Abstract: Currently, the exploration of the impact of Brain breaks in online or virtual (synchronous) classroom instruction has remained limited in number, especially there is less evidence that compares different types of brain breaks and their effectiveness with students’ engagement by gender. To redress this research gap, this study is two-fold: 1) to examine the effect of both short physical and mental types of brain breaks on perception of engagement in online (synchronous) classroom instruction, and 2) to specifically examine the moderation effect of types of brain breaks by gender.