Webex Employee's Favorite Feature of the Month: Breakout Sessions

[aahawkin]

How do YOU breakout of the crowd?

Group and engage your attendees into smaller meetings with Webex breakout sessions. With enough room to be heard above the crowd, you can drive active participation in all your virtual meets.

If you've used breakout sessions, we want to know!

In fewer than 100 words, respond with your tips and/or tricks for effectively using breakout sessions for facilitating training, teaching class, or meeting with friends and family.

Hosts, do you save time preassigning participants to rooms via spreadsheet upload? Teachers, do you name the rooms after subjects or something more fun? You will be entered into a giveaway for a FREE Cisco 730 headset, by responding to this post!

This post will stay active for the entire month of April. We will randomly select a winner and reach out to them directly in the first week of May.

UPDATE: We asked educators how they use breakout rooms for effective and engaging remote learning. Read "7 breakout sessions tips from K-12 and higher ed educators" to learn more. 

More about Breakout sessions

As a host, you can preassign members to sessions, add or remove on the fly, or allow guests to float. You can even mute that one guy pouring coffee... We hope it’s coffee. As a guest, hold deep discussions or explore sessions to quickly find information. At the end of the session, you can even use artificial intelligence to show the clapping icon. Try breakout rooms today!

If you are not familiar with all the features, check out these links to learn more.

Webex Meetings | Breakout Sessions 

Breakout Sessions | Features 

Breakout Sessions | Best Practices 
Blog | Educator's Tips on Getting Remote Learning Right

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Respond to this post and share how you breakout! Your response will enter you into a giveaway for a FREE Cisco 730 Headset!

[A-A Ron]

Ok, I deeply wish I had access to this a year ago. I train employees at a health system and we were going through Upgrade Training with Front Desk Staff, Clinical Staff, and Providers. Without Breakout Sessions, we lead multiple different WebEx meetings over different days for different groups based on job roles. I would definitely have utilized the Breakout Sessions by having everyone go to a General Session where we would have shared the information that would have impacted everyone and then divided all participants out based on job role into their own Breakout Sessions. The other trainers I work with would each have been assigned to lead a Breakout Session where they could then share the specific workflows and information to the correct attendees. This would have saved hours of meetings over multiple days. There was also confusion where people joined the wrong meeting (I had a Provider join the Front Desk meeting and was not happy that he wasted his time). We are getting ready to roll out some new changes and I cannot wait to use Breakout Sessions!

[pjcummings]

Breakout sessions are helpful for more confidential/ individual ( as opposed to general ) discussions. 

[mmaurog]

I use breakout sessions with my students. It is very helpful tool. Breakout rooms develop small group student relationships as individuals explore ideas they may be hesitant to discuss in a large class setting.  Alternating students can take a leadership role, and the rooms allow the teacher to visit, or remain outside the room facilitating the conversation.  Breakout rooms, have restored creativity and engagement in the online classroom.  

[pbsuzila]

I am a language teacher teaching Public Speaking to a group of 62 tertiary Engineering students. Having a breakout beauty is such a blessing! I can assign them into smaller groups and get them speaking dynamically, brainstorming ideas productively. As I roam around from one session to the next, I imagine myself walking physically in a Face-to-face setting, enjoying their sharing with full closeness. Thanks to Webex! Virtual yet possible!! The students love the fact that the instructor appears in a while and disappears the next instant. And they can notify me and call for help when they need me. As I observe some passive attendees, I move the chatterbox to this group as to push the quiet ones. It works magic! 

[thomas.mihrete]

I had a chance to test and see different options on Webex, and webex training even we mostly use Blackboard collaborator. I found that Cisco Webex has more options for me as a student we get to do labs in a group in the breakout room than our Professor can join us anytime he wants. It has a bright feature that lets us do a private project without disturbing the classroom or others. 

[michael.cook]

I use breakout rooms the same way I would use a table in face to face training ... I like to split groups up in different ways and use the environment to allow different interactions.

One tip for people new to breakout rooms ... I have found sometimes participants cannot join the room - especially if they drop out after allocating breakout sessions. My super secret tip is to temporarily make them an alternate host and guide them into the right room - explaining the steps to join. Once the activity has finished, change their role back to participant. 

[akhter]

Outstanding Feature!!

I am Excited to see the Breakout Session in Webex.

