The Copilot Scenario Library for education is a great place to start for finding ideas on how to integrate AI into your daily workflow. It offers easy to follow day-in-the-life examples tailored to your role in education. Whether you’re designing personalized lesson content, collaborating with colleagues, or communicating with families, Copilot helps you save time and focus on supporting student success.

Additional Copilot Scenario Libraries provide targeted guidance and even more day-in-the-life examples:

• IT Management – Strengthen cybersecurity and optimize device management.
• Communications – Craft engaging content and improve communication.
• Operations – Boost efficiency in planning, reporting, and scheduling.
• Accessibility – Enhance digital accessibility and create inclusive environments.

Leverage these useful resources to get inspired and support success across your institution with Copilot.

Copilot Chat: Your AI assistant for education

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is the AI chat experience you can use every day. It’s powered by broad knowledge from the web, built on the latest AI models, and designed to be safe and secure. Copilot Chat includes free, secure AI chat powered by GPT-4o, agents accessible right in the chat, and IT controls, including enterprise data protection and agent management. In addition, pay-as-you-go agents are available through Copilot Chat.

While Copilot Chat is an excellent starting point for integrating AI into your day-to-day workflow, Microsoft 365 Copilot offers all the features of Copilot Chat and additional capabilities to transform educational experiences. Integrated into the apps you use every day, Copilot combines the power of the latest AI models with your institutional data—documents, presentations, emails, meetings, chats, and more—plus the web to deliver relevant responses with sources.

Schools using Copilot have seen tangible benefits. In fact, educators in Brisbane, Australia, reported saving an average of 9.3 hours per week on routine tasks. The time saved is especially crucial in a profession where burnout is a common challenge. As St Francis College Principal John Marinucci highlights, Copilot can transform education by streamlining administrative tasks that often overwhelm educators. This means teachers can now devote more energy and time to their core mission—helping students be successful.

Simplify daily tasks with Copilot Chat

From lesson planning to school operations, Copilot Chat can help you be more productive. Whether you’re personalizing instruction, gathering resources, communicating with stakeholders, or rolling out new technology, Copilot Chat simplifies everyday tasks—so you can focus on what matters most: helping students thrive. Let’s explore how Copilot Chat can assist you.

K-12 educator: Differentiate lesson plans

Personalizing instruction takes time, but Copilot Chat can help you adapt lesson plans faster. Quickly adjust activities by specifying accommodations, instructional strategies, and student needs. Try this sample prompt:

Adapt this text for a student who is struggling with reading. Address vocabulary issues, identify and define words to practice, and explain figurative language. Include a list of 5 corresponding comprehension questions. Here’s the original text: [copy and paste text]

K-12 special education assistant: Find appropriate resources for each student

Special education assistants and support staff work with students across multiple classrooms. Copilot Chat can streamline resource collection by helping you plan your day ahead and suggesting materials based on your input. Spend less time searching and more time supporting students.

Education leader: Communicate clearly with staff, families, and students

From morning greetings to school board updates, effective communication is essential for education leaders. Copilot Chat helps you draft clear, professional messages, so you can keep staff, families, and school communities informed without spending hours crafting communication.

IT professional: Create an onboarding plan

When introducing new technology, instructional coaches and IT leaders often need a structured rollout plan. Use Copilot Chat to create onboarding guides, find training resources, and outline step-by-step implementation plans. It can save hours of planning time while ensuring a smooth transition for staff and students.

Take it even further with Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot builds on the capabilities of Copilot Chat by connecting with your institutional data and is available in the apps you use every day. Whether you’re summarizing your day in Outlook, adapting lesson plans in Word, or analyzing data in Excel, Copilot can streamline your workflow—helping you stay organized, informed, and more efficient. Let’s explore how Copilot can further assist you.

K-12 educator: Prepare for meetings with families

Meeting with families is essential to supporting student growth, but preparing for these conversations takes time. With Copilot in PowerPoint, you can generate meeting-ready presentations that include key details—then customize them for each student. Reuse and remix templates to streamline your prep work and keep meetings focused.

K-12 special education assistant: Review and adapt lesson plans with ease

Collaboration between educators is key to supporting diverse learning needs, but time constraints often make it difficult to quickly review materials and provide feedback. Copilot in Word can help you streamline review of educator lesson plans in the context of individual student needs. You can then ask Copilot to suggest differentiated learning activities and adjust formative assessments to meet the needs of each student.

Education leader: Analysis and insights from budgets

Education leaders make strategic financial decisions to support student learning. Copilot in Excel helps track spending, identify variances, and optimize budgets. Need a quick analysis? Ask Copilot to insert a budget variance column, so you can easily spot trends and reallocate funds where they’re needed most.

IT professional: Align IT solutions with school priorities

IT teams play a vital role in keeping schools running smoothly. Copilot in Word helps you draft strategy documents that align IT solutions and projects with school and district goals—making it easier to secure approvals and drive long-term success.

Find your inspiration

Copilot is your AI assistant for everyday tasks—helping you support student learning outcomes, boost productivity, and save time. No matter your role, Copilot can help securely empower everyone at your institution, making it easier to work smarter and stay organized. Explore the Copilot Scenario Library for education for inspiration and prompts that you can start using today.

You can also use Copilot to find inspiration. For example, you could write a prompt explaining your role and what you need help with. Then, ask Copilot for use cases or examples of how others in similar roles have used AI to improve their daily workflow. This way, you can discover new ways to use AI to enhance your work, streamline your tasks, and achieve your goals with greater ease and creativity.

To help you and your team build competency with AI and Copilot, check out the Microsoft 363 Copilot learning path which walks you through the basics of Copilot.

The post Scenarios for success: Streamlining everyday tasks in education with Microsoft 365 Copilot appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

There’s a strong opportunity to boost understanding and use AI more intentionally through professional learning and thoughtful practices. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to refine your AI capabilities, we have free training and resources to help you build AI skills and integrate AI in meaningful and responsible ways. Get started by exploring our curated list of resources to help you and your students develop AI literacy skills.

Develop your AI literacy with professional learning

To support meaningful AI integration in education, it’s important to engage in professional development opportunities that build foundational knowledge. Explore these free learning resources designed to deepen your expertise and give you the tools to incorporate AI into your classroom:

• AI for educators learning path – Use this foundational training on Microsoft Learn to enhance your AI literacy and explore how to integrate AI into your classroom.
• AI skills for educators – Jump-start your AI skilling through free training courses and programs like the Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert global professional learning community.
• AI for education resources and learning opportunities – Discover resources and courses on how to use AI for education with Microsoft.
• Microsoft Education AI Toolkit – Access a collection of AI resources, research, and best practices for education leaders to support AI adoption in schools.

By engaging with these resources, you’ll build confidence in using AI and discover innovative ways to support student learning and save time. Continue growing your expertise by experimenting with AI tools and collaborating with peers to share best practices.

Grow your skillset with the Microsoft AI Skills Fest

Join the Microsoft AI Skills Fest to build your skills and stay ahead. No matter your role in education, the AI Skills Fest offers experiences tailored to your needs. Engage in deep dives, experiential content, hackathons, and practical sessions that will enhance your AI skills over 50 days of discovery and learning, starting April 8, 2025.

Additionally, we can make history together while attempting a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS^TM title for most users to take an online multi-level artificial intelligence lesson in 24 hours. It’s easy: Join us on April 8, build your skills, test your knowledge, and attest your participation. We’ll kick things off on April 7 at 23:00 UTC (9:00 AM AEST) and conclude on April 8 at 23:00 UTC (16:00 PDT), with learning events scheduled around the globe. Participate in this unique opportunity to learn, compete, and celebrate your achievements!

