During an online class meeting, Zoom allows the host to split students into separate breakout rooms for small group projects and discussions. This feature allows students to meet in smaller groups, allowing for independent sessions of interaction and collaboration that are separate from the main Zoom meeting but can still be supervised by the instructor.

This feature may be used in fully online courses or in a Dual-Teaching classroom course where several remote students may have to engage in group work independently outside of the main meeting.

Breakout Management

The instructor might manually sort students into groups or split the class randomly. As the host, an instructor has the ability to create breakout rooms, assign students, and manage the rooms. The host can switch between rooms at any time, broadcast messages to all the room, and end the breakout sessions.

The breakout rooms option will appear on the Zoom tool bar for the host; if it does not appear follow these directions:

Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
In the navigation menu, click Settings.
Navigate to the Breakout Room option on the Meeting tab and verify that the setting is enabled.
If the setting is disabled, click the toggle to enable it. If a verification dialog displays, choose Turn On to verify the change.

Instructors can also create breakout rooms before the meeting by uploading a CSV file in the web portal. Instructions for this can be found at Pre-Assigning Participants to Breakout Rooms.

Participants can also self-select and join breakout rooms of their choosing from a list of breakout rooms the host has created. They will be able to enter and leave breakout rooms freely. Note: Participants not joined with the desktop or mobile app version 5.3.0 or higher will not be able to self-select a breakout room. The host will need to facilitate moving these participants manually.

Once the breakout rooms feature is enabled, click on breakout rooms in the Zoom toolbar. This will bring up a screen from which you can manage the breakout rooms. This includes creating rooms, moving participants, the hosts moving from room to room, and closing the breakout rooms. The video below demonstrates these processes.

Breakout Session Recording

Breakout room participants have full audio, video, and screen share capabilities. The host in the main meeting will only receive the main recording - they must assign students as co-hosts to record each breakout room if they wish. Once in the rooms, the co-hosts can start the recording of those sessions; when the meeting ends, the breakout session recordings will save locally to each co-host’s machine and will be accessible via their Zoom app or directly in their file system. The host in the main meeting will still receive the main recording, in the cloud or locally, as chosen.

Limitations

Participants joining the meeting from a mobile device cannot record meetings. Users joining the Zoom meeting from the Zoom Mobile App or H.323/SIP (VoIP) devices can participate in breakout rooms, but cannot manage them. Users joining via the web client, Chromebooks/Chrome OS, or Zoom Rooms are unable to join Breakout Rooms, but the main room can be used as an alternative session for these users.

Further information on enabling breakout rooms and on participating in breakout rooms is available at the Zoom Help Center.