Our school decided to use Microsoft Teams, in conjunction with Edsby, as each student was already registered and had access to the software. This was a new software program to both students and teachers making the learning environment scary to many. Our first week, I had them sign in with an emoji to make sure they were listening and hadn’t just turned on their screens and gone back to sleep. Then I went over their lesson tasks. I had them in groups of 4 (separate channels) so they could ask each other questions, see each other’s faces to feel more like a group in class and work collaboratively. This allowed me to check in on them throughout the class, but give them some freedom to work in their teams.

About 10 mins prior to the end of their class, I asked a question related to the theory they were covering which required them to grasp the concepts but really think about their learning. It’s a business class and they are learning about ventures, so the question was, “What is most important for a venture–feasibility, marketability or profitability?” This allowed every student to write a response. An unexpected outcome was that it led to a healthy debate on the video feed as they read the other student responses on the conversation feed and tried to change the minds of their classmates if it was different than their own. The benefit was that it allowed all to contribute through text but also verbally which is rare in a classroom environment. At the end of class, I told them the correct answer and why. It was quite engaging and they seemed to enjoy their first experience of learning online.