Enhance teaching and learning with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat enhances teaching and learning by helping you simplify administrative tasks, personalize learning, and enhance creativity. Learn how you can maximize the potential of AI in education with the following Copilot Chat resources:

• Enhance teaching and learning with Copilot Chat – Explore using Copilot Chat in education by learning basic concepts and features and then applying that knowledge to design effective prompts and analyze results.
• Copilot Chat resources for education – Find resources to help you, your team, and your institution get started with Copilot Chat.
• Meet your AI assistant for education – Delve into this blog post to help you get started with Copilot Chat to write prompts and generate images.

These materials will help you integrate Copilot Chat into your daily workflows and create more engaging learning experiences. Keep exploring new ways to leverage AI-powered tools to personalize instruction, prepare students for the future, and save time on your routine tasks.

Improve your students’ AI literacy

Building students’ AI literacy is essential to preparing them for the future. Use these pre-planned lessons and immersive experiences to demonstrate AI concepts while fostering critical thinking and responsible AI use:

• AI Foundations – Discover a set of accessible, engaging materials for building AI literacy with Minecraft. The program is designed to empower students, educators, and families with a fundamental understanding of how AI works and how to use AI tools responsibly.
• CyberSafe AI: Dig Deeper – Help students develop responsible AI habits by exploring academic integrity, human oversight, and data privacy in this engaging Minecraft world.
• AI Classroom Toolkit – Access lesson plans, activities, and teaching strategies for students ages 13-15 to introduce AI literacy into your classroom.

By incorporating these experiences into your curriculum, you’ll empower students to understand and interact with AI responsibly. Encourage continued learning by fostering discussions about the role of AI in society and the importance of human-centered skills for future careers.

Build a solid foundation with online safety

Empowering students and their families to support informed choices about their online activity is crucial, especially in the context of generative AI. As students engage with AI, it’s important that they have the skills to stay safe and make informed decisions. In 2024, we launched a Family Safety Toolkit which provides guidance on how to use Microsoft’s safety features and family safety settings. This toolkit supports and enhances digital parenting and offers guidance for families looking to navigate the world of generative AI together.

Take the opportunity to build your AI skills on National AI Literacy Day and continue to enhance them throughout the year. By embracing AI literacy, you can empower yourself and your students to confidently navigate the evolving digital landscape. Get started with our free AI literacy resources today to deepen your understanding, integrate AI into your teaching, and prepare your students for the future.

The post Level up your AI skills on National AI Literacy Day appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

This time savings is especially significant in a profession where burnout is all too common. As St Francis College Principal John Marinucci observed, Copilot transforms education by expediting those administrative tasks that often overwhelm educators. The result? Teachers have more energy and time to focus on what brought them to education in the first place—helping students learn and grow.

Your AI assistant for education

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is the AI chat experience you can use every day. It’s powered by broad knowledge from the web, built on the latest AI models, and designed to be safe and secure. Copilot Chat includes free, secure AI chat powered by GPT-4o, agents accessible right in the chat, and IT controls, including enterprise data protection and agent management. In addition, pay-as-you-go agents are available for Microsoft 365 education customers through Copilot Chat.

Moving forward, educational institutions will have a mix of Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot. While Copilot Chat is an excellent starting point for integrating AI into your day-to-day workflow, Microsoft 365 Copilot offers all the features of Copilot Chat and additional capabilities to transform educational experiences. Integrated into the apps you use every day, Microsoft 365 Copilot combines the power of the latest AI models with your data—documents, presentations, emails, meetings, chats, and more—plus the web to deliver relevant responses with sources.

Smart help across your apps

Unlike other AI tools, Copilot works within your Microsoft 365 environment to provide contextually relevant assistance.

• In Word, you can draft and refine documents—such as lesson plans and reports—in seconds that might otherwise take hours.
• In PowerPoint, you can transform basic content into engaging visual presentations that are tailored to your needs.
• In Excel, you can analyze data and identify patterns that inform instructional and policy decisions—without complex formula creation.
• In Outlook, you can more easily manage communications by drafting clear messages and summarizing important information from lengthy email threads.
• In Microsoft Teams, you can capture key points from meetings, organize action items, and help manage collaborative projects more efficiently.
• Copilot Chat turns your organizational content into a rich database of information and insight, enabling you to collaborate with Copilot like a partner to perform tasks in a single interface.
• Use agents to make Copilot your own. Easily build an agent right in Copilot Chat or SharePoint with agent builder and explore agents pre-built for you.

Copilot is your AI assistant that frees up time for what matters most and transforms education experiences, bringing opportunity to life through customization.

Enhancing efficiency with Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot helps you balance strategic vision with day-to-day operations. Copilot puts thousands of skills at your command and can reason over all your content and context to take on any task using natural language—freeing you to focus on what matters most.

Data-driven decision making

Educational leadership increasingly demands evidence-based approaches to resource allocation, program evaluation, and strategic planning. Copilot helps you analyze complex data sets, identify meaningful patterns, and communicate your findings effectively to various stakeholders.

Try these prompts:

• Analyze this attendance data spreadsheet and identify any concerning patterns or trends that might require intervention.
• Summarize the key findings from our quarterly assessment data and suggest three to five focus areas based on the results.
• Write a data-informed narrative for our school board presentation that explains our resource allocation decisions for next year.

Streamlining admin tasks and communication

Education leaders often manage extensive communications, creating and reviewing documentation, and coordinating across departments. By using Copilot to streamline these tasks, you can spend less time on paperwork and more time on the people-focused aspects of leadership.

Try these prompts:

• Create a template for our weekly staff communication that includes sections for celebrations, important dates, and professional development opportunities.
• Help me organize this folder of policy documents by creating an executive summary of each document with key points highlighted.
• Draft a grant proposal outline based on our school improvement goals and the requirements in this funding announcement.

Preparing presentations

School leaders need to process large amounts of data and present findings in clear, impactful ways to support decision-making. Copilot can transform how you analyze and communicate educational data, helping you create meaningful visualizations and distill complex information into actionable insights that drive improvement.

Try these prompts:

• Help me create a slide that clearly shows the relationship between our new reading program implementation and student achievement scores.
• Build a presentation about our school’s new academic programs and initiatives for tonight’s Alumni Donor event.
• Turn the insights I prepared in this Word document into an 8-10 slide presentation for the conference I’m attending next week.

Classroom-ready prompts for Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat helps you tackle time-consuming and repetitive tasks so you can focus on what matters most. View links to sources, generate images, summarize or analyze files, and more. Get started with Copilot Chat for free with this collection of prompts designed to help you save time by streamlining your daily tasks.

Lesson planning and curriculum development

Creating engaging, standards-aligned lesson plans often requires hours of preparation time. Copilot Chat can generate structured frameworks, differentiate existing content, and help align materials with curriculum standards—all while preserving your unique teaching approach and classroom needs.

Try these prompts:

• Create a 7th-grade science lesson plan on photosynthesis that includes a hands-on activity, digital resources, and assessment options aligned with NGSS standards.
• Transform my lecture notes on algebraic equations into an interactive lesson with think-pair-share activities and real-world application problems.

Assessments and rubrics

Developing varied assessments that accurately measure understanding across different learning levels is challenging and time intensive. Copilot Chat helps you create diverse question types, design clear rubrics, and craft personalized feedback to support student success.

Try these prompts:

• Create a rubric for assessing a persuasive essay from 10th-grade students, with criteria for argument structure, evidence quality, and mechanics.
• Draft three versions of constructive feedback for students who struggle with supporting their arguments with evidence in their history essays.

Content personalization

Educational research consistently shows that addressing different learning styles improves engagement and retention. Copilot Chat helps you transform existing materials to meet different learning needs.

