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Zoom workshop facilitation

Tips and tricks from the Maven team to help you successfully host a live session in Zoom

Chelsea Wilson avatar
Written by Chelsea Wilson
Updated over 8 months ago

30 minutes before

  • Join the room early and pause the recording.

    • Maven will automatically share the recording to your students' via the course Home if you stop the recording, but not if you pause it.

  • Ensure your waiting room is turned on in Zoom.

  • Briefly review your session content.

  • Gather any relevant links to share in the Zoom chat or via your course community. You might have links for:

    • external content, syllabus items, session surveys, etc.

  • Queue up your post-workshop announcement as a DRAFT in the #announcement channel.

    • Publish as soon as the workshop is over.

10 minutes before

  • Select a song to share and queue it up via Zoom audio.

  • Have a no-fail/icebreaker question ready for the first few minutes of the session.

  • Make any other staff co-hosts.

  • Have your needed windows open: presentation, notes, Zoom, etc.

  • Silence computer notifications if needed.

Class start

  • Once the instructor is ready, click “Admit All” attendees.

    • Be ready to admit students individually if they join later.

  • At the 3-4 minute mark, start sharing your session content.

During workshop

  • Keep an eye on the participant list for latecomers.

  • Implement in-session engagement strategies to keep students involved.

  • Keep a sense of time and adjust your content as needed.

  • Queue up upcoming breakout rooms (see next section).

Breakout discussion

Below, Maven's written you a helpful step-by-step guide for using Breakout sessions in Zoom during your cohort. If you prefer to watch these steps in action, check out this video tutorial by Zoom.

  • At least 5 minutes before the breakout discussion is set to start, click on the “Breakout Rooms” button in the Zoom footer:

    You’ll see a screen that looks like this:

  • Change the number of rooms setting until you see the desired number of participants per room.

  • Click “Create Rooms” to queue up the rooms when you’re ready to split people up

    • On this screen, you can make manual adjustments like switching people into different rooms or manually assigning someone to join a breakout room.

  • Be ready to share links or simple directions in the Zoom chat.

  • Give an opportunity for students to ask questions before you open the breakout rooms.

  • Select “Open All Rooms” when you are ready to have people join the breakout rooms.

  • People will be able to select “Join” to leave the main room and join their breakout rooms.

    • If needed, you can manually assign students to a different room.

    • People may get kicked off and rejoin the main room. They should be able to re-join their breakout room or you can re-assign them.

  • Pause the recording during breakout rooms.

    • Keep in mind that the main room is recorded unless you pause the recording.

  • A minute or two before you close the room, you can send a “Broadcast Message" to help students wrap up their convos.

  • When time is up, restart recording, click on “Close all Rooms”. This will start a 60 second countdown after which everyone will be forced back in the main room.

Last 10 minutes of workshop

  • Post your post-workshop announcement in the #announcement channel of course course community.

Helpful Zoom Settings

Screen sharing

Breakout rooms


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