Welcome to our monthly update for Teams for Education and thank you so much for being part of our growing community! We’ve been working on some great new updates that we’re excited to share with you, so here’s what’s new this month. Enjoy!
February Topics:
- Introducing Classwork for Microsoft Teams
- Updates to Grading
- Search Coach in Teams
- Reading Progress – Addition of Comprehension Questions
- Reading Coach in Immersive Reader for Teams Assignments
- Automatic lowering of hand in a meeting (preview)
- New Teams Webinar Experience
- “@ Mention” everyone in the chat
- Education Templates for Teams Meetings
- Loop component support in Microsoft Whiteboard
- Save and Share Templates in Microsoft Whiteboard
1. Classwork in Microsoft Teams
One solution to create and organize class content in Teams!
Coming soon to Teams for Education is the new Classwork app, built to manage your curriculum! Classwork will allow educators to create and organize class resources including Assignments, Files, Links, Channels, Class Notebook pages, and more. In Classwork, educators can organize resources into modules aligned with their curriculum structure so that students can more easily navigate the class and find relevant resources.
When: Preview in spring 2023
2. Grading Updates
Teams for Education is revamping its grading experience with grading improvements including weighted grading categories and showing average grades to students. These features will make the Grades experience in Teams more streamlined and accurate for educators and students alike.
Average grades for students will be available for educators to enable in the new Grade settings experience. With this feature, students will be able to see their grade in the class and track their progress.
Weighted grading categories allow educators to assign percentage weights to different types of assignments and can also be turned on in Grade settings. If a class is using grading categories, average grades will be calculated by multiplying the average score in each category by that category’s weight. Both features are rolling out this month!
New Grade Settings
Average Grade for Students
Creating Grading Categories
When: March 2023
3. Search Coach in Teams
Search Coach is a simple and powerful new tab app that helps educators and students develop information literacy skills by forming effective queries and identifying reliable resources.
As a “search engine with training wheels”, Search Coach offers real-time coaching, easy access to advanced search techniques, and details about each website to help students learn to ask the right questions and search with confidence. To help educators get started, we’ve also created an ever-growing hub page of resources for teaching with Search Coach in the classroom.
For more information, feel free to check out our Tech Community blog and our Microsoft Educator Centre course.
Stay tuned for updates about future Assignments integration, or Search Progress, coming soon!
When: Available now in 50+ languages!
4. Reading Progress – comprehension questions
Our reading fluency app Reading Progress, launched in Microsoft Teams in fall of 2021. Reading Progress supports educators in increasing the frequency of reading fluency evaluations, helping them to differentiate more powerfully to support students on their fluency journey. The #1 request from educators and schools has been a desire to add reading comprehension questions for the student to complete after they read. We heard the educators’ requests and are excited to announce that we will be adding reading comprehension question support to reading progress later this year! Using Microsoft Forms technology, educators will be able to assess not only students’ fluency, but also their understanding – right in Reading Progress. Educators will be able to provide students with access to the questions prior to reading if they wish, a scaffolding strategy that can help students learn to read with purpose. The auto-grading capabilities of Microsoft Forms Quizzes will also be included to streamline grading of multiple-choice questions. We expect to have comprehension questions in private testing in late spring of 2023.
When: Q2 of 2023
5. Reading Coach in Immersive Reader for Teams Assignments
Last year, Reading Coach launched as part of Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams. Reading Coach provides students with personalized and independent practice based on words that Reading Progress identifies a student has mispronounced. Reading Coach has proven to be popular not only with educators, but especially with students. We’ve heard stories from teachers of students “demanding more passages” from the teacher, and that they’ve set personal goals of improvement. To enable students to practice with content that aligns with their interests and focus, without the need for a teacher to make an assignment in Teams, we are rolling out Reading Coach as part of Immersive Reader in many of our M365 apps, including Microsoft Teams Assignments, Word for web, OneNote and Flip. Many more are coming soon!