Try these prompts:

• Convert this text explanation of the water cycle into a visual learning aid with minimal text for visual learners.
• Adapt this worksheet on fractions to make it more accessible for students with dyslexia, including font and layout recommendations.

Communication

Clear, consistent communication with caregivers and colleagues is essential but often time-consuming. Copilot Chat helps you craft professional messages, summarize student progress, and prepare for conferences with organized, actionable information.

Try these prompts:

• Help me organize student data from this spreadsheet into a narrative format I can use during parent-teacher conferences, highlighting strengths and growth areas.
• Create a template for weekly classroom updates that I can send to families, with sections for curriculum highlights, upcoming events, and celebration moments.

Get started with Copilot

When introducing Copilot to your institution, consider starting with a small pilot group of educators who can explore its capabilities and develop best practices before you move forward with wider implementation. This approach allows your organization to identify the most valuable use cases and identify training opportunities.

To help you and your team build competency with AI and Copilot, check out these resources:

• AI for educators training resources, a comprehensive collection of professional learning opportunities designed specifically for education professionals.
• The Microsoft Education AI Toolkit, a comprehensive resource to assess AI readiness, build strategies, and implement AI in education. 
• The Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Evaluation Toolkit for Education, a collection of research instruments and resources to help leaders collect insights around Copilot deployment, impact, and use cases.
• The Get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot learning path, which walks you through the basics of Copilot.

Ready to explore how you can transform your workflows with a powerful AI assistant? Get started with Copilot today.

The post Mastering Microsoft 365 Copilot in education appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

We’ll showcase some of the latest product enhancements and features that can help you increase student engagement, refine your instructional techniques, and simplify your workflow. Additionally, we’ll share professional learning opportunities to help you grow and enhance your skills. Let’s dive in and explore some of the latest developments from Microsoft Education.

Simplify your workflow and enhance student engagement

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and agents

We recently introduced Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, an offering that adds pay-as-you-go agents to our existing free chat experience for Microsoft 365 education customers. Copilot Chat is the experience you can use every day—powered by broad knowledge from the web, built on the latest AI models, and designed to be safe and secure. 

You can customize your Copilot Chat experience with AI agents tailored to your specific needs. Simply provide the agent with institutional files—such as a lesson plan template and language usage guidelines—to create specialized assistants, like a “lesson plan agent” that aligns to your institution’s standards.

Advancements in AI

At Bett UK 2025, we announced AI-powered products and resources to help boost your efficiency, expedite your administrative processes, and enhance student engagement. Some highlights include:

• Copilot+ PCs – featuring enhanced security, optimized performance, and AI-integrated experiences. Now with code name Project Spark—our first education-focused Windows 11 app for Copilot+ PC—to bring on-device intelligence to your classroom.
• Microsoft Education AI Toolkit – new resources and updates help leaders deliver safer AI experiences in their schools.
• Minecraft Lesson Crafter – an AI-powered tool that helps you design custom lesson plans in Minecraft Education, while also practicing how to write effective AI prompts.
• Khanmigo for Teachers – provides over 20 free, AI-powered tools to help streamline class prep with no prompting required.
• Khanmigo Writing Coach – designed by educators, it uses AI to make essay writing an interactive experience and provide students with step-by-step guidance without ever writing a word for them.

Learning Accelerators and Teams Assignments updates

Help your students build foundational and future-ready skills with Learning Accelerators, a set of learning tools included in Microsoft 365 Education. Support ongoing improvement and give your students more opportunities to learn, practice, and receive targeted coaching instantly in an inclusive environment. Check out some of the latest updates to Learning Accelerators:

• Reading Coach is now available as a free, standalone app. Explore how Reading Coach helps students build reading fluency with AI-powered reading practice.
• Math Progress is now available with Microsoft Teams for Education, making it easier for you to create math problems, track student performance, and identify learning needs.
• Speaker Progress now allows students to upload their own PowerPoints and provides real-time feedback on their presentation skills like pacing, pitch, and body language. Also, more languages are now available in Speaker Progress, including Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean.
• Teams Assignments are now integrated with Blackboard by Anthology—bringing Learning Accelerators, MakeCode projects, Reflect check-ins, and other tools directly into the learning management system (LMS).

Whether you’re helping students become more confident readers, strengthening math skills, or improving public speaking, these updates make it easier to support student learning and engagement.

Dig Deeper into the world of AI with Minecraft

The CyberSafe series from Minecraft Education uses game-based learning to help students boost their digital citizenship skills. In the latest installment, CyberSafe AI: Dig Deeper, learners develop skills to use AI tools responsibly by tackling real-world challenges and exploring questions of academic integrity, human oversight, data privacy, and deepfakes. Discover this fun Minecraft world and empower your students to think critically and use AI responsibly.

Stay ahead with professional learning opportunities

Level up cybersecurity curriculum with MSLE

Bringing AI, cybersecurity, and digital safety into the classroom is easier with the right support. The Microsoft Learn for Educators (MSLE) program offers professional learning opportunities that help you integrate these important topics into your teaching with confidence. The MSLE Cybersecurity and AI Bootcamp provides:

• Train-the-trainer sessions led by Microsoft experts.
• Flexible resources to help you incorporate AI and cybersecurity into any subject area.
• Support for preparing students for Microsoft Certification exams.

With expert guidance and ready-to-use resources, this program helps you equip students with the knowledge they need for the future.

Tap into possibilities for innovation

Inspiring a new generation of learners

Microsoft welcomed nearly 30,000 Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts (MIEE) and 600 Microsoft Showcase Schools (SCS) for the 2024-2025 academic year. These educators and schools are leading the way in enhancing learning through technology, and they’re poised to make an even greater impact in the year ahead. Interested in joining these inspiring communities? Learn more about the programs and details about the nomination process for each.

Education pricing for Microsoft 365 Archive

In today’s digital landscape, educational institutions require strong information management to fully leverage AI. Effective information governance helps ensure that AI applications use accurate, complete, and reliable data to generate meaningful insights and improve outcomes. Microsoft 365 Archive can help you manage your data and is now available for qualifying education tenants at education pricing.

Whether you want to try new ways to engage your students, boost your professional learning, or tap into possibilities for innovation at your school, Microsoft Education has tools and experiences for you to explore. Dive in and get started today!

The post Amplify learning with updates from Microsoft Education appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Pi Day not only highlights the importance of this fundamental concept but also serves as a reminder of the beauty and wonder of mathematics. Whether students are exploring fractions through the new Minecraft Education world Ratio Riddles or geometry through PiCraft, building skills with Math Progress, or engaging with activities you designed with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, find creative and innovative ways to make math more meaningful for Pi Day 2025.

Solve Ratio Riddles with Minecraft and Cambridge Mathematics

Ratio Riddles, a brand-new mathematics lesson from Minecraft Education, introduces the concepts of ratio, proportion, fractions, and scale through a series of three engaging games designed for students ages 8-14. This is an easy-to-teach lesson designed to engage learners in foundational mathematics principles while fostering curiosity and confidence.

• Help the Professor of Cartography rescue students from the gardens using fractions.
• Assist the Guild Master with the installation of new stained-glass windows using scale factors.
• Compete in the Professor of Alchemy’s well-diving challenge by using ratios to concoct powerful potions.

Made in collaboration with Cambridge Mathematics and accompanied by lesson guides, Ratio Riddles makes these essential mathematics concepts concrete and fun! For educators new to teaching with Minecraft Education, explore more easy math lessons and resources.

Immerse students in the world of math

As Pi Day approaches, we invite educators, students, and families to embark on an educational adventure with PiCraft! This student workbook offers a unique blend of gaming and learning that transforms the abstract concept of pi into a tangible, interactive experience. By engaging in activities such as estimating and calculating the area of a circle within the Minecraft universe, students can grasp the practical applications of pi in geometry. This hands-on approach demystifies complex mathematical concepts, making learning both accessible and enjoyable.

