To help streamline your search for new and effective tools, we’ve rounded up some of the latest updates and experiences from Microsoft Education that will help you enhance your students’ reading skills, collaborate and communicate with your class, and create more content and curriculum for your lessons. We’re also highlighting live and on-demand events you can join with your students, and webinars and professional development opportunities to help you stay ahead. Let’s dive in and see what’s new in Microsoft Education.  

1. Reading Coach is now available in any browser 

Microsoft Reading Coach provides personalized, engaging, consistent, and independent reading fluency practice by allowing learners to create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection of options. Reading Coach was already providing learners with personalized reading practice, instant feedback about pronunciation and fluency, while also giving insights back to educators. Now it’s available for free as a public preview web app and a Windows application to use in the classroom or at home with a Microsoft account.  

Get started with Reading Coach online, in any browser or download the Windows app. Learn more about Reading Coach and check out the guides on our Learning Accelerators page.

2. Microsoft Copilot expansions for education audiences

In December we were thrilled to announce several Microsoft Copilot expansions for education audiences. Copilot with commercial data protection is now available to all faculty and higher education students who are 18+, including users of our free offers. And on January 1, 2024, education faculty and staff became eligible to purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365. We also shared additional updates including eligibility for Office 365 A3 and A5 faculty customers and removed the 300-seat purchase minimum to empower organizations of all sizes. 

Visit copilot.microsoft.com and explore what you can do with Copilot, your AI assistant for education.  

3. Loop availability for education customers

Microsoft Loop is a flexible, AI-powered collaboration app that can help you think, plan, and create together. We’re excited to share that Loop will be included in Microsoft 365 A3 and A5 plans, including Student Use Benefit in early March 2024. Customers with Office 365 A1 can continue creating workspaces and pages through June 30, 2024, and will be able to access them afterwards.  

Try Loop today and watch Microsoft Loop – think, plan and create together like never before to learn more. 

4. New AI literacy training for educators and students 

As more exciting AI features are developed, we’ll continue to support building AI literacy in parallel. We’ve launched the AI for Educators Learning Path on Microsoft Learn, made up of three modules to help educators learn about and benefit from AI. It begins with empowering educators to explore the potential of AI, continues into how to enhance teaching and learning with Copilot, and finishes with our newest addition: Equip and support learners with AI tools from Microsoft.  

Educators can then leverage the AI Classroom Toolkit to help teach and support students in using generative AI safely. It’s a creative resource that blends narrative stories with instructional information to create immersive and effective learning experiences for educators and their students.  

Check out the AI for Educators Learning Path on Microsoft Learn and explore the AI Classroom Toolkit to help teach and support students in using generative AI safely. 

5. New features in Microsoft Teams for Education 

You can now check-in with students using Reflect in Microsoft Teams for Education as they complete their assignment. When you enable Reflect Check-in on an assignment, students will be prompted to share how they feel when they submit their work. Then, you can review your students’ responses in the Assignments Grading experience, to monitor the progress of an individual student and the overall mood of the class about the assignment. 

Another new feature that’s available now is reusing your modules between Class Teams. You can reuse content such as Assignments, Files, and Links from one class to another with Classwork. This is useful if you want to teach the same class again, have multiple versions of a class, or share curriculum with another educator.   

Check out What’s New in Microsoft EDU – Bett 2024 Edition to learn more about all the new updates in Microsoft Teams for Education.  

6. New experiences and lessons from Minecraft Education 

Minecraft Education and BBC Earth have launched a new wondrous world inspired by the latest landmark series from BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit, Planet Earth III. With the Planet Earth III DLC, students will step into extraordinary realms of the natural world to experience the struggles and triumphs of survival while playing as a series of incredible creatures, including the great white shark, the Arctic wolf, the musk ox, and more. Explore the Planet Earth III DLC to learn about each animal and gain their perspective on survival! 

In another new experience, CyberSafe: Good Game—the latest addition to Minecraft’s CyberSafe collection—players help a group of gaming teammates create a code of conduct, practice digital citizenship, and ensure everyone feels welcome. This game-based learning experience is designed to teach students the tools and skills that put players in control. Players tackle exciting challenges, foster kindness and teamwork, and turn the online world into an inclusive playground for all. Play CyberSafe: Good Game and bring lessons in cybersecurity and online safety into your classroom.  

7. Minecraft and ISTE Level Up Learning digital events 

Dive deeper into the benefits of teaching with Minecraft with Level Up Learning, a digital event series from Minecraft Education and ISTE. Through a series of webinars spotlighting school systems around the world, educators and leaders can join a transformational journey into the integration of game-based learning and its impact on student outcomes.   

Register for free for all of the Level Up Learning events:  

• Computer Science and AI on February 29, 2024  
• Student Voice, Agency, and Authentic Learning Experiences on April 2, 2024  
• Connection, Leadership & Team-based Experiences through Esports on April 30, 2024  
• STEM Literacy for all students on May 28, 2024   

8. Join Flip live events or watch on-demand 

In February in the United States, educators come together to commemorate and pay tribute to the narratives of Black and African American individuals, honoring the significance of their experiences. Celebrate Black History Month during this time and throughout the year by watching the on-demand Flip event Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future: Discovering Black History through Digital Innovation with your class.  

Then, in March, Women’s History Month is celebrated in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. To mark the occasion, join with your class on March 13, 2024, as Flip celebrates innovative women working in the field of AI with the live event AI Conversations: Women Leaders Share Their Stories. Participate in the event to explore the questions: What does it take to succeed in AI? How can you make a difference with AI in your future? Register for the Flip live event today!  

Whether you want to enhance your students’ reading skills, discover new ways to collaborate and communicate, or expand your content and curriculum, Microsoft Education has new features and experiences for you to explore. Happy teaching! 

The post Stay ahead with 8 new updates from Microsoft Education appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Education has evolved significantly over the past several years, and so have the needs of educators. In today’s diverse classrooms, it’s more important than ever to use the right education technology, find ways to support all students, and help create more inclusive environments. We recognize that educators need time-saving workflows, teaching tools, and resources to help everyone thrive and reach their full potential. 

Microsoft believes that education technology has a valuable role to play in supporting the needs of both teachers and students. However, we understand that it can sometimes be challenging to adopt new education technology and face the learning curve of mastering new teaching tools. To bridge this gap and make adoption smoother, we’ve pulled together a collection of free quick start guides for you. Our PDF guides for teachers are instructive and user-friendly, designed to help you easily get started with Microsoft Education tools in the classroom. 

Where can teachers find quick start guides for Microsoft Education tools?

Check out our collection of quick start guides, created by fellow teacher Heather Aird, a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert (MIE Expert). Through vibrant colors, simplicity, and comprehensive coverage of our learning tools and Learning Accelerators, these PDF guides for teachers empower you to embrace education technology quickly and confidently.  

