Zoom breakout rooms with added capabilities through Acadly

Zoom Breakout Rooms allow instructors to split up a class into smaller groups where students can collaborate, brainstorm and hold a conversation instead of being passive listeners in lectures. However, Breakout Rooms do have some caveats:

• Students can only communicate with others in the Breakout Room, not the rest of the class.
• It’s challenging to ensure that students stay on-task as the instructor moves from one room to another.
• Zoom Polls cannot be launched for the entire class.
• Students cannot let the instructor know when they have a question using the “Raise Hand” option.

With Zoom-integrated Acadly Enterprise, you are able to mix group activities with whole-class activities and communicate with your students within, as well as outside their groups. Here are the highlights:

• Acadly’s Zoom attendance feature works as usual while students are in breakout rooms.
• All students would see and be able to respond to all published activities.
• All students would see the common chat. There’s no breakout room specific chat feature in Acadly.
• To broadcast messages to students, instructors can use Acadly’s messaging feature.

Additionally, Acadly allows instructors and TAs to reward students with class participation points for activities. Using Acadly, you can easily take attendance and poll or quiz students, and more.

Acadly Enterprise is offered to UIC instructors as part of a Pilot program during the spring 2021 semester. Whether you are teaching online or hybrid for the rest of the spring semester, you can still join the UIC’s Acadly Pilot and start using Zoom’s breakout room with added capabilities. Learn how to use Zoom’s Breakout Room feature in your online or hybrid class on Acadly here.

If you are interested in this pilot opportunity, request access to Acadly Enterprise by emailing the Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence (CATE) support team at LTS@uic.edu or request an appointment with one of CATE’s Instructional Designers at https://go.uic.edu/IDappointment.