\/td>\nBreakout Room Pros:<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Can be used for consistent collaboration (regardless of being in the meeting) and file sharing among groups across class sessions.<\/p>\n

      Stores collaborative documents within the Channel.<\/p>\n

      Provides a place for students in groups to post to whether they’re in a channel meeting or not.<\/p>\n

      Can be created before a class session.<\/td>\n

      		Flexible: Includes options for randomly or manually assigning students into a group, on-the-fly. Manual assignment is not fast; consider only doing this when the whole group is 15 or smaller.<\/p>\n

      Easy for students to navigate\u00a0between the breakout room and the main meeting room, if you select the option to allow students to go back and forth.<\/p>\n

      For a class session, groups remain stable until they are \u201crecreated\u201d (which will shuffle people into new rooms).<\/p>\n

      Can be created before a class meeting.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

      Channel Cons:<\/b><\/td>\nBreakout Room Cons:<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Students can get lost navigating between meetings.<\/p>\n

      Requires clear communication about which student is starting the meeting.<\/p>\n

      Requires good communication to bring students back into the main meeting; the meeting organizer can\u2019t \u201cend all Channel meetings and bring everyone back.\u201d<\/td>\n

      		For randomly created rooms, only the students who are in the meeting at the time the rooms are created are placed into a breakout room; if a student joins late, they are just waiting in the main class meeting for the meeting organizer to assign them to a breakout room.<\/p>\n

      If using random assignment, you need to manually re-assign TAs to breakout rooms; they won\u2019t be automatically distributed across rooms.<\/p>\n

      Mobile devices are unreliably functional.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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      Breakout Rooms for Participants<\/h2>\n \t\t
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      Participant Capabilities<\/h3><\/div>\r\n \t\t\t
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      \r\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

      Participants are not able to manage any Breakout Room settings or options – only the Meeting Organizer can change these settings.<\/p>\n

      When joined to a Breakout Room, participants will automatically be granted the\u00a0Presenter <\/em>role in that Breakout Room. The Presenter role has some additional capabilities over the default Attendee<\/em> role.<\/p>\n

      Typically, this includes the following:<\/p>\n