1. Microsoft Copilot quick guide
2. Reading Coach with AI stories quick guide
3. Reading Coach in Immersive Reader quick guide
4. Reading Progress quick guide
5. Speaker Coach quick guide
6. Search Coach quick guide
7. Search Progress quick guide
8. Microsoft Reflect quick guide
9. Immersive Reader quick guide
10. Math Solver quick guide
11. Live Captions for PowerPoint quick guide
12. Speech to Text (Dictate) quick guide
13. Microsoft OneNote quick guide
14. Microsoft OneNote Class Notebook quick guide
15. Microsoft Word quick guide
16. Microsoft PowerPoint quick guide
17. Microsoft Stream quick guide
18. Microsoft To Do quick guide
19. Microsoft Translate quick guide
20. Microsoft Lens (formerly Microsoft Office Lens) quick guide
21. Microsoft Editor quick guide
22. Microsoft Planner quick guide
23. Microsoft Bookings quick guide
24. Khanmigo for Teachers quick guide

Our quick start guides cover a range of teacher resources and where to find them, unlocking countless possibilities for personalized and interactive learning experiences. Each PDF guide provides step-by-step instructions, accompanied by clear visuals and diagrams, ensuring that you can navigate Microsoft Education teaching tools and education technology with confidence.  

Microsoft Education is dedicated to providing technology solutions that can save you time, individualize student learning, and set students up for future success. Explore these portable and printable PDF quick start guides—designed to equip you with guidance and support whenever you need them! 

Looking for more ways to quickly get started with Microsoft Education technology? Check out these free resources below, created specifically for teachers like you. 

• Meet your AI assistant for education: Microsoft Copilot
• Eight how-to guides for educators: Quickly get started with Microsoft Education 
• Reflect activities for student engagement 
• New ways to reflect and thrive on World Mental Health Day! 
• 4 new Teams updates to enhance classroom engagement 
• Transform assessment with new Forms updates 

The post Comprehensive quick start guides for Microsoft Education tools appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

On February 7, 2024, the power of reading aloud is celebrated with World Read Aloud Day. World Read Aloud Day was founded in 2010 by the nonprofit organization LitWorld to position literacy as a foundational human right. And, so far, the day has become a real page-turner, celebrated by millions of readers and listeners in over 170 countries! 

Why literacy matters

Reading aloud is an incredibly powerful way to help listeners of all ages build essential literacy skills. And student literacy impacts learners in every subject and grade level as well as outside of the classroom. Powerful learning tools designed to address the real-world needs of today’s classrooms are a smart and practical way to help students gain the crucial literacy skills they need to help them succeed in school and in life. 

Support student literacy with Reading Progress

While literacy is the foundation for all learning, each student’s path toward reading mastery may differ. This is why it’s so important to create personalized learning environments that address and support the unique needs of all students. 

Reading Progress, a Learning Accelerator, empowers students to practice their reading fluency skills, self-assess as they watch and listen to themselves, and receive customized feedback from their teachers that specifically targets their literacy needs. Reading Progress offers: 

1. Assignment creation: Quickly upload a reading passage or choose from a sample library, and customize activity parameters such as time limits, number of attempts, and codify the reading level and genre. 
2. Student reading and recording: Students open the assignment and can record themselves reading the assigned passage, helping to build confidence.  
3. Educator review: Automatically flags student mistakes, helps educators manually flag errors, and jumps to words in the video to streamline the review process. 
4. Powerful insights: View data such as correct words per minute, accuracy rates, and challenging words at the student and class level. 

Visit Getting started with Reading Progress in Teams for step-by-step instructions for using Reading Progress to help build literacy skills with your students.  

Personalize reading experiences with Reading Coach

With the latest AI technology, we have an opportunity to provide learners with personalized, engaging, and transformative reading experiences. Reading Coach is now powered by generative AI and does just that.  

Reading Coach was already providing learners with personalized reading practice, instant feedback about pronunciation and fluency, while also giving insights back to educators. Now we’re excited to share new features that will fuel student agency and motivation with dynamically created stories that adapt to their reading level and individual challenges. 

Reading Coach takes a unique approach to implementing generative AI with guardrails. Learners select the story’s protagonist, setting, and are provided with choices that alter the plot of the story as they read. Reading Coach combines these inputs with the learner’s selected reading level, and over time, words they mispronounce to dynamically create personalized stories. Students stay engaged and in the driver’s seat with the power to pick a path of a story while they progress through the chapters. The story content is moderated for quality, safety, and age appropriateness. 

Reading Coach intrinsically motivates learners to continue advancing their skills in several ways. They can unlock new story settings and characters, earn badges that reward their efforts, and see their pronunciation and fluency improvements in progress reports. 

We’re making Reading Coach more broadly available than ever, so that learners can read on the device of their choice, at home or school. To get started with Reading Coach, visit coach.microsoft.com/webapp (you may be asked to sign in with a Microsoft account) or download the Windows app. Learn more about how Reading Coach works on our support documentation pages. 

Dive into literacy with Immersive Reader

Microsoft Immersive Reader is an easy-to-use tool that that’s designed to improve reading comprehension and fluency for students of all abilities. Available for free in popular classroom applications like Microsoft Teams, Word, and OneNote, Immersive Reader incorporates research principles that increase access and is loaded with features to help students read.   

Immersive Reader can: 

• Support fluency for English language learners or readers of other languages. 
• Build confidence for emerging readers as they learn to read at higher levels. 
• Offer text decoding solutions for students with dyslexia and other learning needs. 
• Provide individual word or whole text translation into over 100 languages (over 40 of which can be read aloud). 
• Serve as scaffolding to ensure students with a variety of learning needs have access to grade-level texts. 

You can customize the learning experience for students, so whether it is reading at a slower pace or providing picture clues without narration, teachers can address a variety of activities in the classroom. Discover how every student can improve their skills and comprehension with Immersive Reader. 

Celebrate World Read Aloud Day 2024 with author Mia Armstrong

Flip is hosting a powerful event to honor World Read Aloud Day: a special reading of the popular children’s book I Am a Masterpiece by the author herself, Mia Armstrong. Mia is a prolific tween actor, model, and activist, born with Down syndrome. Her story is one of courage and inclusion, proving that disabilities and differences are no match for talent and determination. 

Join Mia this World Read Aloud Day on February 7, 2024, at 10:00 AM PT to get a glimpse into the life of a child with Down syndrome, and help some readers see themselves in a book and help others understand those friends, classmates, and family members who are neurodivergent. Register for the Flip event Celebrate World Read Aloud Day with Mia Armstrong today! 

Ignite literacy on World Read Aloud Day

Before the written word, stories were shared and passed down aloud to preserve culture, knowledge, and insight. This is the tradition that sparks World Read Aloud Day: a proven history of building literacy, improving spelling through enunciation, increasing social bonding, and enriching empathy. Join Microsoft in celebrating World Read Aloud Day and showing the world that we all have the right to read. So, grab a book, find an audience, and read out loud!  

Looking to go deeper? Check out these Microsoft Learn courses full of practical strategies and insights for igniting literacy in your classroom. 

• Learn how to support reading fluency practice with Reading Progress 
• Learn how to improve reading for any student, regardless of age or ability, with Immersive Reader

The post Read ‘em and reap (the rewards): World Read Aloud Day 2024 appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Bringing the future of productivity to education

Last month, we were thrilled to announce several Microsoft Copilot expansions for education audiences. Copilot with commercial data protection will be available to all faculty and higher education students who are 18+, including users of our free offers. And on January 1, 2024, education faculty and staff became eligible to purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365. We’re already seeing innovative organizations like The University of Hong Kong, The University of Manchester, and GEMS Education lead the way as early adopters. We shared additional updates this week including eligibility for Office 365 A3 and A5 faculty customers and removed the 300-seat purchase minimum to empower organizations of all sizes.  

