Teacher Perspectives on Breakout Rooms in Online Education in a K-12 Bilingual School in China

Abstract

One key problem when teaching online, is the lack of access to group work and collaboration. This study used two main methods of research, a survey including 4 questions and a 5-point Likert scale with 4 statements, and an interview with a Head of Educational Technology. This was done in a large K-12 bilingual school in Shanghai, China. Some key findings included: 92% of teachers knew what breakout rooms are; almost 3 times the percentage of teachers agreed (59%) that breakout rooms are viable in online learning as opposed to disagreed (17%); double the percentage of teachers disagreed (24%) that breakout rooms are too problematic to use as opposed to agreed (48%); 81% of teachers agreed that they need to know more activities for use with breakout rooms; and 79% of teachers agreed they needed to know how to better expose students to breakout rooms. There was a significant correlation between the Primary and Secondary phases; the interview responses backed up this data and the correlation. The four main fed back methods of using breakout rooms were: Group presentations, Group and pair discussions, Differentiated learning and Group research.