What if students aren’t lazy?
What if they’re just tired of being taught like it’s 2005?
In our recent webinar with the American Marketing Association, we explored what happens when you redesign your course for how students actually learn: through discussion, debate, and critical thinking. Rebecca Sullivan, Marketing Instructor at MSU's Eli Broad College of Business, explained how implementing AI tools helped turn her classroom from silent and disengaged to energized, thoughtful, and self-aware. By replacing traditional reading assignments with small-group case conversations, she sparked more honest debates, uncovered blind spots, and made it safe for students to actually speak up.
Offering an administrative lens, Dr. Tawnya Means from the Gies College of Business at UIUC shared a clear framework for piloting new tools like Breakout — showing how strategic implementation can support faculty buy-in and align with broader institutional goals around innovation and integrity.
Check out some of the highlights below, and we hope to catch you at our next webinar!
Students Want to Think — If We Let Them
MSU's Rebecca Sullivan shares how her students preferred discussion-based learning to easily cheated multiple choice tests in her class — reaffirming why she became an educator in the first place.
Creating Space for Every Student to Speak
Dr. Tawnya Means, Assistant Dean for Educational Innovation at UIUC's Gies College of Business, explains how Breakout promotes equity, agency, and critical thinking in group conversations — while helping students prepare for real-world collaboration.
Rethinking Lecture Time to Maximize Learning
Rebecca walks through how she plans to restructure her in-person course to prioritize peer learning and lighten her own workload, with flexible support from Breakout.
Easy to Launch — For Faculty & Students
Tawnya reflects on her experience piloting Breakout, noting how intuitive the platform is for both instructors and learners, with AI insights working seamlessly in the background.
One Hour to Get Started — Or Build a Whole Course
Rebecca outlines the fast, flexible onboarding process for using Breakout — whether you’re plugging in an off-the-shelf case or designing a full semester’s worth of content.
Don't Lose the Social Side of Learning
Tawnya reminds us that learning happens through interaction — and explains why tools like Breakout help preserve the human connection at the heart of education.
Thank you to Tawnya, Rebecca, and our Co-Founder Steven Walters for sharing what it looks like to bring discussion-based learning to the center of the classroom – and how AI can support (not sabotage) student engagement.
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