{"id":896,"date":"2021-01-19T12:27:29","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T12:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/?p=896"},"modified":"2021-01-19T12:29:51","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T12:29:51","slug":"bringing-teams-together-for-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/bringing-teams-together-for-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Teams together for Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

King\u2019s Summer\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Programmes<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0delivers pre-university and undergraduate-level summer school courses to students from around the world, as well as creating study abroad experiences for year-round King\u2019s students. The emergency deployment of online provision in 2020 posed particular challenges to provide our style of educational experience for students, and the effective use of\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Microsoft\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Teams helped to deliver this <\/span><\/span>in addition to a lot of hard work and dedication from tutors and professional services colleagues \u2013 in this blog I\u2019m going to focus on Teams though.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Summer education brings the best of King\u2019s research-enhanced education to students from King\u2019s worldwide partners and elsewhere, in partnership with our fantastic tutors from a wide variety of departments and schools throughout the university. However, Summer education also necessarily has its own distinctive\u00a0<\/span>flavour<\/span>\u00a0due to its short\u00a0<\/span>timespan<\/span>, varied student groups and position outside of \u2018typical\u2019 degree\u00a0<\/span>programmes<\/span>.<\/span> \"Student<\/span><\/p>\n

Our courses are generally two or three weeks and consist of a wide international mix of students who have never met before. In June 2020, we were among the first in the university to deliver courses to new student groups (as opposed to shifting existing cohorts into online-only teaching), and it was of paramount importance for us to maintain the intensity and community spirit that\u00a0<\/span>characterise<\/span>\u00a0summer education. We felt that students needed as much real-time interaction as possible and to feel that they were in a shared space\u00a0<\/span>which they could help shape.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Summer Programmes have always made use of\u00a0<\/span>KEATS<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>even when on campus, and in 2020 were lucky to be able to use the OPEE design system to deliver a polished and responsive learning environment. However, due to concerns above, we also wanted to make use of a Team for each student group (as oppo<\/span>sed to simply using Teams Meetings for live classes).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The various channels meant that students could connect outside of class time, ask questions and get quick updates, chat and share their thoughts, and generally feel that they had a shared space rather than a\u00a0<\/span>teacher-designed<\/span>\u00a0VLE.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span> \"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

There was an administrative burden to this, in terms of monitoring and moderating channels, managing enrolments, providing additional induction and generally being on hand to solve technical problems at all hours. It was the online equivalent of our office in the\u00a0<\/span>Strand campus<\/span>, which in a \u2018normal\u2019 summer is a hive of student inquiry and support.<\/span>\u00a0Lots of the lessons we learned dealing with problems on an ad-hoc basis can now be\u00a0<\/span>formalised<\/span>\u00a0into processes for future online courses.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For our\u00a0<\/span><\/span>particular brand<\/span><\/span> of intensive summer programmes, <\/span><\/span>using Teams in the way outlined above<\/span><\/span> was really successful. Using KEATS and Teams Meetings alone, we would have struggled to replicate some of the highly participative, collegial elements of Summer courses which are so important to us.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Useful Links:<\/h3>\n