Early Bird

Canvas Spotlight: Use MS Teams breakout rooms

How to facilitate small group interactions in a synchronous Teams meeting.

By Alex McDaniel, Laura Berryman, Abby Kerr and Nicholas Ogg

January 13, 2021

Breakout Rooms is a Microsoft Teams feature that allows the meeting organizer to divide participants into multiple smaller groups. Breakout Rooms can be used in recurring meetings and those created using the “meet now” button in the calendar.

Best practices

• Use Breakout Rooms to create small groups for discussions, synchronous group work, peer editing and more.
• Consider using Breakout Rooms to privately provide feedback to students.
• Set up recurring meetings if you would like Rooms to carry over from meeting to meeting.
• Provide clear instructions to students about how to navigate Breakout Rooms. For example, let students know when and how they should return to the main room.

Let’s walk through it together

For complete written step-by-step instructions, visit the Center for Teaching, Learning and Design’s Ready Spotlight page.

Have questions?

If you would like further assistance on this or other teaching and learning topics, please contact the CTLD for live support (10 a.m.-3 p.m., Monday through Friday) or try one of our self-help tutorials.