Alec Patton:
Describe what you would find when you would go into a breakout room.

Kat Wu:
It basically was every room would just have those black Zoom squares where students do not turn on their cameras and everybody would be muted. Maybe once in a while, I would go in a room with a really eager student and they would be in the room basically by themselves. Maybe one student might be unmuted or one student might have their camera on. And I would go in and be like, “Hey, what’s up? No one’s talking, no one has their camera on, I don’t know what to do.” So it was pretty sad.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed, I’m Alec Patton. And that was the voice of Kat Wu, who teaches seventh grade math and science at High Tech Middle Media Arts. And if you’re using Zoom for teaching right now, you’re probably familiar with those black Zoom squares in breakout rooms. But just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, breakout rooms are a feature on Zoom. Here’s how they work, say you have a Zoom call with 25 people. You can split everyone up into groups of five or whatever number, all in their own rooms. If you picture it like a classroom, it’s like having everybody work with other people at their table if every table were completely isolated from the rest of the class. In my experience, adults seem to relax the moment they get into a breakout room, because it’s much more intimate and you can have a real conversation. Teenagers, not so much.

I taught high school for five years and it’s been my privilege to witness all kinds of teenage social awkwardness. But there is something unique about the discomfort of being in a virtual room with four silent teenagers with their cameras off. Just picture it, one brave kid says something like, “Okay, so I think we’re supposed to be answering this question,” and then trails off into silence and their words just get swallowed by the void. And to be clear, I’m not trying to give students a hard time here. Most teenagers are highly attuned to social safety and danger, and trying to learn something new is always a little bit dangerous. Trying to grapple with something new in a strange little digital cave with a group of people they may never have met in person, forget it.

The safest option by a mile is to stay quiet and turn yourself invisible. Which, let’s face it, is the one super power you get on Zoom that you don’t get in real life. So we’re going to talk about what Kat and her team did to make breakout rooms feel a little safer. It’s Pro Session time. Kat teaches a team of 56 seventh graders and two classes of 28. She sees both classes on Monday and Tuesday for 55 minutes each. Wednesday and Thursday, they have their humanities class and their maker class. And then Friday is totally asynchronous. Except they also meet twice a day, five days a week.

Kat Wu:
We meet as a team in the morning to kick off our day every single day, and then we end the day together as well.

Alec Patton:
With all 58?

Kat Wu:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Alec Patton:
That must be exciting.

Kat Wu:
It’s really fun actually. It took a little time, but now that the kids are really used to it, those times are honestly my favorite times of the day.

Alec Patton:
The breakout room story starts in August, when the school year started, on the internet instead of in the building. And breakout rooms seemed like they would provide something that students needed.

Kat Wu:
We knew that we wanted a space for kids to interact with each other more than in a whole class setting. At that time, we were more just randomly putting kids in groups and basically crossing our fingers and hoping that they would unmute and maybe turn on their cameras and talk to each other about whatever topic, whether it’s math or humanities or social that we gave to them. It was a little bit of a just cross our fingers and pray.

Alec Patton:
And describe what you would find when you would go into a breakout room.

Kat Wu:
It basically was every room would just have those black Zoom squares where students did not turn on their cameras and everybody would be muted. Maybe once in a while, I would go in a room with a really eager student and they would be basically by themselves. Maybe one student might be unmuted or one student might have their camera on. And I would go in and be like, “Hey, what’s up?” And like, “No one’s talking, no one has their camera on, I don’t know what to do.” So it was pretty sad.

Alec Patton:
And what did you make of that?

Kat Wu:
It was very frustrating, but also I totally understood because Zoom is tough for everyone, not just for kids. And they’re being asked to be very vulnerable with people they don’t know and talk about potentially topics that are scary, like math. And while it made me really sad, it also was very understandable. And we knew, as a team, we knew that this wasn’t going to build community in our class. So we needed to do something about it.

Alec Patton:
And so what did you do?

Kat Wu:
Just talked to the students about what was going on and spent some time asking them about how they felt about the breakout rooms and what they hoped would happened in breakout rooms and what we could do as a community to make those spaces into what we hope. And so that was a series of discussions as a class, and then serving the kids and getting their feedback about how they felt and what they wanted to change. Our main game-changing survey that we had, we asked the kids, what went well in yesterday’s breakout room? What didn’t go so well in yesterday’s breakout room? Why is working in groups harder on Zoom than in real life? And what could we do as classmates, teammates and students to make breakout rooms that are for learning?

