Jumpstart Student Discourse using Breakout Rooms & Feedback

 Have you ever joined a breakout room with your students and were met with pure silence? You think to yourself They should be talking because they’ve been in the room for at least 30 seconds OR they have a lot to get done and nobody is saying anything. 

When you finally do ask their response is “We already finished”- my heart plummets! Deep down I know there is so much of the conversation left to explore. My goal is to have students come back saying we need more time because our discussion was going that great! Now don’t get me wrong this isn’t always the case, sometimes my students blow me away with their conversations, but what I realized that for students who are introverts or those struggling with the concept have a difficult time succeeding in breakout rooms -even if you pair them with a complementary student. So how do you get students to talk the whole time about academics and feel confident? You get personal! These little tricks have helped students not only require them to put into perspective the work of their peers but theirs as well!

Cover All the Bases

As with everything... implementing new methods or tools can be difficult and a bit stressful. So here are some helpful tips to make everything run smoothly. 

• Explore-Before anything... I send students into a breakout room with their partner and let them play with all of the buttons and then have them come back and discuss with the class their findings. They will soon realize many buttons are similar to being outside of the breakout room, but allowing them to get that curiosity out of the way will limit it from taking place during future breakout rooms. 
  
• Topics- Start off with a non- academic topic to get them used to routines such Which One Doesn't Belong? Would You Rather Questions ; Since the topics aren't difficult they will be more inclined to share more about themselves. 
• Think Time-Provide students with think time before sending them off. After presenting students with a problem or question (academic or non academic)- allow them 30 seconds - 2 minutes to think about what they want to say so when they enter the breakout room there is a sense of preparedness, which will limit the silence in the rooms. This is especially great for your shy students and/or your EL learners.
• Sentence starters- During think time I like to provide possible sentence starters of how each student should start their turn with. Providing them with 2 or 3 possible options gives them an opportunity to choose which phrase they are most comfortable with. If you do with with simple non- academic questions it makes it easier to embed academic vocabulary in the future. 
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  Determine Roles/Timers- As you start progressing, you can determine who goes first or the responsibility for each candidate in the breakout room. When starting off I make the roles very simple. Since students don't have the ability to see your screen or timers I will keep track and then send out broadcast messages as reminders. As students progress- having an ultimate Breakout room google slides for this one makes everything run a lot smoother so students can use the timers themselves!  
  

Once students have grasped the concepts of Breakout Rooms and seem to do well with simple academic tasks a great way to extend your lesson is to help students. By having students complete this form either during or prior to breakout rooms it will limit the amount of silent stares because students are excited to share their feedback and genuinely help a classmate.

1. Push & Praise -  Students love this great feedback tool because it is simple and there is a positive aspect to it. This is important because many times students fear sharing their work with others since they feel that critiquing is the only aspect of feedback. In this 2 step feedback protocol students provide a "push" - where they give some kind of constructive feedback. Depending on the topic this could be something as simple as conventions or presentation. A push is meant for students to give constructive criticism. A "praise" is meant to give students positive feedback. To ensure that students understand that regardless of their outcome the effort is what matters. This could be something simple as "I like how you started the problem." or "You completed up to step three correctly." This is an easy activity to embed especially if you are having students work on an activity that they all can actively edit so then the partner giving feedback can go to their slide and give feedback. This adds both an accountability factor and also allows that students to see their slide and feedback in one place.  I like to embed this into writing for writing prompts, race response, etc. 

2. T-A-G: This is an amazing protocol. What I love is that with this procedure it forces the student to ensure that they are listening to their partner and their responses. I love to use this during presentations because it allows them to give feedback on a difficult skill- public speaking. TAG stands for T- Tell something you liked, A-Ask a question, and G- Give a suggestion. This is a bit more advanced than just a praise and push because it requires them to think about a question that focuses on their thought process when completing that assignment. What I also love about this protocol is that it also allows the viewer to give feedback. This limits some students from correcting EVERYTHING or correcting nothing at all. This specific format that I found was written on a blog from Learning in Hand with Tony Vincent where he details each section. What I loved about this is that there is required work for both parties. For the person whose work is being reviewed- they must first think about what feedback they would like. This is important because they are telling the reviewer what they need from them and therefore the feedback becomes more meaningful. It also requires them to follow up and state what they will do with that feedback once it is given. For the reviewer it requires them to not only complete TAG but do so in a way that is meaningful with the person who's work they are reviewing. If you would like a copy of a digital feedback form click HERE

3. Rubrics- Last but not least there is the handy dandy rubrics. This is a great way for students to ensure that they understand your expectations. I like to use these for RACE responses because it allows for students to receive feedback in a timely manner. Since rubrics are more of a checkoff list than actual writing -I can place students in a breakout room and know that the time spent students will be working on improving their writing Ironically I have noticed that my students love helping each other with their writing compared to any other subject. I like to use this for genre writing. What is great is that when implemented early in the drafting process students become familiar with their mistakes and tend to make them far less as the writing continues. 

                                                                             Lively Teaching, 

Jessica Magana