Engage and empower students
Active learning strategies create thinkers and assist educators in scaffolding learning experiences and opportunities for students. Microsoft Teams meetings has several ways to get students involved during live meetings, including live reactions with emojis such as thumbs up, raise hands, give applause, and laugh. Educators use live reactions to quickly and visually poll students for responses.
In Teams Meetings, educators use Forms for surveys, polls, and more comprehensive questions for students to answer. Educators also use customized virtual backgrounds with written directions and procedures or work samples to assist students in constructing better understandings and sharing with others. In addition, bringing students together virtually in one place using Together Mode and inside large gallery view promotes community and shared experiences for students and educators alike.
A primary educator introduces a new unit on Antarctica by creating and displaying custom backgrounds images of Antarctica, dressing in winter weather clothing, and role-playing what it might be like for students to visit. Students are encouraged to discuss or find objects in their environment they may want to take to Antarctica. The educator even uses the snowy scene together mode to encourage sensory thinking as the students imagine what it is like to live in the cold climate. The educator then displays a new background with instructions and posts them in the meeting chat, so students have various modes to get the information and comment.
An important part of empowering all students is ensuring that all learners have tools that help to access text. Students who use Microsoft Edge browser to open Schoology courses and pages can open Immersive Reader from within Edge. Immersive Reader is a special view of the content that gives the reader options to modify the way the text is presented on the page. Immersive Reader also includes read aloud, picture dictionary, and translation features.
An intermediate educator assigns a science article to build background knowledge about habitats around the world before students participate in a virtual field trip. Because the article is not leveled, some of the students may struggle to read the text to themselves ahead of time. The students use Edge browser on their devices, so the educator reminds the students to use the Read Aloud feature to listen to the text if they prefer. One student opens Line View to focus on small pieces of the text at a time. Some students choose to translate words within the text to support their growing language vocabulary. With Immersive Reader, these students can be prepared for the virtual field trip and feel independently empowered to access information at a variety of levels.