Kevin Spoor

Return to: ETAP 623 Spring 2021 (Byrne) | my mini-course: Microsoft Teams as a Power User

About Me

I have been fortunate to find teaching as a vocation later in my life, after having the opportunity to see what I did not want to do with other employment paths. After about eighteen years of offering video production services, I started teaching in the Career and Technical Education (CTE) classroom working with students that struggled in a typical learning environment. Preparing students for college was a challenge that I enjoyed, helping the senior students create "portable" digital website portfolios.

I then was employed at a private Catholic school instructing kindergarten through seniors (basically, everyone in the school), delivering the International Baccalaureate® Visual Art Diploma Programme.

I am now working five miles away from my home at the public school with middle and high school students. Over the past two years, I have started a new Art elective in my building, Digital Art and Animation, for students interested in using Photoshop.

Topic

Learning Microsoft Teams can require a steep learning curve, this mini-course is designed to provide focused how-to information for anyone with a basic working knowledge allowing them the ability to operate Teams as a Power User.

Purpose

As Larson and Lockee (2020) identified, specific learning outcomes improve intentional learning at a disadvantage of lowering incidental learning. The design of this mini-course is to foster exploration with Microsoft Teams to support learning. As a result, many of the learning objectives are defined as a learning goal, allowing the learner to determine appropriate personalized outcomes.

Scope of Learning Outcomes and Content

Learn

...how Microsoft Teams focuses on collaboration as priority number one.

...about how Teams is an application under constant development and the update schedule.

...why using Teams requires becoming familiar with the vocabulary and jargon incorporated.

...how Teams reviewed, out of 5 stars, from the lens of a classroom support application

Create

...a strong class presence with the use of features and options within Teams.

...a visual hierarchy with your Team names that allows you to find your classes easily.

...archives of completed year-end courses for storing all information associated with your Team.

...an understanding of the various methods for providing feedback to your student.

Understand

...how to find anything within the information organized and stored by Teams with the Command Bar.

...the use of keyboard shortcuts for actual Power User actions that speed up standard tasks.

...how to create and capture video-specific tips and hacks.

...why joining a learning community on Facebook allows you to move forward with the confidence you may continue learning after completing this course.

Needs Assessment

The availability of technology to assist instructors in presenting information to students can positively impact content delivery. Adopted by many school districts is one solution provided by Microsoft Corporation called Teams. Defined by its developer, Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform within the Microsoft 365 family of products. Although not explicitly created for classroom learning, this platform is secure as it includes many features that help protect device connections and individual user data from untrusted outside sources.

Many of the business features transfer directly within the learning environment, including but not limited to;

Teams and channels
Both voice and text conversation support within the individual channels and teams
Chat function
Document storage and sharing (whole group or individually) in SharePoint
Online video calling and screen sharing
Scheduling of online meetings

As a response to the information learned and shared in the ETAP 623 - Systematic Design of Instruction course, I plan to create an engaging mini-course that should offer opportunities to push the learner's current understanding regarding Teams higher to a more confident level.

I have incorporated breadcrumb navigation that will allow the learner to identify their mini-course location precisely. This navigation also includes an estimated time remaining for the current Unit completion.

For example,

You Are Here > Unit Number: Unit Title - your estimated completion time is

Analysis of the Learner and Context

My learner profile includes the teacher or facilitator of classroom content organized for a specials program; art, music, band, and gym. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many school districts have chosen to use the Teams platform to connect classroom content with the enrolled students. I will assume that many learners have a basic to higher than average knowledge of using Teams with students. I want to offer a lens supporting Teams' use in a non-traditionally electronic delivery system for both accountability and assessing student learning.

As such, I am hopeful that the learner knows the basic steps for creating a class. Therefore, I will not waste my learner's time covering simple functions, instead proposing setup discussions and identified features to support student learning.

I feel that my learner will have an above-average intelligence with the support of state-required certification for the content area taught. This should allow me to focus on the design methods rather than re-considering vocabulary choices to "explain" the stated learning outcomes' purpose or intentions.

As an instructor, I am confident that my learner finds value in sharing with other teachers and will support the socio-cultural factor that establishes collaborative knowledge practices initiated and sustained through knowledge-building activities (Chen, Hong, 2016) like that offered with a membership to a Facebook group created to facilitate after course completion learning.

*I updated the Teams logo for member association.*

Specifically, the context of this learning will happen online. For supporting a learner community growth principle, as described by Bielaczyc and Collins (1999), the community needs to maximize all members' knowledge, allowing individuals to gain new understanding and share among themselves. I plan to accomplish this by including a Facebook page: Teams 4 Specials, allowing all learners of this mini-course to share among themselves asynchronously.

To support a metacognitive principle, I will use a checklist document built into the learning design to promote understanding, identify what is known and unknown, and reflect further on learned content (Bielaczyc, Collins, 1999).

Performance-Based Objectives

Upon completing this mini-course, the learner will complete the following :

How to take Teams to the next level of performance through the use of keyboard shortcuts and the use of the integrated Command Bar
Understand how to encourage learning through providing authentic feedback using one of the various methods Teams supports - whole class, private individual, small private groups, and feedback on the student assignment artifact through an application like Word.
Examine available features and options within Teams and understand the use for the content requirements
Utilize a learning community with other instructors focusing on the integration of Microsoft Teams within a teaching environment

Curriculum Map

The learning units and sequence to achieve my mini-course objectives.

Unit 1 - A History about Microsoft Teams

Start of Teams?
More Than Chat
Update Schedule

Unit 1.1 - Teams, What is This?

Basic Vocabulary
Jargon Explained

Unit 1.2 - Teams Reviewed

Unit 2 - Using Teams

Why Use Teams in a Classroom?
10 Things to Look out for

Unit 2.1 - Teams Class List Actions

Reorder Classes
Hide Unused Classes
Archive Completed Classes
Restore a Previously Archived Class

Unit 2.2 - Providing Feedback

Post (whole class)
Chat (private)
Mark Up (on student work)
Private Student Channel

Unit 3 - What is Next?

Command Bar Search
Keyboard Shortcuts
Microsoft Teams UserVoice

Unit 3.1 - Video Specific Tips

Unit 3.2 - Join a Learning Community

References

Bielaczyc, K., & Collins, A. (1999). Learning communities in classrooms: A reconceptualization of educational practice.

Chen, B., & Hong, H. (2016). Schools as Knowledge-Building Organizations: Thirty Years of Design Research. Educational Psychologist, 51(2), 266–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2016.1175306

Larson, M. B., and Lockee, B. B. (2020) Streamlined ID: A Practical Guide to Instructional Design. New York, NY: Routledge.