Designed for students ages 8-14, PiCraft encourages critical thinking and problem-solving through immersive challenges. Along the way, students also learn coding with Microsoft MakeCode, applying mathematical concepts through block-based or Python programming. Easily integrate these activities into your Pi Day lesson plans and encourage students to explore math in a dynamic, engaging way.

Personalize math practice with Math Progress

Bring engaging math practice to your classroom on Pi Day and throughout the year. Math Progress, a powerful Learning Accelerator, streamlines math assignment creation, provides student performance insights, and helps educators determine course trends at the student or class level. With Math Progress, you can tailor your teaching strategies and differentiate instruction to support student success. Get started with Math Progress with Microsoft Teams for Education and use it to assign personalized math problems to your students.

Math Progress offers access to:

• Problem generator – Easily create sets of math problems based on specific concepts or assign custom problems tailored to your class needs.
• Customizable assignments – Personalize assignments by allowing students to “Show their work,” requesting they upload images or links to OneNote pages to demonstrate their problem-solving process.
• Real-time feedback – Students can work through problem sets at their own pace, receiving immediate guidance to reinforce key concepts and address common mistakes.
• Performance insights – Access powerful insights at both the student and class level to prepare for upcoming math topics with student performance data, misconceptions, and the most frequent question difficulty ratings.
• Inclusive learning – Math Progress is available in over 80 languages, making it easily accessible to a diverse population of learners.

Immerse students in deliberate practice with real-time coaching on key math concepts—while streamlining and simplifying lesson planning. Use Math Progress to help your students improve math fluency, build confidence, and celebrate their progress.

Enhance math instruction with assistance from Copilot Chat

Pi Day is a great time to reimagine math instruction, and enriching your math lessons doesn’t have to stop there. Copilot Chat can be your math instructional assistant year-round. Whether brainstorming creative activities, solving complex problems, or generating fun math challenges, Copilot Chat can help you make learning more interactive.

Take your math instruction to the next level with support from generative AI. Try these customizable Copilot Chat prompts to spark curiosity, reinforce key concepts, and make learning more engaging throughout the year:

• Explain how [math concept] is used in real life, especially in [industry or career]. Provide examples that students in [grade level] can relate to.
• Suggest interactive, hands-on activities to teach [math topic], using [list available classroom materials or technology].
• Give me three thought-provoking questions to start a class discussion on [math concept].
• Create a math challenge in which I ask students questions about [topic], and students must answer before receiving the next clue or question in a fun, game-like format.
• Create a problem based on [math topic] with a common mistake and generate a question I can ask students to identify and correct the error, explaining their reasoning.

Refine your responses by providing more details in the prompts or selecting questions suggested by Copilot Chat. Interested in learning more about prompting? Check out five prompting tips to get more from your AI assistant.  

For Pi Day 2025, explore math in fun and engaging ways with your students. Bring essential math concepts to life with Ratio Riddles, PiCraft, Math Progress, and Copilot Chat. Create impactful learning opportunities that inspire curiosity and confidence in your students, making Pi Day—and every day—a journey of discovery and encouragement in mathematics.

The post Design interactive Pi Day activities with Ratio Riddles, PiCraft, and Math Progress appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

To help you bring these stories to life in your classroom to celebrate Women’s History Month 2025, check out our list of tools and resources that will help make learning more meaningful and engaging. Students can explore the triumphs of strong, female leaders in Minecraft Education, learn valuable information literacy and presentation skills with Learning Accelerators, and discover contributions of local women through lessons you create with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. These tools help inspire curiosity, support critical thinking, and connect students to the powerful stories of women who have shaped our world.

1. Experience the courage of Hispanic women in LatinExplorers 2

Introduce your students to a remarkable group of Hispanic women who have shaped their communities and the world. With Minecraft Education’s LatinExplorers 2, created in partnership with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, students will discover how Gloria Estefan, Ellen Ochoa, and Monica Ramirez made an impact through music, science, and advocacy. Along the way, they’ll develop leadership skills, build empathy, and learn how to tackle challenges—just like these fearless women.

Classroom connection: Before getting started, explore supporting files on the LatinExplorers 2 webpage. You’ll find an educator guide to help facilitate the experience in your classroom, along with a toolkit for using LatinExplorers 2 at a family event.

2. Walk in the shoes of Noble laureates

Conflict resolution is a critical leadership skill, and Minecraft Education’s Peace Builders lesson helps students develop their capacity to deal with problems through real-world examples. In this immersive experience, created in partnership with the Nobel Peace Center, students meet four Nobel Peace Prize laureates who addressed global conflicts in unique ways—including Jody Williams who worked tirelessly to ban landmines in post-war Cambodia. Through Williams’ story and other peace builders, students will explore strategies to prevent and resolve conflict, strengthening their ability to lead with empathy and action.

Classroom connection: Check out the supporting files and use the Jody Williams Class PowerPoint to introduce important concepts and guide your students in creating their own campaign to address issues that matter to them.

3. Introduce strong female role models with Lessons in Good Trouble

Inspire your students to become catalysts for positive change in their community by learning from civil rights leaders like Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzai, and Emmeline Pankhurst in Minecraft Education’s Lessons in Good Trouble. In this experience, your students will work alongside outspoken activists to understand historic periods when women were denied educational opportunities and voting rights. The courageous women in Lessons in Good Trouble demonstrate how peaceful activism can challenge injustices and create a more equitable society for everyone.

Classroom connection: Enhance your students’ learning by making Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzai, or Emmeline Pankhurst the focus of a research project. Use a Learning Accelerator such as Search Progress or Search Coach to help take their learning to the next level.

4. Research influential women with Search Progress and Search Coach

Extend learning beyond Women’s History Month while helping your students build essential digital literacy skills with Search Progress and Search Coach, two Learning Accelerators. An assignment in Search Progress empowers students to find, evaluate, and use credible online sources to develop critical information literacy skills along the way. And, both tools make it easy to track student learning in real-time.

For example, you might create a Search Progress assignment that asks students to research Emmeline Pankhurst’s contributions to the women’s suffrage movement. Using Search Coach, your students receive real-time feedback on their queries, helping them to refine their research strategies while building background knowledge on this influential leader.

To get started with Search Progress and Search Coach, explore these resources:

• A quick guide to Search Progress
• A quick guide to Search Coach
• A guide to Search Progress for educators
• A guide to Search Coach for educators
• Search Progress and Search Coach learning module

5. Practice presenting with Speaker Progress and Speaker Coach

Help students share their Women’s History Month learning by creating a PowerPoint and practicing their presentation skills with Speaker Progress and Speaker Coach, two Learning Accelerators. Use Speaker Progress to create presentation assignments and track your students’ growth at the individual, class, grade, and school levels. Then have your students use Speaker Coach to complete the assignment, while receiving real-time, AI-powered feedback on pacing, pitch, clarity and more.

To integrate Minecraft Education learning with presentation assignments, have students create a PowerPoint on ways to increase diversity just as Ellen Ochoa modeled in LatinExplorers 2. They can practice their delivery in a private space with Speaker Coach, helping to boost their confidence as they strengthen their communication skills.

Get the most out of Speaker Progress and Speaker Coach with these resources:

• A quick guide to Speaker Progress
• A quick guide to Speaker Coach
• A guide to Speaker Progress for educators
• A guide to Speaker Coach for educators
• Speaker Progress learning module

6. Expand on Women’s History Month with Copilot Chat

Copilot Chat can help you create classroom materials, activities, and lessons tailored to Women’s History Month topics or even more of your students’ interests. Use generative AI to streamline lesson planning by copying and pasting one of these ready-to-use prompts into Copilot Chat:

• Generate a list of five women from [geographic area or country] who have made significant contributions in the past [two decades]. Include a paragraph on their achievements, challenges, and leadership. Include an engaging activity for students in [grade level] that requires them to explore information in an interactive way.
• Write an oral reading passage about Jody Williams, detailing her Nobel-prize winning accomplishments. The passage should be at a [700L] Lexile level and under [number] words. Provide three comprehension questions for a [grade level] student.

