With so much unknown right now in education, one thing we can do as educators is focus on meeting the needs of our students the best we can while remote learning. We may have lost the sense of security and safety our physical classrooms gave us, but with the help of Microsoft Teams we can expand those four walls and bring our students into a different type of interACTIVE learning environment.
Microsoft Teams has worked hard and listened to the needs of educators to make the platform as versatile and streamlined as possible. With integrations and features such as announcements, OneNote class notebook, Tabs and Assignments, and chat—Teams provides teachers with options tailored for teaching and learning.
Conversations in Teams
Being able to connect and keep in touch with students while out of the classroom is so important and channel posts makes this so easy to do in Teams. Create classroom announcements and posts that can be edit to get your students' attention. You can also control who replies to a post, change the importance of a post to draw students’ attention to something specific, and post across multiple channels at the same time.
Once a post is sent in a channel, the conversation is organized by date and then threaded. Find the thread you want to reply to, then click Reply. Add your thoughts and click Send. When replying you can also @mention someone to get their attention and to have them see a post sooner. Students (and teachers!) can also have fun by posting and replying with emojis, memes and GIFS using the buttons under the reply bar.
Creating Assignments in Teams
When creating assignments, teachers have the ability to customize each and every assignment to meet the needs of their students. Add grading rubrics for students to reference while working and for you as the teacher to use laster when evaluating their work. Customize every assignment by adding or attaching resources. This can be content from OneDrive, your device, links, and more. Once an assignment is creating you can distributed it to multiple classes or personalize the assignment by assigning it to individual students. Finally, when creating, you can customize all the dates and times that are important to the assignment. you have the ability to edit due dates and close dates, in addition to scheduling assignments to appear on a later date.
Keeping student work in order and easy to find can be challenging during remote learning, making the organization of Teams so beneficial. Teams lets you as the teacher create learning activities for students with integrated Office applications while also giving you the ability to leave feedback for students. You can also grade and track student progress by using the Grades tab. View both upcoming and turned in assignments by class, or view them across all your classes. Selecting an assignment will allow you to turn it in or view feedback and scores.
Holding Online Meetings in Teams
Microsoft Teams is a great platform to connect with students virtually and gives you as the teacher control of the meeting. You can speak and share video, mute and remove participants, share content and your screen, and privately view a PowerPoint presentation all while participating in a live meeting. The organizer also has the option to start and stop recording of the meeting which allows for asynchronous learning by proving content to learners on their own time. Students can also share their screen and view PowerPoint presentations during a chat, but the other features are for presenters only.
Simply click Meet now under the message box to start a live meeting in a channel. If you click Reply to a message, then the meeting will be attached to that conversation. You can select Meet now to start the meeting right away or Schedule a meeting to schedule the meeting for the future. Members of the channel will see an invitation for the meeting in their calendar if you decide to schedule it for later.
Content and Collaboration in Teams
Content can be shared in multiple ways when using Microsoft Teams. Teachers can add Tabs within a channel to centralize where students are going and keeping the workflow in Teams. Click + by the tabs at the top of the channel, click the app you want, and then follow the prompts. Use Search if you don’t see the app you want. Apps like Flipgrid, Buncee, Peardeck and Wakelet are just a few of the many different options available!
You can also share content directly in channel posts. Click Attach under the box where you type messages, select the file location and then the file you want. Depending on the location of the file, you’ll get options for uploading a copy, sharing a link, or other ways to share.
Collaborating in Teams has never been easier with the integration of the OneNote class notebook. OneNote notebooks are a digital binder that can be used in your class or with your staff to take notes and collaborate. OneNote Class Notebooks have a personal workspace for every student, a Content Library for handouts, and a Collaboration Space for lessons and creative activities.
We way not be able to close out the year with our students, but let’s make distance learning as familiar and comforting to our students as we can! By working in Microsoft Teams we can continue to encourage and engage students from the walls of our “virtual classroom.”
Stay #interACTIVE!
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For more on using Microsoft Teams in the classroom check out the following post:
For more ideas on how to create relevant and engaging digital lessons, check out our book The InterACTIVE Class out now on Amazon!