Microsoft Loop is a flexible, AI-powered collaboration app that can help you think, plan, and create together. We’re excited to share that Loop will be included in Microsoft 365 A3 and A5 plans, including Student Use Benefit in early March 2024. Customers with Office 365 A1 can continue creating workspaces and pages through June 30, 2024, and will be able to access them afterwards. Watch the video Microsoft Loop – think, plan and create together like never before to learn more about Microsoft Loop and try Loop today! 

Transforming reading experiences 

It’s well known that reading is foundational to a student’s academic success; studies show that fluent readers are four times more likely to graduate high school and get better jobs. Educators and parents alike are looking for ways to help students improve reading fluency in a way that keeps them engaged and prior research has found that personalized learning is one of the most effective ways to help close learning gaps. With the latest AI technology, we have an opportunity to provide learners with personalized, engaging, and transformative reading experiences. Reading Coach, a Learning Accelerator now powered by generative AI, does just that. You can sign up for a preview of Reading Coach today and try it for yourself at Reading Coach Web app preview.

Reading Coach was already providing learners with personalized reading practice, instant feedback about pronunciation and fluency, while also giving insights back to educators. Today we’re sharing new features that will fuel student agency and motivation with dynamically created stories that adapt to their reading level and individual challenges.  

Reading Coach takes a unique approach to implementing generative AI with guardrails. Learners select the story’s protagonist, setting, and are provided with choices that alter the plot of the story as they read. Reading Coach combines these inputs with the learner’s selected reading level, and over time, words they mispronounce to dynamically create personalized stories that keep students engaged and in the driver seat. Students stay engaged with the power to pick a path of a story while they progress through the chapters. The story content is moderated for quality, safety, and age appropriateness. And in addition to creating AI-powered stories, learners can also pick leveled passages from the curated ReadWorks library.

Reading Coach intrinsically motivates learners to continue advancing their skills in several ways. They can unlock new story settings and characters, earn badges that reward their efforts, and see their pronunciation and fluency improvements in progress reports.  

We’re making Reading Coach more broadly available than ever, so that learners can read on the device of their choice, at home or school. It will be available on the web and as a Windows App, at no cost to anyone with a Microsoft account. Additionally, we’re making it easier for teachers to create Reading Coach practice assignments by adding integration with popular Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Canvas, which will be available in late Spring 2024. Learn more about how Reading Coach works on our support documentation pages.  

These new Reading Coach features build on top of the passage generation and comprehension question generation in Reading Progress which will be available for preview late January 2024. With the use of AI in an impactful, safe, responsible way, we believe that personalized learning at scale is within reach. 

Saving time and differentiating instruction

In addition to reading, over the past year we have been focusing on opportunities to free up time for educators by further enhancing our products with AI. Today, we’re sharing more features coming to Microsoft Teams for Education and Microsoft Reflect to help tailor content. They will be generally available at no additional cost to all education customers later this year.  

All these tools quickly and easily generate content such as reading passages, comprehension questions, rubrics, assignment instructions, and more. Educators are always kept in control as the experts and can review initial drafts of content, generate more options, make edits, or choose to discard. Educators can personalize learning with the click of a button by using filters like age, language, topics, and increasing or decreasing the complexity of the content. And education organizations can choose to turn these features on or off.  

Classwork is a feature in Teams which is built to manage your curriculum and allows educators to create and organize class resources including Assignments, Files, Links, Channels, Class Notebook pages, and more. Classwork module generation helps easily kickstart content with module suggestions based on your subject, student age range, and scope of learning.  

When creating an Assignment in Teams, educators will be prompted with opportunities to leverage AI to easily emphasize key content, simplify, or add more detail, learning objectives, and even emojis. In each case, educators are reminded that AI-generated content may be incorrect, and they’ll need to choose to keep, discard, or regenerate the content.  

Once the Assignment is ready, educators can generate a rubric draft after providing title, evaluation, age range, scale, and criteria detail. Educators are then encouraged to review thoroughly and make any edits before attaching to an Assignment.  

Microsoft Reflect is a tool that helps students identify and express how they feel in safe and fun ways, building their emotional vocabulary and giving educators the insights they need to provide active support. Reflect can now further enhance understanding by enabling educators to generate options for learners to specify reasons behind the emotion. These options are tailored to the check-in question set by the educator and draw on multi-year research by experts from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Educators can regenerate, manually add, or completely discard results. Reasons can then be grouped at a class level into a predefined list of focus areas with strategies on how to navigate each one in partnership with Challenge Success, a nonprofit affiliated with Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. 

Building AI literacy for educators and students

As more exciting features are developed, we’ll continue to support building AI literacy in parallel. We’re now launching the AI for Educators Learning Path on Microsoft Learn, made up of three modules to help educators learn about and benefit from AI. It begins with empowering educators to explore the potential of AI, continues into how to enhance teaching and learning with Copilot, and finishes with our newest addition: Equip and support learners with AI tools from Microsoft. This new course walks educators through how to help learners discover, interact, and create with AI and generative AI. 

Educators can then leverage the AI Classroom Toolkit to help teach and support students in using generative AI safely. It’s a creative resource that blends narrative stories with instructional information to create immersive and effective learning experiences for educators and their students. 

Advancing youth online safety and wellness

As we head into 2024, there is an urgent call to action for us all to take steps to protect youth safety and privacy online and to ensure that technology—including emerging technologies such as AI—serves as a positive force for the next generation. As policymakers and regulators weigh potential measures to help advance safety outcomes in the coming weeks and months, it is essential that they consider both the benefits and the risks of technology for young people. Read more in our blog about Microsoft’s position on these issues and themes for policymakers to consider as they work through initiatives to protect youth safety and privacy online. 

Learn more about today’s announcements in our latest What’s New in Microsoft EDU blog and join us at Bett next week to explore AI in education with Microsoft. 

The post Unlocking productivity and personalizing learning with AI appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

John Hattie’s Visible Learning study measured the impact that different factors have on students’ academic growth. According to the meta-analyses, setting learning goals has a positive impact on learning outcomes. Simply put, when students set goals, they are building lifelong skills that they can use to make positive changes in their lives.  

Harness the power of positive change in your classroom—embark on the journey of transformative goal-setting with Microsoft Reflect today!  

Setting goals with students informs teacher practice, engages and motivates students during the learning process, and creates a partnership between the teacher, student, and parents.”

Sanée Bell, Ed.D., Educational Leader and Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning in Katy ISD, Texas, United States

Setting up for success with new year’s goals 

Reflect is available as a web app and within Microsoft 365 Education tools like Teams for Education, PowerPoint, and OneNote. You can use any of these platforms to create check-ins for your students. Additionally, Reflect has created a collection of experiences and resources that you can share with your students to transition into a successful 2024. Explore the Reflect Activity Hub for ready-to-use activities, lessons, and materials!  

Goals vary from person to person and are unique to the individual. Reflect has created several worksheets to help you and your students set goals and practice other positive habits in the new year. Check out the Reflect worksheets—print the PDFs or digitally embed them in a OneNote page distributed to students: 

• SMART Goal Planner—guide students through setting meaningful goals, breaking them into actionable steps, and monitoring progress to improve planning and perseverance.  
• Gratitude Clouds—provide students with a structured and meaningful method to practice gratitude, fostering a sense of appreciation, and promoting positive thinking. 
• Reflect and Grow—goal setting is important in short intervals as well as long ones. By helping students process a day’s events and emotions, they can foster emotional awareness, and enhance communication skills.  

