While students have adapted to distance learning, it is still difficult to recreate the crucial class discussions and social interaction that on-campus learning afforded. Poor internet connection and power shutdowns are often easy targets to blame for distance learning’s problems, but students are also responsible for misusing one of the best means teachers have at their disposal to recreate the normalcy of a classroom environment: Zoom breakout rooms.
In Zoom, teachers can place students into breakout rooms, smaller sessions of the meeting that are separate from the main session. There is little privacy in Zoom meetings; anyone whose camera is turned on can be seen by their classmates, and anyone whose microphone is turned on can be heard by their peers. However, by placing students into breakout rooms, teachers give them the opportunity to talk to each other in smaller groups without the entire class listening in on their conversations, presumably encouraging more students to feel comfortable speaking up. Teachers often make use of breakout rooms to simulate the desk groupings in a physical classroom.
Nevertheless, students have not been very receptive to breakout rooms. When making breakout rooms, most teachers tend to let Zoom randomly assign students to rooms instead of manually assigning students to rooms, which is time-consuming. Unfortunately, randomly assigning breakout rooms causes groups to have a different lineup of students every time and prevents students from becoming well-acquainted with their classmates. In breakout rooms, a long silence often ensues, students start turning off their cameras, and then they disengage with those in the breakout room. Although it may be difficult at first, students should stop this pattern from becoming the norm because breakout rooms are a valuable educational tool, and frankly, one of the few options teachers have to engage students in distance learning.
The main grievance you always hear about quarantine is how dearly people miss social interaction. Thus, students ought to take advantage of the opportunity to socialize in breakout rooms.While students cannot expect to see their best friends every time they are placed in a breakout room, they can expect to meet new people that they might not have the chance to talk to otherwise. By bringing fellow students, both old friends and new acquaintances, together to have a conversation, breakout rooms foster social interaction. Students might complain about not knowing what to talk about, but the shared experience of living during a pandemic can bring people closer together and give them something to talk about— they just need to be willing to try. What breakout rooms provide is a solution to the social woes that quarantine has exacerbated.
Moreover, collaborative groups play an integral role in how students learn in-person at school, and breakout rooms are the equivalent for distance learning. The fear of judgment from peers deters many students from asking for clarification or from venturing answers to difficult questions in class. That is why teachers tell students to read, discuss, do work, or come up with questions in collaborative groups; collaborating allows students to bounce ideas off each other to see what sticks, reducing the risk students are afraid of taking when it comes to speaking. In addition, students do not learn from just their teachers, but also from other students. Students need more than lectures and worksheets to develop their understanding. Collaborative groups encourage students to ask each other questions, and sometimes, peers can explain something from a different angle that may make more sense than a teacher’s explanation. For these reasons, using breakout rooms to interact is not just important for fulfilling social needs. Students have to be willing to talk and make use of breakout rooms so that school can deliver on its main function: learning.
Students are missing out on what breakout rooms have to offer by not fully participating in them. We, The Union, encourage students to make the effort to speak up and beat the awkward silence that makes a bad experience out of breakout rooms. Students should utilize and appreciate breakout rooms for the educational and social tools that they are
