Microsoft Teams for teachers

This post is the starting point for the teacher who would like to understand how to work in Microsoft Teams. It is written specific to the way we use Teams at the school where I currently teach. We are unable to create our own Teams, so I have not covered all aspects of that process here.

1. Why it is worth the effort

The initial setting up of teams, creation of assignments and modules amounts to a substantial effort. So, before you start, I need to assure you that it is well worth the effort.

The primary reason for this is that at the end of each year, you can archive your existing classes, and then create the following year’s classes by simply reusing all the work you committed to at the beginning as ready-made templates for the next year. Use them as-is, by simply changing the dates and times and fine-tuning them if you wish before assigning them to your students. Do the same with your Classwork tab and you are set to go.

2. Team vs Class

So: there are different versions of Microsoft Teams, and we are using Microsoft Teams Education.

When a Team is created, there are four Team types to choose from: ^[1]

• Class (teacher-led team featuring assignments)
• Professional Learning Community (PLC) (peer-led educator working group)
• Staff (leader-led for management, administration, etc.)
• Other (clubs, study groups, and extracurriculars)

So, when we refer to the teams that our students are assigned to, we are actually referring to a Team Class, or simply a Class.

3. Planning Classes

This is worth understanding even if your Teams (and Classes) are created for you. At our school students belong to Classes and staff belong to Teams and are Owners of Classes.

It is important to understand what I believe are two of Microsoft Teams’ biggest shortcomings: you cannot transfer a student from one Class to another, and you cannot chain Assignments.

The more assignments in a class the more difficult it becomes for both teacher and student to manage the workload. You could create a Team per class per Grade per Subject as a minimum. You could choose to create a new Team for each Term or a Team for different sections of the subject you teach. My optimum arrangement would be one Team per Grade per Subject.

You could have a “general” Team per Grade per Subject for admin tasks and announcements (things that must simply be acknowledged by the student but not marked by the teacher as such).

If your Teams have already been created for you, it might be possible to re-arrange them by adding all your students to the one Team, removing them from the second Team and then archiving the empty team.

4. Teams Interface

The Teams interface is relatively simple when compared to Word or Excel’s interfaces, for example. This is perhaps because it is more activity driven: if you want to chat (instant message), click on the Chat tab to expose all the appropriate functionality.

1. Tabs give access to various components of Teams
2. Home, the active tab in the screenshot
   • Activity
   • Chat
   • Assignments
   • Teams
   • Calendar
   • Calls
   • OneDrive
3. Global Search
4. The settings Menu
5. Account Manager which provides access to account settings including the ability to set your status

5. Settings

The Teams interface is configurable.

5.1 General

1. Click the Settings and more… menu (the three dots)
2. The Settings panel opens
3. Select the General section
4. The System settings control how the app behaves
5. Activate the Auto-start Teams option so that Teams opens itself automatically
6. Deselect the Open Application in background option — you want to see the app, not have it hiding in the background
7. Select the On close keep the application running option so that the close button leaves the app running in the background
8. Activate Register the new Teams as the Chat app for Microsoft 365 so that all your chat happens in one central app

5.2 Appearance & accessibility

1. Click the Settings and more… menu (the three dots)
2. The Settings panel opens
3. Select the Appearance & accessibility section
4. Select a Theme
5. Always use dark theme for meetings and calls
6. Leave the Chat density set to the default, Comfy
7. Show message previews in your chat list does just that and is useful as you can see who was active in the Chat last
8. The default Layout is set to Grid; I am using the more compact List option

6. Next steps

You will no doubt want to check out and fine-tune your Teams: Managing a Class in Microsoft Teams

I spend almost all of my time on the Assignments and Classwork tabs.

• Creating an Assignment in Teams
• Setting up the Classwork tab in Teams

Optional customisations:

• Create a custom Home page for a Team

References:

1. Microsoft (no date) Choose a team type to collaborate in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Support. Available at: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/choose-a-team-type-to-collaborate-in-microsoft-teams-0a971053-d640-4555-9fd7-f785c2b99e67 (Accessed: 28 January 2024).