Instructors and meeting organizers:
Follow these tips to effectively lead your online class sessions or meetings.

Before the meeting  

• When scheduling an impromptu Teams meeting, keep in mind that your participants may be in different time zones. Share an agenda and materials in advance to allow participants to prepare.
• Make sure your Teams meeting is secure. Learn about Teams meeting settings to prevent videoconference bombing. And consider Teams channel meetings for confidential sessions.
• If a student, meeting attendee or guest speaker contacts you about how to join your Teams meeting, see how to copy and send the "Join Microsoft Teams meeting" link and details.
• If you are sharing documents during the online class session/meeting, have slideshows, web pages and other files readily available — such as in a clearly named folder on your desktop.
• Instructors: For pre-recorded audio or video, the Department of Digital Learning recommends that you share these files in advance as links via D2L, Teams channel conversation or email.
• Make a Microsoft Teams test call to confirm that your mic, speaker and camera are working before joining the meeting. As part of the test, confirm your camera angle is good. A well-lit room helps with camera image quality. But avoid having a bright light source or window behind you when on camera.
• To limit distractions, close non-essential applications that might prompt you with notifications.

Join and start the meeting  

• See the steps for joining a Microsoft Teams meeting.
• Turn on your camera so participants can see you and pick up on non-verbal cues.
• Upon joining the meeting, Teams offers a blur-your-background setting and image backgrounds for privacy (and creativity). If you do not see background settings, make sure you are using the desktop application and not a web browser.
• Follow these steps to change your background during the Teams meeting.
• If you use the Mute all function, let participants know. Muting all participants quiets side-talking so all can focus. Mute all also can quickly silence loud background noises from a participant. 
• By default, attendees can unmute themselves after the instructor or meeting organizer mutes all. See how to prevent unmuting by attendees as the instructor or meeting organizer.
• Remind participants/students to use the Raise Hand icon and watch for raise hand notifications on screen. 
• If appropriate, start recording the meeting. Those who missed the meeting can watch the video, and attendees can review the recording.
• Consider asking a participant to serve as scribe and take meeting notes in Teams.
• When others are speaking, mute your mic to prevent background noise.

Share content during the meeting  

• Note that you can use the meeting chat to share file attachments and links and create polls.
• When you screen share a PowerPoint, the recent PowerPoints list might not show the slideshow you need. Select Browse > Upload from my Computer to navigate to your PowerPoint.
• Use the file sharing and editing features of Microsoft Teams to co-author content in the meeting.
• Use Planner in Teams to share/assign tasks from the meeting.
• When presenting a shared PowerPoint, you can prevent others from skipping ahead. Click or tap the eye icon at the top of the meeting window to keep students and participants from moving through the shared presentation on their own.

Leave the meeting  

• Microsoft Teams will alert you when five minutes remain until the end of the meeting. Take a moment to wrap up, covering upcoming class deadlines or staff meeting action items.
• If you are presenting shared content, click or tap stop presenting.
• If you are recording the meeting, be sure to stop recording. Click or tap the three-dots icon. From the menu, select "Stop Recording." You will be asked to confirm. Click or tap Stop Recording.
• From the meeting controls, click or tap Leave meeting.

After the meeting  

• If needed, download an attendance report.
• If you recorded the meeting, access the meeting recording and spot check the video for any playback issues.
• For Teams channel meetings, all Team members will see a channel post with any recorded videos and meeting notes. 

Questions?

Please contact the IT Services Help Desk for questions about Microsoft Teams.