EMPOWER REMOTE LEARNING

WITH MICROSOFT TEAMS

Tips and tricks to include learners from

across your institution or across the world
The virtual classroom is on the rise, and you need cutting-edge
technologies to connect with students and peers—no matter
where they are. You may be asking questions like these…

How do I enable remote learning in a way that

builds on our existing learning tools?

How do I ensure that students of all abilities and

backgrounds are included?

How do I ramp up on the new technology quickly

and help my students to do so as well?

Aside from remote learning, digital technologies can have a

positive impact on the classroom as well.

81% of students agree that digital learning

technology can save time and boost grades 1

75% of instructors agree that online teaching

has made them think more critically about how
to engage students 2

Pass rates increased by one third when at-

risk students mixed technology with traditional
face-to-face learning 3 1. McGraw Hill, 2016
2. Inside Higher Ed, 2019
3. Educause, 2016

Microsoft Teams brings everyone from your class together into

an inclusive, highly secure hub where you can collaborate,
upload homework, and access hundreds of third-party apps.

In this document, find tips and tricks for using Teams. Click on the
links for more detailed, technical guidance.

Teams in action “Using Microsoft Teams has made

education accessible for a large,
The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) is diverse audience of students,
a research university that serves almost which is really something we have
60,000 students, with over 15,000 remote to think about as we are moving
students. Dr. Timothy Ponce pioneered a our students into the job market—
new method of collaboration using Teams. and looking at being good citizens
of not only a local but a global
• Gave students a platform to ask for community.”
help with coursework and stay
connected with peers and professors Dr. Timothy Ponce
Professor of English
• Expanded the classroom to the virtual
space, streamlining feedback, resource
sharing, and group projects
• Made education accessible for a
diverse group of learners and Access the full case study
developed students’ digital skills here.

What you can do

Unite students in a central hub—no matter where they are
Create a team for your class, giving every student a centralized
place to collaborate and share work. Track student progress and
projects, and give your class a portal to submit feedback.

Communicate with students and peers

Chat, call, or video conference with any user, and empower your
students to collaborate with each other. You can host virtual office
hours or set up meetings, all synced with your Outlook calendar.

Share lecture recordings, notes, assignments, and more

Use Teams to stream, record, and upload your lectures.
Collaborate on live versions of files in a highly secure setting, and
host larger instruction sessions or other events using live events.

Connect to apps on an open, centralized platform

Teams connects not only to Microsoft tools like Office 365 but also
to hundreds of third-party apps, from Adobe Creative Cloud to
Zoom, as well as bots to create quizzes or polls.

Make learning easily accessible for everyone

Screen reader capabilities and other tools from the Office
Accessibility Set empower inclusion of all learners. Inline message
translation helps include learners from across the globe.

Collaborate on research in a highly secure environment

Teams brings together researchers within your institution, as well
as from other institutions, in a platform that supports data security
and connects you to cloud resources and third-party tools.

Build on existing tools

Teams works well with solutions you’re already using. You can open Zoom meetings
in Teams or open Teams meetings in your learning management system.

Meetings Chat Files Apps

Office Live Events Tasks Videos Assignments

Get started
Experiment with your first teams and channels
To get used to how teams work, try creating a test team of just a few
of your peers or teaching assistants. Add channels within the team and
note the options for chatting, file storage, and team wikis.

Create a team for your class or research team

Add students or peers to a team via their university email addresses or
via School Data Sync. Create meetings for specific channels so that
anyone in the channel can join the meeting.

Try connecting to other apps

If you click “Apps” at the bottom of the left sidebar, you’ll see the
range of apps that can connect to Teams. For instance, you could
connect to OneNote and create a notebook for your team.

Resources
Free training on Teams
Free Teams webinars tailored for education users.

Step-by-step Teams tutorials

Comprehensive guidance for Teams, from adoption to teaching and beyond.

Microsoft Enabling Remote Learning Community

A worldwide community of education users working together to conquer remote
learning challenges, supported by a team of Microsoft engineers.

Higher Education Teams scenarios

A library of scenarios providing best practices and real examples of Teams being
used in education.

“I’m now able to reach

UNSW’s story over 99% course
satisfaction. The
Dr. David Kellermann of the University of New South
experience is multi-
Wales (UNSW) customized learning at scale using a
modal… it’s accessible,
suite of applications grounded in the Microsoft
and it’s tailored to the
ecosystem.
specific needs of every
• Set up a class team in Teams, replacing individual student.”
textbooks with real-time digital inking and in- Dr. David Kellermann
class chat streams—and syncing with OneNote Senior Lecturer,
and Outlook to schedule lectures and share notes Mechanical and
and assignments Manufacturing
• Saved up to 70% of time spent grading with Engineering
digital marking and AI
• Built a question bot using Azure Bot Service to
scan conversations, notify tutors, and answer Access the full case
questions on its own using AI study here, including a
• Leveraged Power BI to track and predict student video about
performance in dashboards and generate Kellermann’s solutions.
personalized study packs

SUPPORT TEAMS WITH

POWER PLATFORM
With Teams as a hub for remote learning, Power Platform allows you to
automate processes with apps, flows, and bots that connect to Teams and
save time for you, your peers, and your students.

What you can do

Employ personalized chatbots with Power Virtual Agents
Power Virtual Agents can connect with Teams to answer students’
questions, learn from their responses, and ultimately give you
predictive insights about how to customize their education.

Customize course content with Power Apps

Power Apps can help in a wide range of areas—whether you want
to customize an app to capture lectures or establish an interactive
dashboard to display information for your research team.

Expedite time-consuming tasks with Power Automate

Cut down time spent on administrative tasks with Power
Automate. Create flows to automate processes like grading,
assessments, compliance, communication cadences, and more.

Get insight into students’ needs with Power BI

Power BI’s analytic capabilities provide actionable data based on
grade tracking and other student information, allowing you to
predict academic patterns and customize the learning experience.

Access these resources for more detailed instructions

Learning Paths
Step-by-Step Tutorials
Teams and Power Apps Whitepaper

Read this case study to learn how an assistant principal with no formal IT
background transformed her school with Power Platform.

COLLABORATE REMOTELY

Student information
Analytics for
admins

Financial data
Chatbots & virtual
Calendars office hours
Grade tracking
Housing
information
Virtual
Course materials labs
University hospital & homework University web Research
databases portal workloads

Classroom Research Administration

“Teams has become the “Teams as it is, out of “If people use Teams,
central access point, the box, solves the they get robust
much like a dashboard or problem of how to collaboration functionality
landing page. We collaborate in academic with compliance
continue to use OneNote, research better than capabilities, and they get
SharePoint, etc., but now anything I’ve seen our IT people right there,
via Teams.” before.” ready to help.”

Michel Girard Graham Collins Marc Bennett

Pedagogical Director Research Computing Learning Technologist
Centre Universitaire Analyst Newcastle University
Catholique de Bourgogne Newcastle University

Click on any of the universities’ names to read more.