Take a brain break 

According to a 2021 study on the brain’s consolidation of skill, resting at set intervals increases a learner’s ability to develop new skills. The study also suggests that the majority of skill learning takes place during “offline,” or non-practice time, and that micro-breaks are 4 times as effective for skill learning than overnight rest. This all means that intentional breaks every 10-15 minutes for elementary students or 20-30 minutes for secondary students can have a significant academic and social impact for learners. 

Reflect has curated a collection of short, inclusive brain break activities designed to promote mental fitness, refresh the mind, and refocus.  

• Take a breath: Pause for a moment to breathe mindfully and reset focus. 
• Stretch break: Stretch and boost focus with a quick two-minute stretching routine. 
• Coloring book: Combine emotional intelligence and art to explore a range of emotions and creativity. 
• Memory game: Develop emotional vocabulary by matching emotions and with Feelings Monster cards.  

Reflect also partnered with Calm—the leading mental health brand with the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and relaxation—to integrate science-backed content designed to help users meet their new goals of sleeping more, stressing less, and living better. Explore all of the Calm activities in the Reflect app.  

For educators and students who want more activities—stories, music, lullabies, exercises, and meditations designed specifically for kids—they can enjoy a 40% discount on a subscription to Calm.  

Explore Reflect’s partner collections 

Reflect has partnered with several of your favorite classroom tools to expand social and emotional learning. Through these partnerships, you and your students can have safe spaces for reflecting, setting goals, and discussing emotions.  

Minecraft Education is a popular immersive learning platform for all young people. Introduce your students to Reflect World, a space designed to help students develop social-emotional skills through a creative and immersive experience. This world is an ideal start for beginner users in upper-elementary or middle school grades. Exploring the colorful Reflect World requires collaboration, problem solving, and communication. 

Reflect teamed up with Kahoot!, a game-based app for learning and trivia games, to help students develop vital SEL skills. With nearly 50 Kahoot! games available in four different languages, you can find the right activities at the right time.  

• Setting goals: Goal setting is a vital skill. It helps us to stay on track and create the life we dream of! Your students can use Reflect to stay on track with your goals by thinking through the reasons that we set goals and strategies for reaching goals. 
• Start the school year strong: Don’t let the title fool you. This game is perfect for the return to school in January with questions focusing on classroom community and goal setting. 
• Gratitude: Gratitude means being filled with appreciation. Your students can show gratitude for the good things in their lives—big or small! Being grateful can help them feel better and build stronger relationships. 

Microsoft Flip, a free web and mobile app for recording, editing, and sharing video assignments, and Reflect pair together perfectly. Using Flip and Reflect together can help students share and discuss feelings and challenges in a safe, accessible, and inclusive environment. With built-in tools like Immersive Reader, designed to make all written text accessible, all students can engage in the conversation. Start off with these discussion topics: 

• Taking on challenges: Help students understand that challenges are a part of the path to excellence. Framing challenges as part of the process can keep them motivated and set them up to encourage each other through complicated tasks.  
• Kindness for myself: Use this topic to jumpstart conversations about growth mindset or accepting feedback. It could be a helpful warm-up for a writing workshop where students edit one another’s work. Setting students up to accept and mobilize feedback without feeling down about themselves is vital to establishing perseverance. 
• Working towards a goal: Use this topic before having students write their own goals. It can jumpstart their understanding of why goals are important and what types of goals they could consider, as well as get them thinking about how working towards a goal is an ongoing effort. Often, we write down or set goals mentally, but don’t follow through. Having students recognize that problem through role play can help them recognize it in themselves!  

Join Microsoft Education in fostering a positive beginning to the new year for you and your students. Reflect brings together an array of resources and experiences, supporting the cultivation of healthy habits and a dedication to personal growth. Explore the Reflect Activity Hub for ready-to-use activities, lessons, and materials and build a culture of well-being with your students this year.

The post Reflect activities for student engagement appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

To help support these types of learning experiences, we’re excited to highlight new updates in Microsoft Teams for Education. Explore how these new updates to Teams can enhance student engagement and help provide a clearer picture of student activity across your classroom. 

1. Mindful coloring book in Reflect 

Microsoft Reflect is a Learning Accelerator  that helps students build important social, emotional, and academic skills. Reflect offers a space to create impactful check-ins to gain wellbeing insights and includes a unique gallery of ready-to-use activities, like brain breaks and breathing exercises. The latest brain break—mindful coloring—can be an effective way to foster student wellbeing and engagement. Featuring the Feelings Monster, a friendly character that shows different moods, the digital coloring pages in Reflect can help students to explore their emotions through art, offering a creative and therapeutic outlet. Try the mindful coloring activities in Reflect and see how it can make a difference in your classroom! 

The mindful coloring activities in Microsoft Reflect can help foster student wellbeing and engagement.

For more on Reflect, check out the new activities and updates in Reflect and learn how to build a culture of wellbeing in your school community.  

2. Clickable cards in Reading Progress

 Reading Progress is a Learning Accelerator that automatically records and monitors how students are progressing in their reading. This helps educators give each student the individual support they need in their reading, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. Now, new clickable cards are available in the Reading Progress grading view, allowing you to see how each student is doing in reading speed, accuracy, and prosody in different reading assignments. Also, you can easily check the progress of your entire class from there. 

Use the clickable cards in Reading Progress to easily gauge the reading skills of each student and the progress of your whole class.

Learn how to build foundational reading skills and enhance your students’ reading fluency with Reading Progress and Reading Coach. 

3. Background Noise Suppression in Reading Progress

Reading out loud with Reading Progress is a great way for your students to practice their reading skills. But what if your classroom is too noisy and it affects their recordings? With the new Noise Suppression option in Reading Progress, you can filter out the background noise and get more accurate results. When Background Noise Suppression is turned on, Reading Progress uses AI to remove additional noise when analyzing the student reading and auto-marking accuracy scores. Noise Suppression is enabled on a per-student basis, with the educator in control. 

Use the new Background Noise Suppression option in Reading Progress to filter out the background noise and get more accurate results from student recordings.

Try this new option and see how it can enhance your experience with Reading Progress!  

4. Clickable Insights cards in Search Progress

Search Progress, another Learning Accelerator, is designed to make it easier for educators to build information literacy into any research assignment, no matter the subject at school. Now, you can see new clickable Insights cards in the grading view for Search Progress assignments. These cards let you compare your class’s search habits with the “Compare to Class” button and explore other useful situations. Insights make it easier to see which learners are doing well, which are on the right path, and which need more support. You can also use Insights to talk to learners about how they search and to adjust your future assignments to your class’s needs. 

Clickable Insights cards in Search Progress make it easier to see which learners are doing well, which are on the right path, and which need more support.

Discover how to use Search Progress to help your students gain lifelong information literacy skills. 

With the latest updates from Microsoft Teams for Education, you’ll find more ways to create a dynamic learning environment and provide customized support to all of your students. Explore all of the new updates to Teams in What’s New in Microsoft Teams for Education | October 2023 and What’s New in Microsoft Teams for Education | November 2023. 

In addition to the latest updates, the new Microsoft Teams app for Windows and Mac is now generally available. The new Teams helps you stay productive and collaborate more effectively, offering a faster, simpler, and more flexible experience. 