Make sure to check out “Meet your AI assistant for education” to discover more ways Copilot Chat can help you personalize learning, support brainstorming, provide feedback, and more.

From Minecraft Education experiences with women leaders to Learning Accelerators that help students practice their skills, find an activity that will make Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day 2025 memorable and inspiring for your students. Start inspiring the next generation of leaders in your classroom today!

The post 6 ways to inspire future leaders during Women’s History Month appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

SEL helps create an inclusive environment where every student can feel valued and respected, playing a crucial role in promoting equity in education. Microsoft Education is committed to helping educators build experiences that support SEL. Discover SEL activities, curriculum, and professional learning opportunities that offer innovative ways to help students develop a growth mindset, understand their emotions, and build a foundation for success.

Essential academic and career skills

SEL is proven to favorably impact academic outcomes and provide several life-long benefits to individuals, communities, and economies. When students engage in SEL, they not only improve academically but also build essential life skills like resilience, empathy, and collaboration. This helps create learning environments where all students feel seen, heard, and supported—laying the groundwork for equitable access for educational success.

Social-emotional skills are crucial to ensuring students are set up for success—both in the classroom and in their future careers. Our emotions act as gatekeepers to cognition, motivation, and attention, and [they] impact how we navigate our own thoughts and actions and interact with the world around us.

Paige Johnson, Vice President Public Sector, Financial Services and Media, Microsoft

School leaders and educators recognize SEL’s transformative power in enhancing communication, managing emotions, and navigating complex thoughts. These concepts extend beyond the classroom into the workplace. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) identifies self-control, stress resistance, cooperation, sociability, and curiosity as skills that support academic achievement, well-being, and job performance. It’s clear that from the classroom to the workplace, SEL serves as a foundation for equitable opportunities and lifelong achievement.

To learn more about integrating SEL into your classroom, take the learning path in the Microsoft Learn Educator Center.

Explore SEL in your classroom with Reflect

Support your students in developing essential social, emotional, and academic skills using Reflect. This Learning Accelerator offers opportunities for every student to feel heard while developing skills to identify, understand, and manage emotions. Reflect provides access to:

• Intentional emotional check-ins: Quickly survey students about their feelings and help them develop their emotional vocabulary with age-appropriate reflection.
• Ready-to-use activities: Explore a variety of fun activities for you and your students to practice well-being skills.
• Data-driven insights: Understand the emotional patterns and needs for each student and the whole class so you can better support their well-being and academic success.
• Easy access and seamless integration: Access Reflect through your web browser (sign in required), via the Windows app, Microsoft Teams for Education, and through integrations into learning management systems (LMS) like Canvas, Schoology, Moodle, Blackboard Learn, and more.

Easily set up regular check-ins and access a wide range of activities to support SEL with Reflect. Engage students in a series of mindful movements that help them unwind, uplift, and reconnect during stressful times. Explore SEL themes and skills through engaging stories with nature-themed art activities. Play curated classical music focus timers designed to support a calm learning environment. Get started with Reflect today!

Supporting SEL with innovative solutions

Reflect regularly introduces features and tools to help support SEL skills development, promote equity, and enhance academic success. Reflect Compass is one of the latest tools to help you navigate student check-in results by targeting evidence-based strategies to enhance well-being, engagement, and a sense of belonging. It’s built on the expertise of Challenge Success and grounded in over 20 years of research at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education.

Reflect Compass provides a framework to help you understand recurring themes and patterns in student responses to Reflect check-in questions. You can use it to identify areas of focus for SEL based on student feedback data. Reflect Compasses are designed to work across different types of schools and age groups. They help build SEL into the school community whether you have a formal program you’re using or just beginning your SEL journey.  

To further enhance the understanding and application of SEL data, use the Microsoft Graph API for Reflect. You can create a centralized system for both analyzing and taking action on SEL assessment data from students across your educational organization. Use these data-driven insights to analyze trends and identify gaps, inform district-wide strategies, and design impactful professional development that fosters inclusive, emotionally supportive classrooms.

Explore more ways to use Reflect in your classroom in the learning module in the Microsoft Learn Educator Center.

Foster SEL skills with Minecraft Education

Minecraft Education is a game-based learning platform that promotes skill building, teamwork, and problem-solving. It provides students with a safe space to express themselves, collaborate and practice empathy, and navigate their emotions in a low-stress environment.

The Minecraft Education Social and Emotional learning pathway brings together experiences and challenges designed to help your students develop their SEL skills. Use these activities and worlds as they are, or as a starting point to adapt to your students’ needs.

Get started with Reflect World where your students can practice emotional processing strategies, encourage teamwork, and visualize the representation of emotions to develop empathy and self-awareness.

Explore more SEL experiences in these Minecraft Education lessons:

• Welcome to the community: Build valuable social and emotional skills by processing emotions, sharing, and supporting others through a shared experience. 
• The Mindful Knight: Understand the benefits and basic concepts of mindfulness and encourage students to set aside a few minutes each day to practice. 
• The mystery of the Budokan: Embark on quests to build a better future based on judo’s core values: courage, friendship, self-control, modesty, sincerity, respect, politeness, and honor.

SEL is more than a classroom strategy, it’s a foundation for equitable student opportunities. International SEL Day 2025 is the perfect moment to consider the role of SEL in your classroom and explore activities and curriculum from Microsoft Education. Together, we can foster equitable learning environments that prioritize student well-being and academic success.

The post Social-emotional learning for student success appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

To support leaders in this journey, we continue to update the Microsoft Education AI Toolkit with emerging AI Navigators and comprehensive guidance, helping you assess your AI readiness and build sustainable and scalable strategies. The AI Navigator stories provide a roadmap to help strengthen your approach to AI and prepare students and staff for a future shaped by technology.

Empowering leaders to achieve their goals

Educators and leaders are harnessing the power of AI to help them fulfill their mission. From preparing students with skills for the future to closing equity gaps, improving motivation and engagement, and fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs, AI has become an essential tool in education. Discover how these trailblazers are using Microsoft AI solutions to innovate operations, prepare learners for new opportunities, and shape the future of education.

Auburn University: Exploring new ways of using AI

Recognizing the growing use of AI by students and faculty, Auburn University, Alabama, US, set out to explore how AI could enhance both teaching and research. They saw an opportunity to foster innovation and deepen technological understanding across campus. The university turned to Microsoft and its comprehensive, flexible solutions to develop approaches that would help them move forward and pivot as new technologies emerge. Auburn has embraced AI as part of their campus culture, encouraging students, faculty, and staff to imagine new ways of working by promoting AI literacy, accessibility, and collaboration.

• Improving AI literacy: To help faculty integrate AI confidently into their instruction, Auburn created “Teaching with Artificial Intelligence,” a course designed to improve AI literacy and provide strategies to support student learning. The university also hosted an on-campus event to spark meaningful discussions about the role of AI in education, helping both faculty and students navigate and leverage this transformative technology.
• Expanding secure access: To provide students and faculty with secure access to AI, the university offers Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to students as an academic and professional resource. They also hosted a “build-a-bot” workshop, where attendees learned how to develop their own chatbots using Azure OpenAI Service.
• Empowering innovation: Auburn is beta testing Microsoft 365 Copilot with faculty and staff, using feedback to discover new ways to enhance learning with AI. As they continue to explore the potential of AI, Auburn is committed to experimenting with new Microsoft AI tools and finding ways to make AI an even more valuable part of campus life.