Alec Patton:
Was that a Google Form or what was that that you used?

Kat Wu:
Yeah, that was a Google Form. After a discussion of, why are we doing this?

Alec Patton:
What did the kids say?

Kat Wu:
They talked about that it’s hard when cameras are off and people are muted, you don’t want to be the one person. It’s hard to talk about math and explain your thinking or understand your classmates thinking if you’re not looking at a paper together or you can’t work together in a physical space. They talked about how awkward it was and how, for some reason, being part of a conversation on Zoom, it’s just a lot more awkward than being in a conversation in real life. They talked about how it’s easier to be distracted on Zoom than in real life and how it’s also harder to get help from your peers and from adults when you’re on Zoom.

Alec Patton:
And did they have ideas?

Kat Wu:
Yeah, they did. It’s funny because I think before having this conversation with them, I think the first thing my team jumped to is, oh, we need to tell them to do X, Y, and Z. But of course, kids being the geniuses and amazing human beings that they are, they are able to come up with those things and more better ideas. So they talked a lot about just talking more and not staying muted, even if it’s awkward. They had the idea of having a coach and having participation points so that that really encourages the group. One thing that they came up with and I think that as a teacher if I had come up with this and then demanded it from them, it wouldn’t have worked, but they decided that part of their participation points should be cameras on.

So that was a request I could ask for them and they were okay with either doing it or not and knowing what the expectation would be for doing it or not doing that. And one thing that they did say that I thought was really, really lovely was that they should introduce themselves to each other and maybe have some conversations and get to know each other first before jumping into the academic work. Which that made me and my team realize, oh yeah, the students need an opportunity to know each other, at least a little bit before we expect them to talk about difficult things together. And I think that was a big eye-opener for us.

Alec Patton:
How did they get to know each other? How did you scaffold that?

Kat Wu:
Yeah. So it actually goes back to what I mentioned before of like, we get to see the kids twice a day in the morning and in the afternoon, no matter what. Our afternoon time, we call it flex time and we use that time for a lot of different things. We use it sometimes for project work, we might use it when we have a guest speaker. Sometimes it’s an instructional time. On Fridays, we do fun Fridays. And so we do community building activities and games and opportunities for them to do more fun type things. And so we intentionally use some of those flex times for kids to get into those groups and do things in those groups that would encourage them getting to know each other.

Alec Patton:
And did they come up with those in the Google Form or did you have a discussion? Where did those ideas get generated?

Kat Wu:
They came up with them, they wrote them down in the Google Form. We had maybe a very short discussion about guiding them of what kind of ideas we were looking for and what we meant when these ideas should be to help us learn, to help us have a positive environment. But they came up with the ideas on Google Form and we basically just consolidated their ideas and put similar ones together and presented it back to them and then had a class discussion about that.

Alec Patton:
What came up in that class discussion?

Kat Wu:
I think the biggest things were the students agreed that they felt this way. And I think that acknowledgement of, “Oh, I’m not the only one who feels this way, but my classmates feel this way too and my teachers feel this way.” It was an opportunity I think for us as a community to realize that a lot of us are going through some of the same feelings and thoughts. And I thought that the conversation in general was a very hopeful, positive conversation because not only was it, we all feel this way, but most of us want to make it better and we want this to be a community. We want to be a positive learning space. We want to change something in order to make this even a little bit more like regular school.

Alec Patton:
So what did you do next?

Kat Wu:
We made some changes. I think one of the biggest changes is that we made semi-permanent breakout rooms and those breakout rooms are the same for every one of their classes. So the same group that they’re in for math and science, they’re in for humanities, they’re in for makers. The groups are four students each, and we spent some time giving them an opportunity to get to know those people in their breakout room better. And that group is lasting for a project.

Alec Patton:
How long does a project last normally?

Kat Wu:
The last big project that we’ve done, it’s been about two months and the next project that we are going to do is going to be about two months. So we’re actually going to change those groups post Thanksgiving break. But having those semi-permanent groups gave them that consistency of these are the few people that I’m going to see every day, in every class and I can get to know them and be a little bit more comfortable with them. Within those groups, we picked a coach role and a participation tracker role. The coach, basically, is somebody who encourages their group-mates to speak up and ask questions and make sure that everybody gets a chance to share their thinking. And then the participation tracker just basically tracks who is participating and who’s turning on their camera, who’s sharing ideas, asking questions, and then reporting that back to the teachers.

