With breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams, the teacher can split the class into groups to work on shared tasks, projects, or even competitive challenges. Breakout rooms are private so students can have some one-on-one help from the teacher. As a teacher, you can jump into rooms to see how everyone is doing, give clarification or be help as required.

We have created a quick video guide below explaining how to setup and use the breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams.

Create some breakout rooms.

Create breakout rooms (only currently available in the desktop app) by selecting the new breakout room button.

If students are already in the meeting, you can automatically populate rooms or choose the manual option to do it later.

Assign students to the breakout room.

Once students have joined the meeting, you can then assign them to breakout rooms by selecting the students and then clicking “Assign” before choosing a room.

Open a breakout room.

To send the student into a breakout room, you must first open the room. This can be done by selecting the menu on the room and clicking “Open Room”.

Once the breakout room has been opened, students will automatically be moved into the room after 10 seconds.

Join a breakout room.

As a meeting organiser, you can jump into any of the breakout rooms. You may wish to do this to ensure students are on track and to answer any questions they have. To join a breakout room, select the menu next to the room and click “Join room”.

To return to the main meeting, click the “Return” button.

Close breakout room.

When you are ready for students to finish working in their groups, you can close the breakout room and students will automatically join the main meeting again. You may wish to do this towards the end of the lesson so groups can share their findings with the rest of the class. To close a breakout room, select the menu next to the room and click “Close room”.