Microsoft Teams is an industry-based software that facilitates collaboration, from chat, discussion, team meetings, artefact generation, and project management. As we have transitioned teaching and learning online, we have seen a significant increase in the amount of Microsoft Teams that have been created in this space. As a result, there is a lot of information from many different sources, so we are consolidating this information in one space to support you in your implementation of Microsoft Teams for teaching and learning.

Discussion forums are important avenues for connection and learning, even more so this trimester when many students are studying online for the first time. The key to active discussion forums is ensuring that students benefit from their engagement with the discussions, clarifying and deepening their understanding and engaging with different ideas and perspectives. We’ve previously shared tips for getting the discussion started in the first few weeks but how do you progress and extend the discussion as the trimester progresses?

Zoom has seen an unprecedented uptake of their service and as a result there has been several incidences where cybercriminals look for vulnerabilities in the system. To mitigate the risk of this happening we have created guidelines around the settings to ensure third parties cannot access your content. 

Many academic and professional staff are on the frontline when it comes to supporting, guiding and enabling students to be successful through their university journey, both academically and personally. Students may approach staff when they’re struggling with personal difficulties – from relationship problems to mental health issues – that fall outside your area of expertise. It can be challenging to know how, or even if, to assist the student and where to direct them for professional help. As part of Deakin’s ongoing commitment to prioritising the health and wellbeing of our entire University community, we’re launching an online staff Student Support and Referral resource.

We have certainly heard from some students that the move to online is suiting them! As expected though, we have needed to address some practical barriers for students, and many are experiencing higher than usual levels of stress, anxiety and uncertainty. This is there for all of us of course, but for some students with disability, health and mental health conditions it can be exacerbated. We thought we would share a few examples.

We’re all working on pretty tight timelines at the moment. Sometimes we just need to work with what we’ve got so we can spend the time we do have on other tasks, like transitioning our assessments or interactive sessions online. If you have access to previous class recordings, you may be able to reuse these rather than re-recording new ones.

Moving practical and laboratory classes online is a particular challenge for many teaching teams, especially where specialised equipment or materials are required. Depending on your context and the learning objectives, you may be able to move some or all of your practical classes online.

Synchronous sessions are a great opportunity to provide active learning experiences for students in the online environment. Regardless of the software you select, synchronous sessions can: create a sense of connection within the cohort; enable students to apply key concepts to different activities; allow for ‘real-time’ feedback from students and teachers; and provide a rich interactive learning experience.