I think setting up those semi-permanent groups and then creating those roles were the biggest thing. And I think with that conversation that we had, it really increased the amount of participation in their groups and I think students started taking more risks. It’s definitely not perfect and there’s definitely off days, especially I think Mondays are harder than Tuesdays. But the effort from the kids of, I’m going to try, even though it’s weird and awkward and kids stepping up more to be the first person to unmute and talk in their group, those things definitely changed compared to before us making those changes.

Alec Patton:
So when you go into a breakout room now, what do you typically see?

Kat Wu:
I still see a variety of things. There are some groups that still struggle to get the conversation started. But I think compared to before, we have a lot of groups who are really positive and really productive. There are some groups that they’ll have their cameras off, but everyone’s unmuted and they’re talking and discussing. We have some groups where everybody has their cameras on and they’re talking and discussing. And one big change I think is students sharing their screens and sharing their work in that way. That’s something that I didn’t really see at all before, but now I regularly will go into a room and there’ll be a student who has their screen shared and they’re sharing their thinking and their work in that way. So that’s awesome.

Alec Patton:
Where did that come from?

Kat Wu:
That was actually a part of the ideas of making it better for everybody. One of the things that they came up with that was really hard for them is that it’s hard to work on academic things together if you can’t see, especially in math, you can’t see the work that your classmate is doing or your group-mate is doing. And it’s hard sometimes to imagine a student’s thinking just from their explanation, but visually getting to see what they’re doing is helpful. And also that, when you’re in a group and you’re discussing something, it’s helpful to make sure everyone is on the same page if you’re looking at the same thing at the same time. So that was a part of that discussion of what was difficult and their ideas were making it better. Students came up with that idea of sharing their screen as a way of bridging that gap.

Alec Patton:
And what are you trying out for your next project? What new stuff are you doing now?

Kat Wu:
We’re trying to give kids more voice and choice in what happens in their breakout rooms, who is in their breakout room, the roles of their breakout room. And I think we’re also just notching up the expectations a little bit more. Notching up what it takes to get satisfactory participation points and things like that. We’re just upping the game a little bit.

Alec Patton:
What does it take to get satisfactory participation points?

Kat Wu:
So right now, the students in my class, they know that turning on their camera is a way to get points. And then in a very short discussion, so let’s say I give them only four to five minutes to talk about something, the goal right now is to talk once. One time, share your mathematical idea, share a question or something that you’re confused about in five minutes.

Alec Patton:
And what happens if they aren’t getting their participation points?

Kat Wu:
That’s a good question. Participation points in my class is only 10% of their grade. It has very little impact of their actual cumulative grade, but I found that putting something in the grade book and then being able to see that and their families see that makes it a little bit more real for them. I think there are students who still do feel uncomfortable turning on their cameras, and those tend to be more private conversations that we have with them of why they might feel that way. But turning on their camera is not a make or break. I think that was one thing that we, as a teacher team, we wanted to make sure to honor, because there’s all sorts of legitimate reasons why you wouldn’t turn on your camera and we wanted to honor that. And so while that is a small part of their participation grade, it’s definitely not going to make or break their participation grade if they are participating in other ways.

But there are students who we’ve had those conversations with just to encourage them. And there’s other students who actually, because of agreements that we’ve made with them and they’re adults, requires them to have their camera on. And so we, as their teacher, are supporting that and we’ll give them reminders of like, hey, remember, you’re adults, so that you have to turn on your camera. And just giving you a reminder.

Alec Patton:
This is a very technical question about Zoom. With these groups staying the same, is there a way to save those breakout groups or did you have to remake them every session?

Kat Wu:
Apparently now, there is a way to save those groups. But when we started this year, there was not a way to save those groups. So what we did is we have the kids renamed themselves when they come into the Zoom room and their name is their group number and then their class initial and then their names. So for example, for me, it might be “5 M Kat.” And so once they all rename themselves, as soon as they come into the Zoom room, that actually makes it really easy for a teacher to very quickly create breakout rooms just by going down the list. And we included that class initial because when we’re in class with both of my classes together, we know which number goes with which class.

Alec Patton:
That’s cool. What other tips do you have about breakout rooms?

