SERC moving online!

This week saw SERC’s move to online teaching and working with over 200 staff joining online workshops and webinars through Microsoft Teams as well as individual online help and support. A dedicated team of pedagogy mentors from SERC’s Learning Academy have been supporting teaching and non-teaching staff as they transition to working fully in an online environment.

The Microsoft Teams platform has been used extensively, with all courses and programmes having Microsoft Team channels for communication, learning, and hosting of resources through the embedding of the Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) in Teams. SERC have been using Moodle as a virtual learning environment for over ten years, and having seen it accessed over 5 million times each year, it is not surprising that the transition to fully online delivery has been relatively smooth.

This near-seamless transition for our students as they move from face-to-face learning to online-connected learning, saw teaching teams hosting live classes, with students joining from their homes, accessing learning content and connecting with their classmates and teachers in a live online environment. SERC have been using the Office 365 suite to collaborate and share information, and supplementing this with a wide range of engaging EdTech tools, such as Padlet, PollEverywhere, Kahoot, Quizizz, Learningapps.org and Mentimeter.  The Microsoft suite of programmes has offered accessible content for all, making use of live captions, automated transcripts for videos, and the Immersive reader, which has useful features such as ‘Read-aloud’ and ‘translations’.

Students have commented that they are enjoying being able to stay connected to their teachers and classmates, and that their learning can stay on track.

“I began with some asynchronous teaching through Teams with the students working through some questions and I was then able to move into synchronous activities, asking questions on Teams. We then had a 1.25hrs live virtual lesson in Teams using the Meet Now function, integrating Nearpod and ending with a Kahoot! quiz. The sessions went very well and I had 100% attendance.” Tutor comment  

“We had a great research activity coming together in the collaborate spaces. I screen shared PowerPoint through Microsoft Teams. I'm really encouraged at how engaged the adults were! We had a great check in with them at the beginning of class where they all took turn for 3 mins each to express how they feel, what’s happening in their worlds and what they are looking forward to? This helped to settle them in and feel part of the online class.” Tutor comment.

“Microsoft Teams is working really well for us, live classes and Class Notebook with Moodle embedded. All the students are confidently engaging with the resources.  They are also definitely learning through MS Teams and there is good engagement.” Tutor comment.