Tips for Teaching in Flexible Education Classrooms
- Greg Shortt
Analytics
As educational environments evolve, flexible classrooms offer a dynamic and interactive space that accommodates both in-person and remote learners. This tip-sheet provides essential suggestions and best practices to help you effectively navigate and utilize the technology and resources available in these innovative learning spaces. Whether you're setting up before class, engaging students with multimedia presentations, or facilitating group activities, these tips will ensure a seamless and productive teaching experience. Let's explore how you can make the most of your flexible classroom setup.
Before Class:
Schedule a Teams meeting for your class and have a link in your D2L shell.
Save any materials you want to share with your students to your OneDrive (PowerPoint presentations, OneNote files, etc.).
Encourage everyone who attends in person to bring a device and a headset with a microphone.
Setting up in Class
Restart the computer (sometimes the cameras are not recognized, and restarting is the easiest possible fix).
Open Microsoft Teams.
Set your status to Do Not Disturb.
Choose the Computer Audio.
Start the recording.
Teaching with PowerPoint Slides
Click on ‘Share Content’.
Choose your presentation from the PowerPoint Live section (you may need to browse OneDrive to locate the file).
Choose your preferred presentation settings. Click the three dots below the slide to alter the view that students in class will see on the projector screen and determine whether you want students to be able to advance at their own pace. Tip: Students can click those dots and translate slides into many languages which may be helpful for students who are not English First Language speakers.
Using this mode, you can mark up your slides while you teach, and students will see those annotations. These annotations will not be captured in a recording of the meeting.
Choose your preferred camera angle by clicking on the three dots that will appear when you hover over your image in the bottom right corner. You cannot select a specific camera; you have to toggle through until you find the one you want to use.
o The camera on the podium is intended to give a view of the classroom. You might want to choose this option if you move around the room while you teach.
o The camera on the podium can be turned to face you which will give a closer view of you as the presenter. Choose this option if you don’t move far from the podium while you present and want to be visible to remote students and in the recording.
o The camera in the front of the room will give a view of the projector screen/board area. Choose this option if you want to point to aspects of the slides while you present. Note that this will be quite small for remote participants, and you will need to lower the overhead lights to increase visibility.
o The camera at the back of the room gives a wide-angle view, choose this option if you move around the room and don’t need to point to items on the slides or want to be able to see people doing something at the front of the room.
There may be a delay in the audio for people who have joined remotely. Plan for a pause when asking a question or switching slides quickly.
If you want to exit the presentation to see everyone on screen, click “Stop presenting” Teams will now give you the option to resume where you left off in the presentation.
Writing on the Board
Mute the projector.
Keep the Teams meeting running on the desktop.
Choose the camera mounted on the ceiling closest to the board. Do this by clicking on the three dots that will appear when you hover over your image in the bottom right corner. You cannot select a specific camera; you have to toggle through until you find the one you want to use.
Write on the board printing large enough for people at the back of the room to see.
Projecting from an iPad
Keep the Teams meeting running on the desktop.
Press Apple TV on the podium console.
Choose Airplay from your iPad.
Enter the Code that appears on the screen.
Project the content you want to share.
Break out Rooms
We encourage the mixing of students between the in-person and remote learners.
To do that everyone in the room will need to have earbuds with a microphone.
If that isn’t possible in-class folks without that technology can exit the Teams meeting to discuss in person and then re-join.
You may also want to view our video on Getting Started in a Flexible Classroom that walks through the podium and projector settings.