Want to dive deeper into the capabilities of Teams? Take the free, online training Master Microsoft Teams for any learning environment from Microsoft Learn. 

The post 4 new Teams updates to enhance classroom engagement appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Any intervention made as an educator to your classroom practice should aim to improve student outcomes. Introducing technology is no different. However, how do you know that the intervention has succeeded?

The decision was made two years ago to issue Surface devices to each pupil and teaching staff in the senior school at the Royal Grammar School Newcastle and to increase the use of technology in the classroom. I was determined that if the benefits of technology were really going to be harnessed, interventions needed to be delivered with a thoughtful approach.

I had done a lot of research and reading about small individual classroom inquiries, and I decided that our digital leaders in school should take a considered and measured approach when introducing new technology in the classroom. Tom Harman, one of our digital leading team decided to complete a classroom study using Microsoft Teams and Reading Progress with two of his Spanish classes.

Using Reading Progress for teaching students an additional language provided our educators with information about errors in oral reading, including mispronunciation, omissions, repetitions, insertions, and self-corrections as well as phonological errors. The data produced was used to improve student reading in many ways—it allowed us to identify common mispronounced words and other patterns, which then enabled more effective adaptive teaching to respond to the class.

A teacher reviews Education Insights while students sit at their desks in a classroom.

When he saw the transformational potential of Reading Progress, he was quick to introduce it to most of his classes and to those of his colleagues. This intervention was something that Tom was going to do any way, just this time we wanted to measure the impact it was having.

Tom decided to complete a small-scale randomised trial, with two teaching sets of similar ability and age students, with the primary aim to improve reading fluency in Spanish over an eight-week period, by using weekly homework reading assignments using Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams.

Student experience of opening a Reading Progress assignment and using Reading Coach in Microsoft Teams.

Tom partnered with What Worked Education, an organisation that helps educators perform small scale classroom trials, to create an unbiased study and measurable methodology for his inquiry. Once the eight-week study was completed, they helped to analyse and test the significance of the results.

Here’s what we learned from our Reading Progress trial:

• The study group with the Reading Progress intervention over the eight-week period improved their reading rate on average by 22.43 words per minute, compared to the control group with no intervention, which did improve, but only by 10.5 words per minute.
• Reading accuracy for the intervention group improved by 13.29%, compared to only 4% for the control group.
• The number of mispronunciations were down by 7 words on average per task for the intervention group, compared to a decrease of only 3.5 words for the control group.

Using Reading Progress has really added another dimension to foreign language teaching, allowing students to regularly practice their speaking skills outside of lessons and get detailed feedback on how to improve. The Insights tool for educators is great to help identify trends and to facilitate adaptive teaching. For students who are self-conscious when studying another language, the tool provides a safe space for them to work on their spoken language and become more confident in classroom situations.

Tom Harman, Modern Foreign Language Teacher, The Royal Grammar School Newcastle, UK

A resounding success for Tom and his Spanish students. It is also worth noting that as soon as the eight-week intervention was completed the other group of students then started to receive the intervention and therefore, also started to benefit from using Reading Progress.

The school now plan to carry out further studies using Reading Progress within our Modern Foreign Language Department and with other groups of students in our Junior School.

Discover how Reading Progress and Reading Coach can enhance your students’ reading skills today.

• Download 5 things to know about Microsoft Reading Progress and Reading Coach.
• Check out Building reading foundational skills: A guide to Reading Progress and Reading Coach in Teams for educators.
• Explore how to Use data to support your students with Education Insights.

The post How one school uses Reading Progress to improve student outcomes appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Check out these easy-to-scan how-to guides to help you become more confident with Microsoft’s learning tools and Learning Accelerators. With these powerful tools, students can start practicing right away, and you can spend more of your time on active instruction.

1. Enhance reading instruction with Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader is an easy-to-use learning tool that’s designed to improve reading comprehension and fluency for students of all abilities. Best of all, Immersive Reader is available for free in popular classroom applications like the Edge browser, Microsoft Teams for Education, Flip, Minecraft Education, and Microsoft 365 products like Word.

Learn How to enhance reading instruction: A guide to Immersive Reader for educators.

2. Build foundational literacy skills with Reading Progress and Reading Coach

Review your students’ practice assignments in Reading Progress by jumping to words in the video or audio recording and listening to their pronunciations.

Reading Progress and Reading Coach, two Learning Accelerators available in Microsoft Teams for Education, are designed to enhance your students’ reading fluency. These reading assessment tools can simplify the process of creating, reviewing, and analyzing reading assignments, freeing up more time for active instruction.

Explore Building reading foundational skills: A guide to Reading Progress and Reading Coach in Teams for educators.

3. Accelerate learning for multilingual learners of English

At least 350 languages are spoken in the U.S. and, according to the National Education Association, by 2025, 1 out of 4 children in U.S. classrooms will be a multilingual learner of English (MLE). Microsoft and Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) have joined together to provide valuable activities that strengthen language development using Microsoft’s free Learning Accelerators.

Read how to Accelerate learning for multilingual learners of English.

4. Develop students’ information literacy skills with Search Coach

Search Coach provides tips to students, shows them reliability, and allows them to apply filters to get more accurate results.

Information literacy—using critical thinking when finding and engaging with information—is a vital skill for students in both their current education and their future careers. Search Coach, a Learning Accelerator, not only simplifies the process of searching for credible information but also provides real-time feedback and support for your students.

Visit Develop students’ information literacy skills: A guide to Search Coach for educators.

5. Expand students’ information literacy skills with Search Progress

Search Progress, a new Learning Accelerator, is intentionally built alongside Search Coach to help students gain lifelong information literacy skills within a structured environment. Search Progress empowers you to create, customize, and assign research projects. It offers students simple and authentic ways to find, curate, and reflect on information throughout the research process.

Check out Expand students’ information literacy skills: A guide to Search Progress for educators.

6. Develop confident public speakers with Speaker Coach

Speaker Coach, another Learning Accelerator, helps students develop good public speaking practices when presenting ideas to a group—an essential skill in the classroom and the workplace. Speaker Coach is a virtual assistant that helps students become better, more confident public speakers by providing insights that are both private and tailored to their abilities.

Explore How educators can use Speaker Coach to develop confident public speakers.

7. Build a culture of wellbeing with Reflect

An additional Learning Accelerator, Microsoft Reflect, helps students build important social, emotional, and academic skills. It’s research-backed and offers quick emotional check-ins, connecting age-appropriate vocabulary with the expressive Feelings Monsters. Accessible and engaging, Reflect check-ins can seamlessly be integrated into your class routine.

Read how to Build a culture of wellbeing: A guide to Reflect for educators.

8. Use data to support your students with Education Insights

Select a student from the list in Education Insights to quickly see and filter individual student data, trends, and reports.

As an educator, you recognize the importance of data in helping your students thrive. However, the abundance of data often makes it challenging and time-consuming to identify relevant and significant trends. Education Insights in Microsoft Teams for Education is an analytics solution that automatically connects with key apps such as Learning Accelerators and the tools in Teams to provide a more holistic view of student wellbeing.

Learn how to Use data to support your students with Education Insights.

Dive into these easy-to-scan how-to guides and explore how Microsoft learning tools and education solutions can be integrated into your classroom to build students’ skills and wellbeing.

