Week 7: Infused Classroom- Breakout Rooms

  This week I looked at Holly Clark's blog Infused Classroom and her review of breakout rooms. 

What are Breakout rooms? 

While breakout rooms have been apart of Zoom and Google Meets for quite a bit of time they are a relatively new feature on Microsoft Teams. I have appreciated Clarks blog this week providing teachers with ways they can continue to enhance breakout rooms in their classroom. Breakout rooms are valuable for educators because they can either randomly or specifically assign students to different rooms and allow teachers to control the size of the groups. This gives students the chance to interact in a small group setting. I have found that break out rooms greatly enhance collaboration and gives me a better understanding of students knowledge because I get an opportunity to hear every students thoughts. 

Can I use Breakout rooms in the classroom? 

I found Clarks blog helpful this week because I just found out that I will be a remote teacher the remaining of the school year. With this news I want to continue to enhance my breakout rooms to make it the most engaging they can be. I have tried two of Clark's ideas in my own room this week.

The first idea the Clark mentions is having student peer edit in breakout rooms. With so many learners at different levels in writing I have had a hard time meeting with students on a regular basis. This week I gave Clarks idea a try. She mentions in her blog that teachers should set up clear guidelines and expectations with students before sending them to their rooms. This week for one of my writing lessons I went over a revision checklist and expectations with my class. I then sent them to break out rooms and had them take turns sharing their screen to show their classmate their writing. My students loved this! Sending them into rooms saved me so much time because my students were not waiting on me to send them feedback, they were able to get it from their peers. 

Another idea that Clark suggests is using breakout rooms for class debates. I thought this was a unique idea! This week we started our opinion writing unit. To kick off the unit I gave students our narrative writing prompt, 'Should 3rd grade get the classrooms in the new addition of our school building?' After giving them the prompt I sent students into breakout rooms to begin discussing if they were for or against this idea. I sent students to multiple breakout rooms so they can hear multiple opinions. This was a great kick off to our unit because it allowed students to form their own opinion before being expected to write about it.

Clark provides so many more great breakout room ideas in this blog post. Another idea that I am hoping to  implement soon is having an "expert" in a breakout rooms. I can send students who have showed strong understanding of an idea into a breakout room to help support their peers. If you are an online teacher check this post out to see how you can enhance your class collaboration and participation!