When: Available Now, more apps coming in March and April 2023
6. Automatic lowering of hand in a meeting (preview)
It’s common in meetings for people to forget that their virtual hand is raised, and often times a raised hand will be left raised indefinitely. With this new update, users who raise their hand in a Teams meeting and then speak, will see a notification informing them that their hand will automatically be lowered. The notification will allow them to keep their hand raised if they choose to.
When: Coming in Q2, 2023
7. New Teams Webinar Experience
An updated Webinar experience has been fully rolled out! By enabling the new webinar experience, you can use meeting registration and many new webinar features, such as:
- Dedicated event and registration page
- Co-organizers
- Presenter bios on the event page
- Registration status overview and management
Read more about the new features in Get started with Teams webinars.
When: Available Now
8. @ Mention everyone in the chat
Similar to how you can mention individuals in chat, you will soon have the option for “Everyone”. After typing @, you will see the same people results you see today, but a new option, “Everyone” will be available. By selecting “Everyone” and sending the message, a notification will be sent to all users in the group chat based on their selected notification settings.
When: March 2023
9. Education Templates for Teams Meetings
When you want to organize a meeting for online or hybrid learning—like a science class, history class or an exam marking meeting—education meeting templates let you automatically create the experience that’s right for you. With meeting templates, the meeting options will already be set, ensuring meetings adhere to your organization’s best practices and policies.
Two new templates are included for education; Class, built for younger students where student safety is crucial, and Lecture, built for older students where collaboration is key.
Learn more about using education templates for Teams meetings.
When: Available Now
10. Loop component support in Microsoft Whiteboard
Loop components support in Microsoft Whiteboard is rolling out to all our end-users as we speak! The below mentioned functionalities will be supported:
- Live copy/paste any existing Loop component to & from Whiteboard & other MS365 applications and edit them in line with changes saved across all instances in real-time.
- Add different content types (such as dates, comments, tables, task lists etc.) with content manipulation functionalities (such as text formatting, adding, editing & deleting rows, columns & tasks etc.)
- @mention users with email notifications
For more details about Loop components, read First things to know about Loop components.
When: Currently rolling out & slated to be available for all users by mid/end-Feb 2023
11. Save and share templates in Microsoft Whiteboard
Saving and sharing templates in Microsoft Whiteboard now allows educators to save and share templates, providing a more efficient and streamlined way of creating whiteboards in the classroom. This new feature enables teachers to create and save customized layouts and content, perfect for those who frequently use similar whiteboards or have a preferred layout that they use as a starting point. These templates can be shared with other teachers or with their students.
When: Rolling out Mid-February 2023
And finally, just to recap all the news we have for you this month, here’s a quick review of all the features that are generally available or are rolling out now:
1. Classwork in Microsoft Teams
- Bringing together and organizing a student’s course resources
2. New Updates to Grading
- Weighted grading categories
- Showing average grades to students
3. Search Coach in Teams
- Helps educators and students develop information literacy skills by forming effective queries and identifying reliable resources
4. Reading Progress – Comprehension questions
- A new tool to help educators to assess not only students’ fluency, but also their understanding – right in Reading Progress
5. Reading Coach in Immersive Reader for Teams Assignments
- Enabling students to practice with content that aligns with their interests and focus, without the need for a teacher to make an assignment in Teams
6. Automatic lowering of hand in a meeting (in preview)
- New feature to provide users who raise their hand in a Teams meeting and then speak, a notification informing them that their hand will automatically be lowered
7. New Teams Webinar Experience
- Available now – Learn more at Get started with Teams webinars
8. “@ Mention” everyone in a Teams chat
9. Education Templates for Teams Meetings
10. Loop component support in Microsoft Whiteboard
11. Save and share templates in Microsoft Whiteboard
Have feedback or ideas to share? As always, we’d love to hear it!
We are always looking to improve the education experience in Teams, and our favorite way to do that is with your support and innovative ideas! If there is something you would like to see in Teams for Education, please let us know!