Kat Wu:
One tip that I have is going really slow. These two months, it sounds like a long time for kids to be in a group together, especially since in person I would have kids switching groups every two weeks. But that gradual release has taken quite a bit of time and just supporting those students to be more comfortable in breakout rooms has taken time. And so I would just say, go slow. And also the expectations for breakout rooms, go slow. Even now, I don’t keep kids in breakout rooms for more than a certain amount of time at a time, because time can feel really long when you’re in a breakout room.

And then I made the mistake at the beginning of like, “Oh, they’ll be fine with 10 minutes in a breakout room,” and they crash and burn. So I think those expectations, really having that gradual release and giving kids time to slowly get used to it. Breakout rooms also go more smoothly if they have a very specific question or task to do. More open-ended time has been harder. My kids, I think, are now working into more open-ended times, but starting with, talk to your group about this very specific question, do you agree or disagree with X, Y, and Z and why. And then sending them in there for maybe four minutes so each kid gets one minute to share.

Alec Patton:
Is there a question you can think of recently that you had for breakout rooms that was really generative?

Kat Wu:
A really generative question?

Alec Patton:
I mean, that worked.

Kat Wu:
I think maybe a question of, I gave a student a math problems that you could get the same answer using multiple strategies, giving them time to independently work on that. And then the specific question when you go in your breakout room is, share your strategy of how you solved that problem. And it’s okay if your strategy is the same as somebody else’s, still share your strategy. And that was a good one, I think, for them to have … exactly know going into the breakout room, exactly what they’re going to talk about and they have time to prepare. And also make sure that when they go in there, they don’t just say, oh, I have the same answer as Adam and then that’s it. So they would still have something to share.

Alec Patton:
And how do you make sure of that?

Kat Wu:
We have the participation tracker, in that instance, the participation tracker, I would give them the expectation of, make sure that each person does this. And then when we come back, the participation tracker will always report back to me a little mini direct message in the chat of that. And then also me as the teacher, just jumping between the breakout rooms. I speed jump through breakout rooms in a way that is much quicker than in real life. I wouldn’t have normally in real life, just quickly jump from room to room, to room, to room. But I tend to do that more on Zoom.

Alec Patton:
Do you remember a question or a task that you thought was going to work really well that totally tanked?

Kat Wu:
Oh gosh, there’s so many. I think at the beginning, before … honestly, the kids have worked up to this more now. But at the beginning, giving kids a problem and just saying, “Go to your group and solve this problem together, that did not work at all. It would just be either one person solving the problem and just talking at their group or it would just be silence. So that definitely was not productive.

Alec Patton:
And so was the failure of that what led to the strategy of, solve this yourself and then describe how you solved it?

Kat Wu:
Yeah, I think that was one of the changes. And then having that role, that coach role, has been really helpful because when it’s dead silent in there, the coaches have the power to take a speaking order or giving that like, okay, I’m going to speak first and then so-and-so, you’re going to speak next. And giving kids that sort of, I guess power is the right word, to make that kind of quick decision for their group has been helpful so that students are not just sitting in silence for the duration of the breakout room. Another change that I made was being a lot more direct about explaining what they need to do before going in, which carries the load a little bit more than I would do in person. I am a teacher who really, really think it’s important for students to carry that load of thinking and problem-solving. But then I found that in breakout rooms, giving them a little bit more than I would in person can go a long way to making them feel comfortable to try challenging things.

Alec Patton:
Got it. Kat, well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk.

Kat Wu:
Of course, thank you so much. I hope that it was helpful and informative.

Alec Patton:
For me, the big lesson of this conversation was that there is no question so compelling or protocol so robust that will get a group of kids talking if they don’t feel safe with each other. That means the problem of silent Zoom breakout rooms is a question of community building first and management strategy second. For Kat’s team, the first step to build that community was asking students what the breakout rooms were like for them now and how they could make them better. So I hope you try out lots of the ideas from this episode, but remember that where the strategies come from is as important as the strategies themselves. Kat didn’t come up with the idea of participation points, the students did. That makes a big difference.

High Tech High Unboxed is written and edited by me, Alec Patton. Our theme music is by Brother Hershel and the procession’s theme is by Temple Dogs. If you’ve got other ideas for Zoom breakout rooms or other ideas for a procession, send an email to unboxed@hightechhigh.org. Thanks for listening.