The Education University of Hong Kong Jockey Club Primary School: Amplifying learning potential

To boost student engagement and support teachers with innovative tools, the Education University of Hong Kong Jockey Club Primary School (EdUJCPS) partnered with Microsoft Hong Kong and its Global Training Partner, Gamenoodlesoup Ltd, to reimagine student learning. Using Azure OpenAI Service, they developed chatbots and AI assistants that personalize educational materials, making teaching and learning more interactive, efficient, and student-centered.

• Developing future-ready skills: In STEAM classes, students use generative AI chatbots and image generation tools to design a “sustainable ship,” making learning more interactive and immersive. These AI tools provide instant responses to student questions, fostering continuous dialogue and deeper engagement. By encouraging curiosity and supporting scientific inquiry, these AI-powered interactions help students develop AI literacy and critical thinking skills while sparking creativity.
• Individualizing learning: To support personalized learning, EdUJCPS integrated the “Maths AI Learning Partner” into their lessons, enabling educators to generate individualized math questions and delivering immediate feedback to both students and educators. This helps educators assess comprehension, identify areas for additional practice, and tailor their instruction to each student’s needs.

Tecnológico de Monterrey: Pioneering an AI-powered learning ecosystem

Eager to take control of their AI journey from the start, Tecnológico de Monterrey, a private university in Mexico, took a proactive approach to designing their own AI strategy. Their goal was to personalize education, improve the learning process, boost teachers’ creativity, and save time on tedious tasks. To achieve this, they created TECgpt, a generative AI-powered ecosystem built on Azure OpenAI Service, to gradually transform the learning experience for students and faculty alike.

• Personalizing user experiences: TECgpt provides tailored AI tools to meet different user needs. Some tools are accessible to all employees and students, including a natural language chat that uses internal data to answer questions related to tuition, scholarships, and campus shuttle schedules. A separate set of academic tools is used only by teachers and students, including Skill Studio, which enables professors to create teaching material, and the Academic TECbot and Librarian TECbot, which work as personalized assistants for students.
• Collaborating for efficiency: Professors at Tecnológico de Monterrey are enhancing productivity by creating and sharing “skills” with colleagues through a pre-designed prompting system. This allows faculty to create reusable prompts that save them time on planning. Their goal is to empower all students to produce their own customized prompts based on content provided by their professors.
• Prioritizing security and privacy: TECgpt prioritizes safety by using Azure AI Content Safety to detect and block harmful or inappropriate content in user prompts and AI-generated outputs. For instance, if someone tries to force the tool to generate an incorrect answer, the system is designed to generate an error message.

IU International University of Applied Sciences: Revolutionizing learning

With students studying at different times and in different locations, IU International University of Applied Sciences (IU) needed a solution that would allow students to learn in a way that aligns with their individual needs and preferences. To meet this need, the university developed Syntea, an AI study buddy built on Azure OpenAI Service and designed to deliver a personalized learning experience.

• Boosting student knowledge: Syntea acts as an AI study buddy, providing personalized feedback and targeted practice based on knowledge gaps and exam preparedness. Since introducing the exam trainer, IU students have seen a 27% reduction in the average time required to complete online courses.
• Ensuring flexible learning: Available around the clock and in multiple languages, Syntea provides IU students the flexibility to learn virtually anytime, nearly anywhere. Its seamless integration with applications like IU’s myCampus learning platform and Microsoft Teams makes accessing it even easier.

Advance your AI journey

These AI Navigator stories highlight how education institutions worldwide are leading the way in creating more personalized, efficient, and secure learning environments. From enhancing student engagement to streamlining administrative tasks, these institutions demonstrate why strategic AI adoption is key to shaping the future of education.

Explore more AI Navigator stories and support your AI journey with the Microsoft Education AI Toolkit. Use this comprehensive resource to assess AI readiness, build strategies, and implement AI in education. Whether your institution is just starting out or striving to expand, you’ll find tools and resources you need to confidently advance your AI adoption.

Join the AI Navigators in shaping the future of education. Get started with these additional resources designed to help you navigate your AI journey with confidence and purpose:

• AI for educators learning path: Practical guidance on integrating AI into teaching and learning to enhance student outcomes from Microsoft Learn.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Evaluation Toolkit for Education: A collection of research instruments and resources to help leaders collect insights around Copilot deployment, impact, and use cases.

The post AI Navigators: Exploring the power of possible appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Around the world, the education sector is increasingly targeted by cyberthreats. In fact, education was the third-most targeted industry by cybercriminals in Q2 2024, and the second-most targeted sector by nation-state threat actors in 2024. These attacks often carry devastating consequences, from identity theft to severe breaches across education networks and systems. With the rise of digital learning and the proliferation of connected devices—alongside continually evolving threats—IT departments face a greater challenge to secure digital environments in education.

In the modern threat landscape, it’s important to consider whether your cybersecurity strategy is equipped to help you navigate these challenges. Deploying the most up-to-date devices, software, and operating systems can help close security vulnerabilities and build proactive protection. Windows 11 helps you strengthen your overall security posture, drive greater productivity, and build safer communities for learning, working, and teaching.

Unlock greater productivity while maintaining robust and comprehensive protection

Today, organizations around the world are rethinking their security approaches down to their hardware. Cybersecurity software alone is no longer enough to protect systems as bad actors leverage new technologies and tactics to bypass defenses and access critical resources.

Designed to address education’s most critical cyberthreats, Windows 11 is the most secure version of Windows to date, designed with security built into each level, including:

• Cloud
• Identity
• Application
• Operating system
• Hardware

The default security features of Windows 11 were created based on threat intelligence, global regulatory requirements, and Microsoft Security expertise. Through partnerships with original equipment manufacturers and silicon manufacturers, Windows 11 is designed for greater security starting at the chip level—enabling hardware and software to work together to shrink the organizational attack surface, protect system integrity, and secure institutional data.

To simplify deployment for IT teams, Windows 11 comes with key out-of-the-box features enabled, including:

• Credential safeguards
• Application protection
• Malware shields

It’s also designed to integrate with Microsoft Security Copilot, which leverages generative AI capabilities to provide greater insights and efficiency to help improve security at scale. Windows 11 Pro devices drive a 62% drop in reported security incidents and are shown to accelerate workflows by 50% on average, helping you and your organization achieve more with less time and effort. Let’s take a deeper look at how Windows 11 helps you tackle cybersecurity challenges across different environments.

Application safeguards help keep critical data safe

Windows 11 offers a complete platform for educational institutions to house and protect critical applications such as learning management systems (LMS), administrative software, and productivity tools. Attackers often target poorly secured applications, which is why Windows 11 provides you with built-in capabilities such as preemptive application and driver control to isolate breaches quickly. Robust application safeguards help you maintain governance of your sensitive data, including:

• Student records
• Financial information
• Access credentials
• Research data

Windows 11 is designed to support Zero Trust strategies, which play a key role in helping you strengthen application and operating system protection. This approach is centered around the principles of “verify explicitly, use least privilege access, and assume breach,” meaning that you and your team can verify each access request as though it originated from an uncontrolled network—instead of assuming that everything behind the firewall is safe.

To that end, Windows 11 enables you to more easily find and detect cyberthreats, respond to them, and prevent or block undesired events across your education institution. In the case of a presumed breach, you can combat common application attacks from the moment a device is provisioned. When it comes to network security, granting access within a trust-by-exception policy versus a trust-by-default policy helps better protect the digital security, privacy, and compliance needs of your educational community.

