How to Set Up Virtual Breakout Rooms in Microsoft Teams for Virtual Classrooms

Many thanks for this. Does the organiser need to send separate Team invites for each "breakout room" channel ? While the organiser can switch channels easily, I can't seem to find a way for participants to switch.

Fabuolus and very clear TipS! It's exactly what I need!. Thank you very Much!!

Excellent, thanks very much for taking the time to record the video. I am a Teams newbie and this helped me a lot!!

Rarely seen such an instructive video - just what I needed. Well done! Thanks

Thank you! You saved my ass (I need breackout rooms in my job)! Your tutorial is quick and go straight to the point.

Can you do one for Blackboard Collaborate?

I used this today and it went really well with my Math 12 course. They were doing a group quiz. I don't know if working on a Mac makes a difference, but I couldn't create a link in calendar for a meeting like suggested in a different video. Students can't hit the camera from a phone or iPad below their post function. Just going in 5 minutes before your session and hitting the little camera is needed. I just went between the groups and listened in and made suggestions where I needed to. Only other issue is that you can only jump between 4 groups max. Wish I could make up to 10 groups.

Useful video. That said, it's clear just how much easier it is to set up breakout rooms in Zoom. In comparison, Teams is clumsy.

Help! I cannot work out how to add people to a Team - I just keep getting a message 'person not found? Anyone?

Great tips

I've notice that all the breakout rooms are on hold. How can we circumvent that and make sure all conference is running simultaneously? Something like zoom

I've created a couple of private channels within the team. So if I go to the meeting with channel A, can students in channel B hear me, provided that we are all still connected to the main meeting?

Nice tutorial on what looks like a workaround for Microsoft to create virtual break-out rooms. I've used Webex and Zoom for this function and this way seems very clunky in comparison. In my organisation I am a Group owner but cannot create a Team myself- that's an IT function as they dont like the idea of a ton of Groups being created. If this function is used regularly, wont you end up with a ton of Groups that will just gather dust once the training event is finished?

quick question! is there a way to run virtual groups if we're not on the same channel? i work in a large organization, where i train everyone, but we are not in the same channel.

Fab, thank you!

Very good information Ms. Catherine! We've had a few queries after implementing Teams companywide, regarding meeting breakout rooms and sharing information within those breakout rooms, and your tutorial was SPOT ON! Thank you!

So in order for this to work you would have to have all the participants pre invited to this "team" right? For example if I run a class with unique participants every week I would have to create / add those folks to the team ahead if time

Thank you for that really helpful tutorial, Catherine! We're working on conducting online trainings where breakout rooms are needed, so appreciated seeing how we could apply that!

This was a really helpful video thank you. Is it possible to invite guests (i.e. people who are not part of our organisation) to a Teams channel and thus breakout rooms for a training course? I know we can set up a standard Teams meeting and invite 'outsiders' but I can't work out if they can be invited to this type of 'event'?

Thanks ! Good to know this feature

Is it possible to have a countdown in breakout sessions and have the participants join back the main meeting. ?
Would be nice to get this functional in teams

I did this but people in the main video call can't see the breakout rooms. Is there a step I am missing?

Thank you! Very helpful.

Agreed with all the 'great tutorial' comments. What do I need to do if when I upload a document I don't get the three dots way over to the right of the document listing? I get three dots next to the document name, but the choices with those three dots don't include any of the choices in the three dots that show in the tutorial, (don't have the choice to Edit in Teams).

Thank you for a very straight forward video and explanation. I'm a teacher ... Question -- Can I just ask selected students to go to particular channels? For example can I ask "Yoko" to go to Team A and "Emi" to go to Team B? Or do I need to input their names into the different channels? I teach in Japan and yesterday I input students' names in katakana into separate channels ... it was terribly time-consuming. Yesterday's class was small ... I dread having to do it for larger classes ... although I suppose I could set it up beforehand. Thank you for your help.

Hi Catherine, I found that tutorial really useful and easy to follow. Thanks for sharing. :-)

Hi Catherine, really enjoying your channel. Do you know how I could create my breakout rooms before starting my session. Phil

How do I open a word document is browser to share in the main meeting room? Thanks

Great explanation - Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for a great video. Is it possible to add external / guest into the breakout rooms?

Thank you. Very helpful

Is there a way to write to all participants while they are in their breakout rooms?

Is this only available for the paid version or the free one

great tutorial - can you appoint a team leader who can share screen and talk through document/work or discussion from the Breakout Room? Or does the teacher/owner have to keep control of the screens?

This is so clunky compared to zoom. Can't the presenter just put people into breakout rooms?

As a teacher how can I monitor multiple breaks out sections in my classroom at the same time.

Are there instructions/options for how to practice?

Thanks for taking the time to post so much useful information.

Love it ❤️ I will try it with my students 😊thank you🙏

Hi there! Can you broadcast (share audio/video) from the main meeting to all of the breakout sessions?

I have set up members on the team channel and sent invite via the calendar. However, one of the team members I cannot add to a breakout room. As soon as I type a few letters of her name she does not come up at all. Any idea how I can fix this? thanks

can attendees participate only via a browser

Great video! We have about 15 breakout groups. Can student start their own meetings once in the breakout channel?

Wow, this is really awful. Big zero to MS on collaboration here.

Thanks for your help

I can't imagine a more confusing way MS could have implemented "breakout rooms". My users will never do this as long as ZOOM is an option. I'm very disappointed.

Do you know if the activity in break out rooms will record if you are recording a meeting? We use teams for online teaching and would like to use this function but all lessons need to be recorded for safeguarding. Thanks.

Well explained. Thank you very much.

This is a great tutorial Catherine! One tip: The 4 concurrent meeting limit is per person, not per Team - so, scenarios where there's one main room and more than 3 breakout rooms are needed, sub-teacher(s) could be assigned to work with their own set(s) of 3.