Available
Breakout Rooms
Break out, then regroup.
How do you teach?
In a big online group, most students sit silent while a few do the talking. Breakout Rooms split the class into small rooms for focused work, let you broadcast to every room, and bring everyone back in one click.
Most tutoring is one-on-one, so you’ll use this when you teach small groups. Split students into pairs to practice, check in on each room, then bring them back together.
In a class of 30, most students never say a word. Split them into small rooms for discussion, broadcast instructions to every room, and bring everyone back in one click.
Group exercises fall flat when 40 people share one call. Send participants into small rooms to practice, broadcast a time check to every room, and regroup for the debrief.
In your classroom, students turn to their table to work in groups. Breakout Rooms are for lessons online, such as a remote day, when you need the same small-group work.
In the room, groups simply move to different tables. Breakout Rooms are for virtual training, or when some participants join remotely and need a group of their own.
If your child takes online group classes, breakout rooms put them in a small group where they’re more likely to speak up and do the work.
Free for 2 weeks on any paid plan. No credit card required.
What it solves
- Differentiating for a whole group at once
- Group work online falls flat
Helps you
Teach better · Earn more
Part of
Group teaching
The problem
Big groups leave most students silent
In a large online lesson, a few people do all the talking and the rest watch. Group work is hard to organize, and the teacher can’t see what each group is doing.
The usual way
Teachers use breakout rooms in a call app, lose sight of the groups once they’re split, and spend minutes herding everyone back to the main room.
How Pencil Spaces solves it
Breakout rooms for teachers and students during the live lesson. Split the class into smaller rooms, broadcast a message to every room, then bring everyone back in one click. Every breakout room can be recorded.
What changes
Group lessons that feel personal. Small-group work keeps every student active, even in larger classes.
Learn more
What it looks like
In practice
A teacher splits a class of 24 into six rooms of four. She broadcasts a two-minute warning to every room, then brings everyone back with one click.
In a 1:1 lesson
In a small-group lesson, you put two pairs into rooms to practice conversation. You visit each room, then bring both pairs back to compare notes.
In a group class
You split the class into groups of four to annotate a poem. Each room works on its own board, and you bring everyone back to share in one click.
In a virtual training
Forty managers split into rooms of five for role-play practice. You broadcast “switch roles now” to every room, and regroup for the debrief.
In your classroom
On a snow day, your class meets online. You split them into the same table groups they use in the room, and bring them back together for the wrap-up.
In the training room
Most participants are in the room, but six join remotely. You put the remote six in their own breakout room so they get a real group exercise too.
At home
In your daughter’s online class, she works in a room of four on a science question. She speaks up more there than in the full class.
