Welcome to our monthly update for Teams for Education and thank you so much for being part of our growing community! We’ve been working on some great new updates that we’re excited to share with you, so here’s what’s new this month. Enjoy!
October Topics
1. New Features in Assignments
2. Feature Updates in Classwork
3. User Experience Updates in Reflect
4. Insights Improvements for Learning Accelerators
1. Assignments
Mark your student as Excused from an Assignment
There are several reasons a student might need to be excused from an assignment completely - including school trips, being sick, leaving a class, or even dropping a low grade. We are excited to share that we have recently implemented a feature called Mark as Excused that allows you to mark one or more students as excused from any assignment anywhere you can currently Return or Return for Revision. This new functionality simplifies the process of managing student assignments and ensures greater flexibility in addressing individual student needs.
When: Rolling out in October
Importing your Grade and Assignment Settings
We've recently introduced new settings to Assignments and Grades like Grading Categories and Alternative Grading Schemes and now we're making it easier to reuse your settings across different classes with Import Settings. To access this feature, navigate to the Assignment and Grade Settings within the Assignments or Grade App in Teams. Once there, you can utilize Import Settings, which will automatically analyze your source class and replicate all relevant settings in your destination class. We hope this will make setting up your Teams Classes more seamless and efficient.
When: Available now
Updated Insights Reports for Alternative Grading Schemes
With the introduction of the new Grading Schemes feature, we have made corresponding updates to both the Insights Reports for Assignments and the trend reports accessible to both educators and students via the gradebook. To enable students to access the Insights Report navigate to Grade settings. These settings are also covered by the Import Settings feature.
When: Rolling out in October
New Turn-in Celebrations for students
Who doesn't appreciate a little extra fun when they've completed their assignments? We've enhanced the Turn-in celebrations with some brand new 3-D experiences for students when they submit their work. If you're a teacher and would like to experience these celebrations for yourself, you can opt to submit work on behalf of a student to give them a try. Below are some examples for you to preview:
When: Rolling out in October
Updated Camera for Assignments and Classwork
You can add video recordings directly in Assignments and Classwork and we’ve made some great updates to the camera. The camera now has easy access to audio only, support for virtual backgrounds, new presenter views, as well as support for filters, stickers, ink and text. Educators can access the camera to create content in Classwork or Assignments, and also to give students video feedback when grading. Students can access the camera from their work in Assignments to turn in video assignments.
When: Rolling out in October
2. Classwork
OneNote Section Support
You asked and we listened! In Classwork, you can now add a whole Class Notebook section to your module instead of just individual pages. Sharing a section instead of individual pages will help save valuable space in your modules and make a simpler experience for your students.
When: Rolling out now
OneNote Page previews
In both Classwork and Assignments, you will now see a preview of a OneNote page before adding, allowing you to ensure you’re sharing the right content with your students.
When: Rolling out now
Reuse of Modules
Coming later this calendar year, you will be able to reuse your modules between Class Teams. Whether you are looking to teach the same class again, are teaching multiple instances of a class, or want to hand off curriculum to another educator, Classwork will allow you to easily reuse content. Simply make sure you are an owner of the Class Team the content is coming from, and then click “Reuse from existing” in the new Team.
When: Coming in Q4 2023
3. Reflect
New student homepage in Reflect
We are excited to introduce a new homepage for students in Reflect.
Research has shown that taking a moment to pause, reflect, and incorporating short brain breaks during study or work sessions yields tangible benefits. These processes help to reduce stress, anxiety, and frustration while helping students sharpen their focus and enhance overall productivity.
On the enhanced homepage, we've made it easy – students can respond to check-ins, explore and reflect on their mood trends over time, and take a brain break with our curated collection of short, inclusive activities designed to promote mental fitness, refresh the mind, and refocus.
When: Rolling out now, with many new activities coming during October.
Improved experience for Staff Team
We've enhanced the Reflect experience for our Staff team, providing greater control over privacy settings when checking in with your colleagues. If you're not sure what to check in about, explore check-in ideas in our new gallery, curated by educators for educators based on research and their school experiences.
Social and emotional learning isn't just for kids. Evidence shows that teachers with higher levels of social-emotional competence have more effective classroom management, better retention, and higher academic achievement in their students. With Reflect in the Staff team, you can take the temperature of your school ecosystem and ensure that educators' own needs are being met so they can invest the best of themselves in teaching.
When: Rolling out now
4. Insights updates for Learning Accelerators
Clickable cards in Reading Progress
One of the key benefits of using Reading Progress is the ability to automatically capture and track how students are improving on their reading. This way educators can provide each student with the personal support they need in their reading, based on each student’s own achievements and challenges. For that, we added new clickable cards in the context of reading progress grading experience, which enable educators to track each of their students’ reading speed, accuracy, and prosody across reading assignments. Furthermore, the educator can continue to review the full class progress directly from there.
When: Rolling out during October
Search Progress Insights
Clickable Insights cards are now available in the grading view for Search Progress assignments! Educators can use the “Compare to Class” button to get a cross-sectional view of class search habits, amongst many other helpful scenarios.
With this Insights data, it becomes much more straightforward to identify which learners are ahead, which are on track, and which will need more assistance. You can also use Insights to have deeper conversations with learners about their specific search habits, and to better tune future assignments to the needs of your class.
When: Available now
5. General Teams Updates
Town Halls
Introducing Town Hall, a new experience to host and deliver large-scale, internal events to create connections across an institution. Town halls will provide a one-to-many format with advanced production capabilities and a structured approach for attendee engagement.
Town halls will replace Teams Live Events, which will fully retire by September 30, 2024. Learn more about town halls here.
Basic capabilities in town hall are available in Office 365 and Microsoft 365 A3/A5 plans, while advanced capabilities in town hall are available in Teams Premium.
When: Rolling out in October
And finally, just to recap all the news we have for you this month, here’s a quick review of all the features that are generally available or are rolling out now:
1. Assignments
- Mark as excused
- Import Assignment and Grades settings
- Alternate Grading Scheme Insights
- New Turn in Celebrations
- Updated Camera for Assignments and Classwork
2. Classwork
- OneNote Sections
- OneNote Preview Pages
- Reuse
3. Reflect
- Student Home Page improvements
- Staff Experience updates
4. Insights updates for Learning Accelerators
- Clickable Insights cards in Reading Progress
- Search Progress Insights
5. General Teams Updates
- Townhalls replacing Teams Live Events
Have any feedback to share with us? As always, we'd love to hear it!
We are always looking to improve the education experience in Teams, and our favorite way to do that is with your support and awesome ideas! If there is something you would like to see in Teams for Education, please let us know!