Microsoft Teams use case: Teaching and Learning

Note: There is a ‘sub-use case’ for online courses below.

Applicable to 

• Lecturers needing to set up a Microsoft Team to collaborate with each other remotely and with students around teaching and learning (ensuring that this is complementary to Vula or Amathuba but not overlapping with its learning management system role).
• Students wanting to use Teams for group work.

When to use 

When you need an online collaboration space for lecturers and students within a department/programme.
(Note: Ensure that it complements and doesn't overlap with Vula or Amathuba)

Description 

Lecturers and students using Microsoft Teams to facilitate communication, collaborate, share notes, discuss projects, assist each other, and for online meetings and group work.

Recommended tools and tabs  

Recommended tools

Icon	Tool	Used for:
	Stream	Manage recordings of meetings up until August 2021 Note: Permissions to meeting recordings should be managed to ensure that they are only made available to those authorised to access them.
	OneDrive for Business	Managing standard meeting recordings as of September 2021 Note: Permissions to meeting recordings should be managed to ensure that they are only made available to those authorised to access them.
	SharePoint	Managing channel meeting recordings as of September 2021 Note: Permissions to meeting recordings should be managed to ensure that they are only made available to those authorised to access them.
	Wiki	Document proceedings during or after meetings
	Whiteboard	Brainstorm during discussions or workshops
	OneNote	Take informal/formal notes during or after meetings
	Polly	Quick informal polls during committee/group meetings Gauge member views quickly and provide a report within the meeting
	Microsoft Forms	More comprehensive, formal and/or extended surveys/questionnaires to be sent to the committee/group outside of meetings
	Website	See Tabs recommended section below Note: Only secure links (i.e. HTTPS) may be added.

 

Recommended tabs 

Examples of tabs that might be useful or applicable to different departments or areas.

Note: Only secure links (i.e. HTTPS) may be added.  

Department	Title	Used for:
All academic departments	Vula and Amathuba (specific Vula or Amathuba site applicable to course/programme)	Learning management
All academic departments	UCT Libraries	Quick access to PRIMO for searching for academic resources
Other	<other links to websites>	Providing resources/information to support the activities of students outside of those provided by Microsoft Teams

Recommended channels

Examples of channels for academic staff 

Channels should be created based on the academic staff group’s specific needs (such as topic, discipline, or subject). However, examples of types of channels that could be created are:  

• General channel for general discussions, operations, miscellaneous items 

• Course administration private channel 

• Tutor private channel

• Channel per programme/module/stream/course 

• Private channel for private collaboration or discussions between selected members of department or facilitating student group work (a limit of up to 30 private channels)

 

Good practices for using channels 

Selected good practices are listed below, but for a full list, please see the Channels section in the Good practices guide for Microsoft Teams.  

Area	Practice/s
Channel names	Use a reliable and agreed naming convention for channels that will be sustainable in the long run within the team.
Permissions in channels	Meeting permissions in channels can be set to limit and manage access to meeting recordings to ensure that only those permitted to access recordings can do so.
Private channels	Use private channels in committees for private discussions between two or more members of the team.

 

Features 

This list contains features that are available in Teams to better manage your workspace.

• Confidentiality and security 

• Communications and chat outside of meetings (using Posts tab) 

• In meetings 

• Hand raise 

• Chat 

• Attendance count 

• Meeting roles 

• Meeting recordings 

• Manage meetings documentation 

• Engaging with external parties/guests 

 

Related tips, tricks and FAQs 

• Orientation: Getting to know the Teams user interface 

• Microsoft Teams best practices guidelines 

• Setting up your new Team (creating an icon, name, setting up channels, etc.) 

• Tips and tricks 

• Teams at UCT 

• Engaging with communication methods within and to Teams (announcements, @mentions, emails to channels or individuals, etc.) 

• Creating and using private channels

•  Meetings FAQ

  –     Manage your meetings using Teams

  –     Meeting roles

  –     Permissions

• Organising your list of Teams (ordering, pinning, hiding) 

• Adding Tools/apps to the sidebar 

• Using the Microsoft Help feature within Teams 

• Using your Activity feed within Teams 

• Finding information within Teams 

• Archiving an expired team 

• Creating an iCal item

• Comparison between functionality of the browser-based Teams app and the mobile Teams app and the client app. 

Get help

• Log an incident
• Log a live events fault
• Create a live event
• Restore a deleted team
• Restore a deleted channel
• Add a team co-owner
• Assign an administrator to a team without an admin or owner
• Request training

Microsoft Teams use case: 1.1: Online short courses

Applicable to

Short course administrators and facilitators needing to set up Microsoft Teams to facilitate short online courses, etc.

When to use

Use when you need an online learning platform for facilitating online short courses and online collaboration.

Description

Platform for presenting and facilitating online short courses/seminars/presentations, etc.

Recommended tools and tabs

Recommended tools

Recommended tabs 

Examples of tabs that might be useful or applicable to different departments or areas.

Note: Only secure links (i.e. HTTPS) may be added.

Department	Title	Used for:
All academic departments	UCT Libraries	Quick access to PRIMO for searching for academic resources
Other	<other links to websites>	Providing resources/information to support the activities of students outside of those provided by Microsoft Teams

Recommended channels

Examples of Channels for academic staff

Channels should be created based on the academic staff group’s specific needs (such as by topic, discipline, or subject). However, examples of types of channels that you could create are:

• General channel for general discussions, operations, miscellaneous items
• Course administration private channel
• Channel per programme/module/stream/course
• Private channel for private collaboration or discussions between selected members of department

Good practices for using channels

Selected good practices are listed above, but for a full list, please see the Channels section in the Good practices guide for Microsoft Teams. 

Features

See: Features in use case above.

Related tips, tricks and FAQs

See: Related tips, tricks and FAQs in use case above.