![]() ![]() In this post, I share how I used channels in Microsoft Teams to create small groups similar to Zoom breakout rooms, in which students can meet to work on a task and the instructor can “drop in” and move between groups during synchronous class sessions.Īlthough there were of course mishaps along the way, the students and I got used to the rhythm of moving between large and small group work and in the end it worked fairly well. For those of us who had experience with Zoom, the lack of a breakout room function in Teams was a problem. In March, when I thought about how to adapt my spring courses (German 201 and German 470) to an online format, creating small groups for synchronous video meetings was one of my biggest priorities. After setting up an activity, I usually move around the classroom to help students, and turn on a dime when I hear a group across the room that maybe misunderstood the task, or thought I was out of earshot and just slipped back into English. The smaller the group, the more speaking time for each student. Students speak and listen to one another, or they write together, communicating about a topic and thinking about how to express themselves and make themselves understood. Language instructors want nearly 100% of the class time to be spent in the target language, and we want students to be using the language actively as much as possible. In my classroom (the one with tables and chairs), the hour is usually spent alternating between small-group or pair activities and large-group follow-up. In this post, I share how I used channels in Microsoft Teams to create small groups similar to Zoom breakout rooms, in which students can meet to work on a task and the instructor can “drop in” and move between groups during synchronous class sessions.
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