Class Adds Enhanced Breakout Rooms to Zoom

Breakout rooms are an integral part of the virtual classroom, but only when instructors and learners have the right tools to make breakouts engaging and productive. Today, I am pleased to announce the release of enhanced breakout rooms on Class.

These enhanced breakout rooms allow Class instructors to:

• View all breakout rooms at once in one place.
• Monitor activity in breakout rooms at the same time.
• Send chat messages to and from individual breakout room groups.
• Share web pages, videos, and files with specific breakout rooms.
• Launch individual teaching or training activities to specific breakout rooms.

In real-world classrooms students routinely break into smaller groups to work together, and instructors break off to chat one-on-one with students. Instructors circulate through the classroom popping in and out of group conversations. We’re bringing this experience online and to Zoom with enhanced breakout room features that are live and ready to use.

Group collaboration and the ability to work in smaller groups have been shown to be an effective method to motivate learners, promote active learning, and develop key critical thinking, communication, and decision-making skills, which is why this feature is so important to current and future customers.

“…Class bringing this ability online is a natural extension of their work to make the online classroom work seamlessly across all hybrid and virtual learning environments,” said Dr. Kurt Hoffman, Class Strategic Advisory Board Member and Senior Vice President of Instructional and Student Affairs at Allegany College of Maryland.

Just in time for back to school season, the new breakout room features enable educators to implement one of the most effective strategies to foster collaboration during virtual and hybrid classes.

This new feature is also essential for corporate training programs that are looking to connect and engage with employees across the world as virtual office settings continue to evolve and become the norm. Enhanced breakout room features and functionality will enable instructors and employees to efficiently engage and maximize opportunities for collaboration as they would in person.

“With so many companies mapping out a return to work scenarios, many have found virtual training to be so efficient and effective that they’re never going back,” said Marcia Nuffer, Class Strategic Advisory Board Member, Founder and Principal of BlueShor, and former Chief Learning Officer at McKinsey. “In so many learning and development programs, employees are broken up into small groups to enhance workflow and collaboration. The new and enhanced breakout rooms from Class merge the best from virtual and in-person training and can foster connection and community among employees. This will help organizations better upskill and retain their best talent.”

We’re super excited to get this new functionality into the hands of instructors and learners. If you’d like to learn more, please request a demo.