This page includes:

• Breakout Room Basics
• Self-Select Breakout Room
  • For Instructors and Hosts
  • For Participants
• Pre-Assigning Breakout Rooms
• Assigning Student Roles in Breakout Rooms

Breakout Room Basics

For information, please visit the pre-assigning participants to breakout rooms page at Zoom Support.

To start a breakout room, find the Breakout Rooms button on the bottom control panel of your Zoom window, to the right of Live Transcript. Once you click that, a window will pop-up that allows you to select the number of rooms you want to create. You can also choose whether you want to assign students to rooms or let students join their rooms from this pop-up window. 

You can only create as many rooms as there are students in the class, so you will need to wait until students join the meeting to begin creating breakout rooms. 

1. Select More options in Zoom. 
   
   
2. From the drop down menu, select Breakout Rooms.
   
   
3. In the new window, adjust the number of breakout rooms and the method of assignment, then select Create.
   
   
4. When you create your breakout rooms, you will have the option to rename each room on the next window by selecting Rename. You can also assign students to specific rooms by clicking Assign and then selecting each student, as shown in the image below.

• From here you can click the gear icon in the bottom left corner for more options when creating Breakout Rooms. You can have Zoom move students into rooms automatically, set a time limit on the Breakout Rooms, and set a countdown timer.
• Note: Timers can only be set within breakout groups. They cannot be set outside of breakout groups.
• If you select the option to have Breakout Rooms close automatically after a set time, the timer will be displayed at the top of everyone’s Zoom meeting.
• The countdown timer for re-entering the main meeting will only be displayed once you’ve clicked on Close All Rooms. You can make the timer less than 60 seconds from this window, too, by clicking the arrows underneath "Countdown After Closing Breakout Room." 
• You can click the Breakout Rooms button in the bottom panel to pull up the "Options" menu again once you’ve already started your rooms. From this window you will see which students are in breakout rooms. You can join breakout rooms by clicking the Join button by each room. You can also broadcast a message to students in every room by clicking Broadcast Message to All, typing your message, and then clicking Broadcast. You also close and end the breakout rooms from this window by clicking Close All Rooms in the bottom right.

• If a student needs to call in using their phone for audio, they can still join a breakout room. Some students may not be able to join Zoom from their computer and need to call in on their phone. They will still show up in the participants tab as their own phone number, and you can move them to a breakout room like you would any other student.

Self-Select Breakout Rooms

For Instructors and Hosts

NOTE: Make sure that you are using the most recent version of Zoom to ensure that the information in these pages matches what you see. This documentation from Zoom explains how to check for updates. After updating, restart your computer. 

You can allow students to be able to self-select which breakout room to join. 

Important reminders: 

• All participants need to update Zoom and then restart their machine for self-selecting breakout rooms to work. This feature requires Zoom to be on version 5.3.0 or higher.
• Self-select breakout rooms require the desktop or mobile application, not the browser version of Zoom. 

Instructions:

For creating a breakout room during a meeting:

1. Select breakout rooms option in Zoom.
   
   
2. On the Breakout Rooms panel:
   1. Select the option Let participants choose room.
      
      
      
      
3. Create breakout rooms.
   
   
4. You can continue to rename breakout rooms.
   
   
5. Open all breakout rooms.

The meeting host should click the Options button on the breakout room panel and select Allow participants to choose room.

For Participants

Pre-Assigning Breakout Rooms