Deliver end-to-end protection with Windows 11 cloud-based device management

With the introduction of more tech solutions, many education institutions face new challenges in managing cybersecurity. Having more devices across school and home environments creates more access points for potential attackers. To get ahead of potential breaches, get started with proactive, end-to-end device management strategies that help protect privacy and security.

Windows 11 helps empower you and your IT team by offering comprehensive cloud services for identity, storage, and access management. Adhering to Zero Trust principles, enforcing compliance, and granting conditional access helps verify that Windows 11 devices connected to an organization’s networks are trustworthy and safe. With more than 90% of ransom-stage cyberattacks leveraging unmanaged devices in a network, interoperable cloud-based device management solutions enable you to secure the digital estate and quickly respond to threats.

Managing and enabling secure use of devices at scale can also be a challenge for IT departments at education institutions. To give you and your team greater visibility and control over their digital estate, Windows 11 offers an integrated management suite. This suite supports comprehensive endpoint management solutions such as Microsoft Intune that help secure, deploy, and manage users, apps, and devices.¹ Intune can further integrate with Microsoft Entra ID to manage security features and processes, including multifactor authentication.

Additionally, Windows Hello enables you to deploy passwordless authentication for a safer and simpler sign-in experience. Thanks to the addition of passkeys, students can enjoy even greater security and convenience by using their face, fingerprint, or PIN to sign in to websites and apps. Enhanced threat detection on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint helps shield devices against phishing and malware and empowers IT teams to thwart attacks before they cause harm.¹ By adding Security Copilot, IT staff can leverage natural language queries to get holistic insights on the security and safety of their organization, which can help drive better decision-making and strategic planning.

Start preparing now for future security protections

In planning your security approach, your institution has an opportunity to adopt modern, secure, and highly efficient computing solutions that help your organization tackle the cybersecurity challenges of today and tomorrow. Windows 11 offers powerful, hardware-backed protection that provides a foundation for implementing new technology solutions as they’re developed, such as AI that helps accelerate workflows and supercharge efficiency of operations.

Now is the time to identify devices in your organization that are due for upgrades and start improving your institution’s security and your IT team’s efficiency today. Get started with these resources:

• Evaluate which of your devices are eligible for updates by reviewing the Windows 11 hardware requirements.
• Join the Windows Insider Program for Business to evaluate your readiness and explore new features.
• Start developing a plan for your organization’s upgrade to Windows 11.

¹ Sold separately from Windows 11

The post Building resilient digital security in education with Windows 11 appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Safer Internet Day 2025 offers us an opportunity to “work together for a better internet” today and throughout the year. Join us to help students improve their digital literacy skills and explore the responsible use of AI with CyberSafe AI: Dig Deeper and other exciting resources.

Dig deeper into the world of AI with Minecraft

Minecraft Education’s CyberSafe series uses game-based learning to help students boost their digital citizenship skills like recognizing common online threats, building strategies to protect themselves, and exploring ways to safeguard their personal information. In the latest installment, CyberSafe AI: Dig Deeper, learners develop skills to use AI tools responsibly by tackling real-world challenges and exploring questions of academic integrity, human oversight, data privacy, and deepfakes. Immerse your students in this fun Minecraft world and empower them to think critically and use AI responsibly. This collection includes an educator guide and classroom-ready PowerPoint and family toolkit for at-home learning.

Keep the adventure going with more lessons in Minecraft’s CyberSafe series:

• Home Sweet Hmm: Students learn to recognize common threats on the internet, build strategies for protecting themselves and their information, and to know where to go if they need help.
• Privacy Prodigy: Students explore what personal data is, who should have access to their data, when it’s acceptable to share their data, and how to manage their personal data.
• Good Game: Students build digital literacy and digital citizenship skills while learning the responsibilities, tools, responses, and strategies needed to foster digital well-being and build positive connections.

Teach cyber safety with Minecraft

Created through partnerships with industry experts, Minecraft Education has lessons focused on cybersecurity, online safety, and digital citizenship aligned to Cyber.org and CSTA standards. The full cyber curriculum progression helps students of all ages build foundational skills and offers pathways and credentialing for careers in cyber.

Built into age-appropriate bands, the activities build incrementally and give you easy entry points through lesson plans and video tutorials. Explore the curriculum collections that you can start using anytime:

• CyberSafe: Teach students ages 7-11 cyber and digital safety skills with topics like online safety, spotting phishing scams, password protection, and cloud storage for photos. Introduce digital citizenship, data privacy, and data centers, aiming to protect personal data and raise career awareness in the digital world.
• Cyber Fundamentals: Empower students ages 10-14 through hands-on experiences in building network components and encrypting data. Students will investigate malware and save the school’s network as part of the Incident Response Team.
• Cyber Expert: Build digital fluency and cyber skills in students ages 13-18. They’ll explore encryption, social engineering, the effects of malware, and techniques to combat it. They’ll learn to prevent digital threats, fix affected systems, and explore cybersecurity careers.

Cyber safety resources for educators

Preparing your students to navigate the digital world starts with developing your own skills and confidence around tools and knowledge to teach cyber safety effectively. Microsoft Education offers resources designed to support educators, school leaders, and families, to build students’ cyber skills.

Begin discussing internet safety with students with help from these resources from Microsoft Education:

• K-12 Cybersecurity Conversation Guide: Get practical tips and conversation starters for talking about safe online practices and cyber hygiene with your students.
• K-12 Cybersecurity Infographic: Use visual examples of phishing links and scam ads to teach students how to identify online threats.

Explore Microsoft Learn modules designed to enhance your instructional strategies and cybersecurity proficiency:

• Build cybersecurity resilience in K-12 classrooms: Gain skills to anticipate common cyber threats, implement security measures, and educate others to build a strong cybersecurity culture that helps protect yourself and your students.
• Boost K-12 school cybersecurity leadership: Learn to apply Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommended cybersecurity practices to foster awareness and preparedness, safeguard schools, and counter cyber threats effectively.

Expand your teaching toolkit with a deeper dive into Minecraft Education:

• Join the Minecraft Teacher Academy to access free on-demand resources and training.
• Connect with over 10,000 educators and experts in the Minecraft Teachers’ Lounge for tips and ideas.

Tackling abusive AI-generated content risks through education and empowerment

For almost a decade, Microsoft has marked Safer Internet Day by releasing research on how individuals of all ages perceive and experience risk online. Last year, we highlighted the growing importance of AI. This year, in our ninth Global Online Safety Survey, we’ve dug deeper to understand how people view and are using this technology, as well as how well they can identify AI-generated content.

Our findings show that while there’s been a global increase in active AI users (up to 51% compared to 38% in 2023), worries about the technology have also increased: 88% of people were worried about generative AI, compared to 83% last year. Further, our data confirms that people have difficulty in identifying AI-generated content, which may amplify abusive AI content risks.

We’re committed to advancing AI responsibly to realize its benefits. Fundamental to this is the work we do to protect our users from potential harms. Last year, we launched a Family Safety Toolkit, which provides guidance on how to leverage Microsoft’s safety features and family safety settings to support and enhance digital parenting, plus guidance for families looking to navigate the world of generative AI together.

We’re announcing a new partnership with Childnet, a leading UK organization dedicated to making the internet a safer place for children. Together, we’re developing educational materials aimed at preventing the misuse of AI, such as the creation of deepfakes. These resources will be available to schools and families, providing valuable information on how to protect children from online risks.

Join us and celebrate Safer Internet Day on February 11, 2025. Online safety activities and resources from Microsoft and Minecraft Education can support and empower your school community. Get started today and help everyone navigate the digital world safely and confidently.

The post Leading the way to a safer internet together appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

For Safer Internet Day, we invite school IT professionals to explore tools that create safer online experiences. Start by discovering tools and strategies to create a safer internet for your school community.

