This was a flagship feature at LanguageConvo — small group classes, led by a teacher. Up to 8 total students (our customers) could join a group class. Students and teachers are located in 50+ countries, so edge-distribution of front and back-end was important.

Student view in React app during lecture mode, they see their teacher and cannot interact with other students

There was a lot of real-time messaging involved. Teachers would switch between a “lecture” mode where they were speaking to all students (students could not see or hear each other during) and a “small group chat” mode where students were split into two groups of 4 and could communicate with each other to practice what they learned during the lecture portion of the class. Teacher admin functionality included the ability to boot misbehaving students from the class, mute and unmute students, communicate directly with one student, and more.

Teacher view during a group class