The post Eight how-to guides for educators: Quickly get started with Microsoft Education classroom technology solutions appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

The school year has begun and we’re here to help! Microsoft offers a range of teaching, learning, and work solutions with built-in AI that can help you and your students thrive this year. We are committed to designing, developing, and deploying responsible AI solutions that are fair, reliable, secure, inclusive, and transparent to support educational settings.

From Learning Accelerators to the time-saving capabilities of Bing Chat Enterprise, our solutions personalize learning, engage learners, analyze data, and automate routine tasks.

Use AI to save time and accelerate learning

To help you gear up for the new school year, we’ve identified some creative ways you can extend the impact of Microsoft solutions designed in line with our AI principles.

Student learning

• Personalize literacy learning: Passage generation will soon be available in Reading Progress (currently in initial private preview) and leverages the power of Azure OpenAI Service by reviewing data from Education Insights to create personalized reading passages based on words or phonics rules a class or specific student found most challenging. Easily customize the passage for students by selecting suggested practice words, generating options, and then publishing the passage as a new reading assignment. Then generate comprehension questions based on the reading passage. You can choose the number of questions, review them, make any necessary edits, and publish them to your students.
• Accelerate math problem solving: Math Assistant in OneNote supports both assignment creation for you and helpful solution guides for your students. Simply enter an example problem and Math Assistant can generate a practice quiz that students can use to practice on their own. You can also use practice quizzes to simplify assignment creation or differentiation materials. Use the step-by-step solution guides to provide additional support when solving problems. These guides can be turned off during times when students need to show understanding without added supports.

Student engagement

• Prioritize inclusive and accessible learning: Ensure all students have access to learning by using one of the many Microsoft solutions with built-in accessibility features, including Immersive Reader. Immersive Reader supports students in all content areas. Whether a student needs Immersive Reader to read at a slower pace, provide picture clues without narration, or translate individual words or full text, you can customize the learning experience and provide specific accommodations for your students with ease.
• Build confidence and communication: Speaker Coach uses AI to provide personalized feedback on presentation skills in Teams for Education meetings or PowerPoint presentations. Students practice and build their confidence towards public speaking in a non-stigmatizing way. AI analyzes speech to give tips about repetitive and inclusive language, filler words, pace, and intonation. In Teams meetings, AI can also identify and notify the speaker when they have spoken for a long period of time without input from others.

The rehearsal report in Speaker Coach includes focused feedback on metrics known to influence how an audience perceives a presentation.

Data-based decision making

• Simplify data collection and analysis: Education Insights uses AI technology to analyze data across a variety of solutions, like Learning Accelerators and the Microsoft 365 Graph, to provide a more holistic view of each student at the individual, class, grade, school, and organization level. From analyzing student engagement to making recommendations for Reading Progress assignments, you can quickly capitalize on the power of AI in Education Insights to quickly identify student, classroom, school, and district needs.
• Advance data monitoring: Simplify how you monitor cohort data, enrollment trends, and demographic aggregations with Power BI. Power BI uses predictive analysis to provide data, analytics, and visualizations about student performance and wellbeing. Use the built-in AI to illuminate hidden patterns, opportunities, and anomalies in your data without needing to create your own custom AI models. Read more about how Forsyth County Schools used Power BI to improve graduation rates and student success.

Administrative support

• Enhance lesson planning: Using well-crafted prompts, you can leverage Edge and Bing’s AI chat functionality to generate lesson plans or give you ideas to try in your classroom. Bing Chat Enterprise ensures that your data is protected and will not leak outside of your education organization. While all materials and suggestions should be reviewed by the expert, you, prior to use, you can use the suggestions to help you brainstorm, synthesize information, or organize content. To get more targeted responses, identify yourself as a teacher in the prompt and identify your grade level, subject area, specific standards being taught, and any class parameters like time, number of students, and instructional preferences.
• Improve communication: Simplify when and how you communicate with students or families by scheduling your Microsoft Teams posts and announcements automatically with Power Automate. You can create reoccurring posts that link to your ongoing weekly schedule, frequently used resources, or newsletter. Check out some Power Automate flow templates that can help save you time on administrative tasks.

Family involvement

• Engage stakeholders: Whether you’re looking for feedback on a new school policy or seeking family volunteers, you can use Power Automate to create an automatic system for gathering and collecting information using Microsoft Forms and SharePoint. Just create a Form with the information you need, develop the automated flow, and let it run! All the information you need will be available in one place that you can use to collaborate with other staff.
• Include all voices: Microsoft Translator helps bridge communication barriers, supporting accessible and inclusive family communication and classroom learning with live captioning and multilingual translations. This feature can help you translate a parent-teacher conference, an email to a student’s family, or a live parent-teacher organization meeting quickly.

Subtitle Settings in PowerPoint. Microsoft Translator can help create a more inclusive classroom with live translation and captions.

So, it’s time to ready… set… teach! This year, make use of Microsoft’s AI-powered solutions, designed to personalize learning, engage students, and streamline workflows. We are committed to enhancing the educational experience of you and your students. Check out the self-paced AI for Educators module available on the Microsoft Learn Educator Center to explore the potential of AI in education.

The post Gear up for the school year with Microsoft’s AI-powered solutions appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Use Reflect to foster a happier, healthier, and more balanced school community with age-appropriate reflections, intentional brain breaks, and actionable data.

Educator benefits

• Gain a fuller understanding of each students’ thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
• Identify and act upon group or individual trends.
• Take time to reflect and practice professional self-care.
• Access Reflect through the web app, or within Teams for Education or OneNote.
• Expand the impact and learning from Reflect by using it with activities in Flip and Minecraft Education.

Student outcomes

• Build self-awareness and empathy.
• Grow emotional vocabulary.
• Identify and navigate emotions.
• Develop a growth mindset and confidence.

Create a Reflect check-in

Setting up your first Reflect check-in only takes a few steps. Start by navigating to the Reflect web app or by selecting Reflect in the sidebar of a Microsoft Teams Class or Staff team. Next, choose the “New check-in” button in the top-right corner. Select your preferred settings and then create the check-in.

You can customize Reflect check-in settings.

Prompts: Use a pre-existing prompt, write a custom one, or explore the Check-in ideas that address these categories:

• Social interactions
• Educational
• School environment and culture

Time limit: Select the length of time that your check-in is available.

Emotional vocabulary: Select from a broad or simplified collection of emotional vocabulary terms.

• Broad vocabulary features over 50 emotional vocabulary terms.
• Simplified vocabulary features a word bank with fewer, more basic emotions.

Privacy: Determine how or if students can see each other’s check-in responses. Note that students will never see their classmates’ names paired with a response.

Record name: Choose whether or not to record the names of students.

Tip: Reflect check-ins can be seamlessly integrated into your class routine. Since it only takes a moment to create a check-in, you have the option to post one spontaneously or even duplicate an existing one in a single click.

Expand learning with Reflect

Reflect’s versatility means that you can support your students through many of your favorite Microsoft tools. Here’s a sample of where you can use Reflect.

• Minecraft Education: Develop social-emotional skills through a creative and immersive experience. Explore the Reflect World with your students.
• PowerPoint: Facilitate class reflection and discussion using structured projects featuring the Feelings Monster.
• OneNote Class Notebook: Incorporate Reflect check-ins within your Class Notebooks.
• Flip: Introduce creative Flip discussions with social and emotional video prompts.

