Intro

This post was written to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about Microsoft Teams for Education. I plan to update with new questions and answers, as well as when changes to the service are applied, or new functionality hits general availability. If you have suggestions for improvements (like everyone else I do make mistakes) or questions and answers, please reach out.

Meetings

Q: How can I keep students from muting me or kicking each other out of the meeting?

A: Make sure students are attendees rather than presenters to gain more control over the meeting.

Support article – Quick tip video

Pro tip! A new option in Teams meeting policies now allow admins to control who can present in new Teams meetings by default.

Q: I would like to play a YouTube video during a Teams meeting, how can I make sure that students get the audio?

A: When sharing in Teams you should have the option to Include System Audio

Support article – Quick tip video

Q: I would love to see my students during remote learning, but how can I ensure the privacy of others who might show up in the camera view?

A: Participants can enable background effects when joining the meeting or during the meeting by pressing CTRL+Shift+P or clicking … (More options) followed by Show background effects.

Support article – Quick tip video

Q: How can I make sure students focus on my video during a call?

A: You can use the new Spotlight feature to spotlight yourself, a student or someone else in the meeting. Students can also right click the the video and select Pin.

Quick tip

Q: I need to keep track of what students were attending my remote class, where can I find that info?

A: If enabled the Meeting Attendance Report should be available in the meeting chat for the meeting organizer shortly after the meeting has ended.

Q: What can students do in order to get the teachers attention during a video call?

A: Students can use the raise hand feature.

Quick tip

Q: I can’t find the Calendar app in the app bar on the left, how can I enable it?

A: The Calendar app requires that the users mailbox is in Exchange Online or that IT has configured a supported hybrid setup with Exchange 2016 CU3 or later.

Chat & conversations

Q: How can I keep students from chatting amongst themselves?

A: IT can assign a messaging policy in order to disable chat for students. Keep in mind that this will also disable 1:1 chat between those students and their teachers. If you wish to block unsupervised chat between students but still allow for student:teacher chat, take a look at Supervised Chat. Teachers can also mute students from channel conversations in a class team.

Docs article – Quick tip

Q: How can I create a quiz or a poll for students in Teams?

A: One option is to open the Posts tab in a channel in the class team, and choose Forms from the messaging extensions below the “start new conversation” area. In a private meeting you can also add the Forms app to the meeting for a more interactive and engaging experience.

Support article – Quick tip

Files

Q: How can I sync the files area with my computer?

A: You can sync files using OneDrive by opening the files tab and choosing Sync.

Blog post

Teams and channels

Q: I’m in many teams, how do I rearrange the list in order to get those that are most important to me on top?

A: Click and drag any team to reorder the teams list. You can also pin individual channels by clicking More options … next to the channel and selecting Pin.

Support article