Teach students the fundamentals of safe online behavior

We recognize that everyone has a role to play in cybersecurity and online safety. To get started, begin discussing internet safety with students, educators, and families with help from these resources from Microsoft Education:

• K-12 Cybersecurity Conversation Guide – Get practical tips and conversation starters for discussing safe online practices and cyber hygiene with students.
• K-12 Cybersecurity Infographic – Use visual examples of phishing links and scam ads to help everyone learn how to identify online threats.

As students develop essential digital skills, they’ll become more aware of the threats that often target schools, social media apps, and the communication tools they use daily. Help them understand the cause and effect, so they can learn how to protect themselves and recognize the importance of staying vigilant.

A suite of products that work together

Every student deserves a secure technology environment that maximizes learning, but cyberthreats continue to jeopardize cyber safety in schools and institutions. With more than 15,000 malicious messages targeting the education sector daily, this year’s Safer Internet Day theme of “together for a better internet” comes at a critical time for schools and institutions.

With Microsoft 365 Education A3 and A5 plans and security add-ons, you can deliver innovative protection through a single, cost-effective platform. Tools like Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 – Students and Microsoft Purview provide seamless, integrated solutions to protect students and educators.

Dedicated protection for student devices

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 – Students offers enhanced device protection that shields students’ devices from phishing, malware, and other attacks. With Defender for Endpoint, you can:

• Identify and neutralize cyberthreats in real time using advanced detection technology.
• Disrupt in-progress cyberattacks by automatically containing compromised assets early, minimizing impact and recovery time.
• Protect student data with industry-leading encryption protocols.
• Remotely track, lock, or wipe devices to safeguard sensitive information in case of a lost or stolen device.
• Monitor and update devices to protect against the latest vulnerabilities.
• Ensure safe browsing for students by blocking harmful or malicious websites with robust web content filters.

Web filtering is a core component of Defender for Endpoint. You can use it to block adult content, criminal activities, and social networking sites so that students are unable to access inappropriate content while they browse the web. Web content filtering also blocks harmful content before it reaches devices.

For example, a middle school student conducting research for a class project would be less likely to stumble on a website with malware because it would be blocked through Defender for Endpoint. The student would be able to continue their work without disruption—and educators and IT teams can continue devoting their time to engaging learning experiences, instead of managing a security incident.

Defender for Endpoint also sends alerts of suspicious activities and threats. If a bad actor tries to attack a student device on a compromised, public Wi-Fi network, your school IT team is alerted to suspicious activity and Defender for Endpoint automatically blocks the threat before any sensitive information is compromised.

Our commitment to safe online experiences includes providing you with the tools you need to protect student devices. With Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence analyzing more than 78 trillion daily signals, Defender for Endpoint safeguards learning environments from emerging online threats.

Addressing cyberbullying with Microsoft Purview

Preventing cyberbullying requires proactive strategies and effective tools. In schools around the world, educators teach students to be upstanders who “say something if they see something” and report bullying and harassment in their classrooms. Good digital citizenship practices like reporting, coupled with security solutions like Microsoft Purview, can go a long way to creating a safe space for all.

Microsoft Purview is a comprehensive set of solutions in Microsoft 365 Education A5 plans that helps your institution secure and govern your entire data estate. You can use Microsoft Purview as a part of a systematic approach to cyberbullying by leveraging some of its solutions in unique ways:

• Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance: Monitor harmful messages and images in Microsoft Teams for Education with policies that flag disparaging or self-harm remarks. Machine learning detects intent behind messages, empowering administrators to act quickly.
• Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention: Protect records by preventing students from deleting files or data that’s a part of a cyberbullying incident. Set up alerts when someone attempts to delete data so that you can have a complete record for investigation and compliance requirements.
• Insider Risk Management: Detect instances when students or staff send hateful messages or make harmful threats across Microsoft and third-party platforms. Integrated tools enable IT, human resources, and legal departments to collaboratively investigate incidents.
• Microsoft Purview eDiscovery: Create policies that maintain records of cyberbullying incidents so that your school can stay in compliance with laws like the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Use this solution to discover, preserve, and analyze sensitive content in email and instant messages on Microsoft systems and third-party platforms like learning management systems (LMS).

Both Defender for Endpoint P2 – Students and the Microsoft Purview compliance suite are a part of our ongoing commitment to creating secure learning experiences. For Safer Internet Day 2025, take the opportunity to bolster your school’s cybersecurity defenses and foster a secure technology environment for all.

The post Adopting cybersecurity solutions and strategies for a safer internet appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Math Progress helps educators tailor instruction to support individual student needs by identifying opportunities for improvement. Educators can adjust teaching strategies and differentiate instruction—supporting student success and helping boost confidence in math learning. Get started in Math Progress, now generally available through Microsoft Teams for Education.

Simplify assignment creation and enhance learning

Math Progress helps students build their foundational math skills with educator-led assignments, activities, and insights. An easy-to-use problem generator helps you to create sets of math problems based on a specified topic or create your own math problems. And, Math Progress is available in over 80 languages, making it an inclusive tool for math fluency development. To start using Math Progress, educators can sign in with school-issued credentials (Microsoft Entra ID) and access it in Microsoft Teams for Education.

Save educators’ time

Math Progress automates the generation of practice assignments based on educator input. With an intelligent question generator, it’s easy to create a robust set of relevant math problems, including distractors based on common mistakes to help students think more critically as they build their knowledge. And, assignments can be customized by choosing options such as “Show your work,” which requests students to upload images of their work or share links to OneNote pages to demonstrate their work.

Address mistakes and misconceptions

Math Progress makes it easy to keep students on track by addressing mistakes or common misconceptions to accelerate learning. With real-time feedback, grading work, and generated questions, Math Progress helps to free up your time to focus on individualized instruction. By identifying which concepts students need more practice with, Math Progress helps you quickly pinpoint areas of opportunity for individual students and your entire class.

Track progress and performance

Math Progress offers powerful performance insights that identify course trends at both the student and class level. These insights include the overall grade, number of points, most frequent question difficulty rating, and mistakes and misconceptions identified in this and other assignments to help better understand learning trends. You can easily track challenging concepts for individual students, helping to quickly identify areas of progression. And since it’s available in over 80 languages, Math Progress is easily accessible to a diverse population of learners.

Use Math Progress to assess your students’ abilities to accurately and efficiently perform mathematical procedures—such as arithmetic calculations, solving equations, and applying algorithms. When learners demonstrate misconceptions or gaps in understanding, Math Progress identifies these areas and offers targeted solution steps. Educators can then use these steps to guide students toward better comprehension. It also helps students track their learning, evaluate their own performance, and set realistic goals.

Get started with Math Progress

Engage your students in deliberate practice with real-time coaching on math concepts. Use Math Progress to free up your time with tools that streamline assignment creation, review, and analysis. Collect insights and visualize data to track progress and help improve your students’ learning outcomes.

It’s easy to get started with Math Progress:

1. Log into your Microsoft Teams for Education account and click “Assignments.”   
2. Next, click the “Create” button. 
3. Then click, “Learning Accelerators > Math Progress.” 
4. Create a math assignment with the help of a problem generator. 
5. Extend an assignment to your students, then review with automatic grading.  
6. Students will review their assignments to understand their math knowledge and areas for improvement.  
7. Educators will gain insights into each class or students’ performance to consider the future course path to support learning and build retention.

Help build math proficiency for students with Math Progress—while streamlining and simplifying lesson planning for yourself. Integrate it into your classroom to help your students improve math fluency, build confidence, and celebrate their progress.

Support foundational and future-ready skills acquisition with Math Progress and all the Learning Accelerators. Browse training modules, learning paths, and interactive demos to learn more about how Learning Accelerators can help you and your students.

The post Transform math assignments and boost learning with Math Progress appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.