Computer Science and Engineering Department

Instructor Notes - Setting up Microsoft Teams

Background

This course will use Microsoft Teams for course discussions, Q&A with the instructor, and student conversations with their teams. As an instructor, one of your more important roles is to be present in this forum. That doesn't mean you need to answer every question, because it's even better if the students answer each other's questions. But, they need to know that you are there, and that their questions are not being lost into a black hole.

In addition, you will have some responsibility for getting the class team up and running initially.

Installing Microsoft Teams

You should download and install the desktop application but may also download the mobile application to stay more connected. After downloading and installing Teams, you should log in using your BYU-Idaho email.

Creating a Microsoft Teams team

Once you have installed Teams, you need to create a new team for your section. There should be one team per section of the course. The following are the general steps to set up your section's team:

  1. In the Teams app, click on the "Teams" button on the left side of the app.

  2. At the bottom of the Teams tab, click "Join or create a team".

  3. Click on "Create a team", then choose "Class" as the team type.

  4. For the team name, please use this convention: course-semester-section, such as: cse341-21s-02, which would be CSE 341, Spring 2021, Section 02.

  5. On the "Add people..." screen, you are welcome to gather the email addresses of your students and add them to the team. Alternatively, after you create the team, you can provide a link to join the team to your students in an email or announcement.

  6. After the organization has been created, your students can sign up themselves at a url like the following: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3ay...
    (Get a link to the team by clicking on the three dots next to the team name in the Teams tab.)

Creating Initial Channels

Microsoft Teams teams organize discussions into channels. By default, each new team has a General channel. Most class-wide discussion should take place in this channel. You may also create additional channels, such as Help and Icebreaker.

Having too many channels makes it difficult for people to know where conversations are occurring, so it is suggested you restrict general discussions to General and Help channels and only add extra channels for special purposes, such as project pitches or other discussion-based assignments.

Private Team Channels

Once teams have formed, students can create their own private team channels, or you, in the can create channels for each team. Use names such as Team-01, Team-02, etc... If students create their own private channels, let them know they should invite you to their channel so you can help monitor their team discussions.

Announcing Teams in the Course

Once the Microsoft Teams team has been created, you need to tell the students about it and give them instructions for how to sign up. The most important things to tell them are that:

In addition, to ensure that students are aware that the course discussion is occurring in Teams, for each of the first three weeks, after posting a weekly introduction to Teams, please post an announcement in I-Learn reminding the students to go look at Teams for this introduction as well as other discussions.

Using Teams vs. Announcements and Email

While Teams will be the primary vehicle for course discussion and coordination, I-Learn announcements and email have important roles as well.

Teams

Teams should be used for Q&A about the course and it's topics. This is ideal for discussion about the weekly topics and assignments. In addition, students should be encouraged to use Teams for all of their team discussions and as the primary way to contact the instructor.

You can respond to a specific student by prefixing their Teams user name with the @ symbol. This will send a notification to whatever device they've used to sign up for Teams. It is customary to reply to direct questions from students in this fashion.

In addition, you can send a notification to the entire class by posting in the General channel and addressing the message to @general.

Finally, anytime you post to a private channel, every member of that channel is notified by default.

Announcements

I-Learn Announcements should be used for any official course business or announcements, such as changing the due dates or the scope of assignments. You should consider Teams as the medium for discussion, but Announcements the avenue for core, official business.

Email

Email should be used for any sensitive or personal communication with an individual student. For example, a discussion about plagiarism or directly trying to contact a student that has not been responsive to their teammates, or is missing assignments. Email is the official medium of communication recognized by the university for university business.