We were using the Breakout Rooms feature in Microsoft teams so far but this one along with the power of Webex is just Outstanding!

Thanks.

Akhter.

[Roray Stewart]

As site admin I don't tend to use Breakout Sessions unless I'm demonstrating them to the end user so I posed the question to the end users.

I use Breakout Sessions at every synchronous class. Firstly, I set questions based on the previous week's learning, and the students do that straight away in groups of about 3 - 5. This gets them used to "Chatting" to each other, so I get quite good interaction throughout the rest of the class. Then I use 2 breakout rooms per session for students to group solve problems on the new week's topic. Actually, it would be better if students could still see my powerpoint while they are in their breakout groups, but I haven't been able to do this with Webex, so what the students have been doing is taking snapshots of the questions/problems. The breakout groups have better discussions if the answers are subjective, rather than maths type objective answers. A few students tend to dominate discussions, so I do manual assignment to mix them up each time. I let the students choose how long they want for each problem and I keep emphasising to them that they are developing graduate skills, not just the subject. Inevitably, some students don't contribute at all, but direct questioning when they come back to the main room helps. I don't go into the break out rooms, unless invited, as I want the students to feel they can discuss stuff with each other privately (it's the only peer contact some of them get nowadays).

[Roray Stewart]

As site admin I don't tend to use Breakout Sessions unless I'm demonstrating them to the end user so I posed the question to the end users.

I've been trying out Breakout sessions with a pilot Study Group we are running (Science Highers). The idea is that students who would like a study buddy come to the weekly group where they'll hopefully meet peers who are willing to work collaboratively. Students then move to a pre-assigned Breakout session listed by subject area. Students can move freely between sessions/groups and they plan/discuss the details and timings in the general meeting before moving to the session.

I'm finding it helpful for students who also wish to socialise a bit as many of them haven't met in person yet due to lockdown. Building relationships and confidence will hopefully build the Study Group.

[Kristen.Harris]

I love using the breakout sessions. I am able to put students into groups with a given focus. I am able to designate the time spent in that group before we all come back together. I enjoy being able to pop into the rooms to listen to the conversation and be able to redirect it if needed. 

I teach multiple content areas and I have used breakout sessions in each area. It is also a wonderful tool when a student wants to conference with you to ask questions and see examples without feeling embarrassed in front of their classmates. 

I always make sure to name my breakout sessions with what the team is working on. It helps them to remember and it helps me to know what I should be hearing them collaborate on. 

[Marsha.Johnson]

We mostly use it for meetings and especially training sessions where we have 20 or more in attendance.  It helps with networking and gets our students in a "room" together to freely discuss the subject.  Then 1 spokesperson from each group is chosen to represent the group.  It is a great time saver and learning tool.

[cmorehouse]

I was not aware of breakout sessions but now that I have read up on it, I will be using it in future meetings. Thanks for the info!

[KirstenM]

At our university, instructors have utilized breakouts for many classroom applications, with many similar uses described earlier in this string. I wanted to share a few really creative uses that our users have utilized breakouts for engagement may have applications in other industries:

1.  Alumni Awards Virtual Congratulations: Our Alumni team created a recorded video that highlighted the award recipients for this year, which recipients and their friends/families watched. This served as the more formal ceremonial aspect of what would have traditionally been an in-person event.  After this circulated, they held a Webex Meeting at which each award recipient was put in their own breakout. By using the 'registration' feature for the meeting, they preassigned some attendees to the appropriate awardee's breakouts. During this synchronous portion, award recipients were able to be congratulated personally but not chaotically by attendees. If an attendee wanted to congratulate multiple awardees, the Alumni team utilized the 'join any breakout' feature to allow them to move from room to room to share best wishes. By mixing the asynchronous recording as the formal ceremony with the informal breakout Meeting, they were able to have both formal and informal aspects for these virtual awards. 
2. College of Business and Economics job fairs: Each company was given a breakout room and students were able to move from one company's breakout to another to meet employers, connect, gain information, etc. This meant one meeting link for the job fair, simplifying the experience for both students and employers. 

[GeorginaK.]

Breakout rooms are essential in my web seminar where all the participants are splitted into groups interacting and sharing their ideas and then present them to all back in the main session. Very useful when the participants are too many. 

[gianniss95478]

Nice Feature!!!

Seems very usefully for supervisors and team leaders in education & industry.