Microsoft Teams

An important thing is to set a welcoming tone in your online course, by welcoming students when they enter a live session, giving them a chance to introduce themselves to their classmates (e.g. using the chat room or the microphone).

You can share your computer screen to share documents and other resources with students to keep them engaged with the content.

Remind students to use the Raise Hand feature when they want to ask a question or when you open up a conversation to students. You or your TA can monitor the raised hands and let students speak alternatively.

Allocate time during a lecture for direct interactions with students and have them use their microphone. This is a way for you to pause and actively engage the participants. You can ask 2-3 students to use their microphone, which can also help create a sense of community in your course.

The chat tool can be used to allow students to ask questions, and you can then allocate some time to answer them (e.g. every 10 minutes). You could also have a TA help monitor the chat (for large classes).

Breakout rooms are now available on MS Teams. You can use Breakout rooms to facilitate group work during a live class (synchronous session). As instructor, you can navigate from one breakout room to another, monitor and assist group work. You can also reassign participants to different breakout rooms individually from one room to another, but only when breakout rooms are closed.

Guidelines for instructors and students. Create and manage breakout rooms during class meetings (how to create breakout rooms, assign participants to rooms, rename rooms, start/close breakout rooms, join a breakout room, reassign participants, chat with participants in a breakout room, add or delete a breakout room, save files, recordings, and notes from breakout rooms, edit breakout room settings, recreate rooms from scratch).

Channels can be used for collaborative learning activities and group work. Channels can be public (available to all the students in the class) or private (available to group members only). As instructor, you can access all the channels, whether they are public or private. You can use channels to enhance group work and collaborative learning between students. You can post instructions and documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) that the group members can then annotate collaboratively. Channels can be used during or outside of a live session.

When you create a channel, you have two options:

• Select Standard to make a channel visible to all students, or;
• Select Private to make a channel available only to group members that you will need to add manually.

Question polls are not available within an MS Teams call. You can use Forms to create question polls from the general channel of your Team. You will be able to create the questions in advance.

When selecting Desktop, you are sharing your entire computer screen. Viewers will be able to see everything you do on your computer, if you open a PowerPoint or access a webpage, and switch back and forth between programs. Everything you see on your screen, viewers will be able to see. 

The Window section allows you to share a particular program or application that is currently open. The thumbnails of the program or application opened are visible. Select the application or program you want to share with students. The Window section is useful if you want to access another program while sharing your screen.

The Whiteboard allows you and the students to draw, sketch or write on screen collaboratively. To add text, click the Note or Text icons. More details on how to use Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams. 

The Browse option allows you to upload and share your PowerPoint presentation with the students. By default, students can move through the PowerPoint slides at their own pace, unless you click the eye icon to keep control of the presentation mode. For more info on PowerPoint sharing, see Share PowerPoint slides in a Teams meeting.

If you want to share a video with students, you will need to select the option Include computer sound, located on the top left of the sharing options.