Tip: Introduce and teach social emotional skills using the Reflect activity collection in Kahoot! These pre-built activities cover topics like starting the school year, setting goals, and expressing feelings. The activities combine class discussions with assessment questions for a well-rounded learning experience. Simply preview the activity and click “Start” to begin.

Reflect from anywhere

Students can easily respond to a Reflect check-in within Microsoft Teams for Education on mobile, web, or through the desktop app. If using the Reflect web app, students can respond to the link or QR code that you share with them from the app. They start by choosing the current check-in and then selecting an emotion from the list. Through a mix of age-appropriate, accessible emotional vocabulary definitions, emojis, and the animated Feelings Monster, students can quickly and accurately select how they’re feeling.

Students select how they’re feeling from the age-appropriate and accessible definitions, emojis, and the animated Feelings Monster.

Tip: Start with the simplified set of emotional vocabulary and then scaffold to the broad set of terms. This helps learners of all ages develop foundational social and emotional skills before moving to a more expansive word bank.

Check in with the Emotion Board

Connect with your students in a flash using the Emotion Board, a physical board kit based on the Reflect app. The Emotion Board is perfect for classrooms with limited access to devices or those serving younger students or students with disabilities.

In four quick steps, you can create a board, make a check-in, and gain insights into students’ responses.

• Build a board: Get started by downloading the kit from the Reflect app in Microsoft Teams for Education.
• Assign a card: Prepare and assign the animal cards to each student.
• Share emotions: Have students place their assigned cards on the board.
• Scan the board: Use the Reflect app on a mobile device to scan the board and then explore the responses and trends.

Tip: Reflect Emotion Board check-ins are an ideal fit for transitional moments throughout the day or even as a key component of your arrival or dismissal routines. Explore Get started with Reflect Emotion Board for additional support.

Inform class culture

With Reflect, you have quick and immediate access to valuable student reflection responses. Start by selecting a check-in from the Recent check-ins list to see your students’ responses displayed as expressive Feelings Monsters in Together mode. You can also switch to a graphical summary.

Educators can explore Reflect check-in responses through the Feelings Monsters or in a summary view of their class.

In Teams, you can dive deeper into ongoing student check-in trends through either the Reflect or Insights tabs of your class team. To get started in the Reflect tab, simply choose the Explore trends icon at the bottom of the right sidebar. You can also find the trends by switching to the Insights tab and choosing the Reflect report.

Explore student check-in trends with Insights, enabling you to get a holistic picture of how your class is feeling and track the wellbeing of each student.

Both options lead to the same report information.

• Summary: Access a quick-glance display of the number of check-ins for the class, the average participation, and most common responses.
• Class response distribution: Review graphics highlighting how many students selected each feelings category for a check-in.
• Most common words: Explore charts featuring which emotional vocabulary terms students selected the most, the number of times that word was selected, and an emoji.
• Student list: Review graphs with each student’s last five responses and how many times the student participated.

Build a culture of wellbeing with Reflect. Foster important social and emotional skills for your students through quick check-ins and seamless integration within your favorite apps. As a research-backed platform, Reflect connects age-appropriate emotional vocabulary with the expressive Feelings Monsters for emotional check-ins that are accessible and engaging.

Learn more about Microsoft Reflect and get additional information with these resources:

• Download the Reflect Quick Start guide and the Reflect one-page guide.
• Explore the Reflect homepage and the Get Started with Microsoft Reflect support article.
• Take the Microsoft Learn module Build social and emotional skills in your classroom community with Reflect.

Embark on a transformative journey by embracing Reflect check-ins with your students today!

The post Build a culture of wellbeing: A guide to Reflect for educators appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

For nearly six decades, UNESCO has designated a new theme each year that focuses on specific aspects of improving literacy. This year’s theme is “Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies.” The goal for this theme is twofold: to boost progress toward making education accessible to everyone, and to “reflect on the role of literacy in building more inclusive, peaceful, just, and sustainable societies.”

What is literacy? Well, it’s much more than just the ability to read and write. Literacy is central to the creation of prosperous and peaceful societies and is crucial to what makes us human. Literacy helps us to organize and express our thoughts, build empathy and respect for other viewpoints, and helps us to conjure, capture, and convey ideas. It sharpens our faculties: activating our cognitive potential and unleashing our creativity. Ultimately, what literacy really is, is a powerful tool for good and progress.

Literacy matters

A significant benefit of technology tools—employed by skilled and compassionate educators and reading teachers—is to provide students with the opportunity to build skills and have more equity in their learning journeys. Microsoft Education believes that our literacy tools can help every student become a fluent reader so that they may enjoy success in school, career, and life. This is the mission that guides what we do and the learning tools that we develop.

A suite of powerful literacy tools

A student using Reading Coach to practice reading independently.

Microsoft Education’s foundational reading fluency and accessibility tools meet the literacy challenges of today’s educators and students. These solutions can help students learn, practice independently to become more fluent readers, and give writing and reading teachers the insights they need to provide individualized support. They also provide students opportunities to practice these skills in non-stigmatizing ways, anytime, anywhere.

• Immersive Reader: Immersive Reader is designed to improve reading comprehension for all students. Available for free in popular classroom applications, Immersive Reader incorporates research principles that increase access and is loaded with features that can read aloud or translate on-screen text. You can customize the learning experience for students, so whether it is reading at a slower pace or providing picture clues without narration, reading teachers can address a variety of activities in the classroom. Discover how every student can improve their skills and comprehension with reading and learning tools like Immersive Reader.

To get started with Immersive Reader in Word, select the View tab and then click on Immersive Reader.

• Reading Progress: Integrated seamlessly into Microsoft Teams for Education, Reading Progress simplifies the process of creating, reviewing, and analyzing reading assignments. With Reading Progress students read a passage aloud while recording video and audio, then turn in their recordings to you. Educators and reading teachers can also collect valuable data and visualize both class and individual performance and growth. Insights in Reading Progress offers the ability to easily create personalized challenge assignments, freeing up more time for active instruction. The Milton Area School District (U.S.) uses Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams to track students’ reading skills and focus on areas for improvement. Discover 5 Things to Know About Reading Progress and Reading Coach.

Reading Progress dashboard in Insights. Educators can collect valuable data and visualize both class and individual performance and growth.

• Reading Coach: Reading Coach is a tool in Immersive Reader that allows students to practice reading fluency and challenging words across the Microsoft tools they already know and love. And when students are finished practicing, they receive a high-level report to help accelerate their reading education and sharpen their literacy skills. Reading Coach helps build student agency and reading confidence, opening up a world of possibilities. The Philippine Department of Education partnered with Microsoft to incorporate Reading Progress and Reading Coach to help build the language proficiency, reading fluency, pronunciation, and digital literacy of all students. Discover 5 Things to Know About Reading Coach in Immersive Reader.

Reading Coach in Immersive Reader helps students practice and improve their reading fluency.

• Education Insights: Education Insights supports educators in meeting a student’s unique reading education needs, and it is built right in Microsoft Teams for Education! Education Insights is an analytics solution that automatically connects with key apps to help streamline an educator’s decision-making process and spot students who may be struggling. You can see student activity while spotlighted datapoints help you track your class’s activity and growth. Explore how to use data to support your students with Education Insights.

Class overview page in Education Insights. Scroll through the cards and use the dashboard to quickly see data for an entire class.

Use these Quick Guides for Reading Coach and Immersive Reader to get up and running with these powerful learning tools so that your students can improve their reading skills and comprehension today!

Spread the love of reading

We know that cultivating a love for reading is an important part of your students’ fluency journey. And a great way to spark this joy on International Literacy Day and beyond is to hear from authors of beloved books. Celebrate the power of literacy and nurture your students’ passion for reading by joining Flip’s live and on-demand author events.

Cultivate a love for reading by hearing from bestselling author Peter H. Reynolds at Flip’s Celebrate International Dot Day event on September 15, 2023.

Coming up on September 15th, join the Flip Team in a live global celebration of creativity, courage, and collaboration for International Dot Day. In the Celebrate International Dot Day event, students will meet Peter H. Reynolds—New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of The Dot—and his twin brother Paul A. Reynolds who will challenge everyone to believe in themselves and find the courage to “make their mark.”

You can also hear from celebrated actor and author John Cho in a Flip on-demand event. In the event Meet NYT Bestselling Author John Cho, students can hear John discuss his debut middle grade novel, Troublemaker, along with the inspiration behind it and how the book can be used in classrooms and libraries.

Register for Flip’s Celebrate International Dot Day event or watch Flip’s on-demand author events to help spread the love of reading to your students.

Get ready. Get set. Get reading.

As we celebrate International Literacy Day and highlight the critical role of literacy in building sustainable and peaceful societies, we also want to celebrate dynamic educators who help students develop skills and passion for reading with equitable and inclusive literacy practices.

Learn more and get additional information with these great resources!

• Building reading foundational skills: A guide to Reading Progress and Reading Coach in Teams for educators
• How to enhance reading instruction: a guide to Immersive Reader for educators
• Enhance literacy development with Reading Progress and Coach
• Accelerate learning for multilingual learners of English
• Celebrate the limitless power of Dyslexic Thinking

The post Fueling student futures with the power of literacy appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Learning something new can be a time-consuming and tiring process, but it doesn’t have to be so. Learning Accelerators are designed to help educators boost student learning with free tools that support foundational and future-ready skills.

At Escola Bosque, a Microsoft Showcase School, we use Learning Accelerators, and we are going to specifically talk about how we use Reading Coach, Search Coach, Speaker Coach, and Microsoft Reflect. All these Learning Accelerators are aimed at improving reading and writing skills, which are essential skills for learning in all areas of knowledge.

Enhance reading fluency with Reading Coach

The importance of technology in the teaching and learning process is increasingly evident and, in the current context, technological tools have become even more relevant.

One second grade teacher noticed that some of her students had more difficulty understanding the proposed activities when they only read them but improved significantly when they listened to the instructions. To help these students, she adopted Reading Coach, a Learning Accelerator built into Microsoft Teams that helps students practice reading.

A student using Reading Coach, which helps learners practice reading where they are comfortable, reducing the anxiety associated with reading in front of a class or teacher.

Reading Coach allows students to practice reading where they are comfortable, reducing the anxiety associated with reading in front of a class or teacher. The tool automatically identifies which words need more attention when pronouncing them and enables better interpretation of the texts presented. The students have loved using Reading Coach and it has already been possible to notice a change in their engagement, as well as an improvement in their assessments.

The success of using Reading Coach is due to the safety and simplicity it provides for students. This makes the work of both the teacher and the student more dynamic and inviting. Reading Coach is an excellent option for teachers who are looking for more ways to make learning more effective and attractive for their students.

The adoption of technological tools in education can be a challenge, but it is also a great opportunity to innovate and bring more efficiency to the teaching and learning process. Moreover, the use of tools such as Reading Coach can make learning more accessible and inclusive for students with different learning profiles.

Download the one-page guide on Reading Progress and Reading Coach to learn more about using these literacy tools together.

Develop research skills with Search Coach

One of the most significant advantages of Search Coach, another Learning Accelerator built into Microsoft Teams, is that it provides students with tools and feedback on information literacy in real-time. For educators, Search Coach provides more transparency on how their students search, providing crucial insight into each student’s research process.

Search Coach suggests reliable sources and provides guidelines for writing more precise and effective questions. This feature is especially helpful for students who are not familiar with the research process or who struggle with finding credible sources. Using Search Coach, students were able to perform searches in different languages and filter the results according to specific criteria such as publication date and relevance.

What I like most about Search Coach is the filters for the category, type, and posting date of the information, which means that my work is always up-to-date, secure, and reliable, giving me great results at school.

Caio Pugliese, 7th grade student, Escola Bosque, São Paulo, Brazil

The student experience in Search Coach provides tips, shows the reliability of websites, and features a filter menu to get more accurate results.

The impact of Search Coach on students’ research skills has been noticed by teachers and built into their practices. In particular, the technology teacher has found that Search Coach is a valuable aid for students looking to improve their research skills and produce quality papers.

In addition to providing relevant search results, Search Coach also mentors students in critically evaluating sources, which is crucial when we are surrounded by fake news.

Leandro Reis, English Teacher, Escola Bosque, São Paulo, Brazil

To learn more, explore the Search Coach product guide, download the Search Coach one-page guide, or take the Microsoft Learn module Develop search strategies with Search Coach and Search Progress.

Strengthen presentation skills with Speaker Coach

Speaker Coach, has been a real revolution for our students, helping them to improve their presentations effectively and autonomously. By using Speaker Coach, students have received accurate assessments of their presentations and have been guided to highlight their best skills to convey more confidence and assurance.

Speaker Coach being accessed on the Slide Show tab in PowerPoint. Speaker Coach is also available in Clipchamp and Microsoft Teams.

Students who have used Speaker Coach have reported a significant increase in their confidence when speaking in public. They also greatly improved their vocabulary used during presentations, which made them more effective in conveying their ideas. With the help of Speaker Coach, students can practice their presentation skills in a safe and comfortable environment. This means they can make mistakes and learn without the fear of being judged or mocked.

Download the Quick Guide to Speaker Coach or read How educators can use Speaker Coach to develop confident public speakers to learn more.

Create impactful check-ins with Reflect

Socio-emotional health has become one of the most discussed subjects in the school environment in recent years, and the importance of working with this topic is increasingly evident. At our school, this theme is already part of our DNA, and we have been reaping great results with activities and projects in this area, which contribute significantly to the wellbeing of our students.

In this regard, Microsoft Reflect, a wellbeing app in Teams, has proven to be a powerful tool to work on children’s emotions. During English classes, one teacher has created opportunities for students in grades 6-9 to share their emotions and be heard.

Students are asked to respond to Reflect, and the data is collected and organized through Education Insights in Teams for Education. In this way, the teacher can check the most recurring words among the students and diagnose the emotional health of the class. Based on these results, the teacher discusses the socio-emotional issues collectively and individually in his classes, cultivating wellbeing and interaction among students.

Educators can explore Reflect check-in responses through the Feelings Monsters or in a summary view of their class.

This approach has brought significant results, not only for the students’ emotional health, but also for the climate in the classroom and the quality of learning. After all, when students feel welcomed and safe emotionally, they are more open and willing to learn.

Therefore, investing in students’ social-emotional health is fundamental for a complete and effective education. And Reflect is a tool that can help teachers work on this topic in a practical and efficient way, contributing to the formation of students who are more balanced and prepared to face life’s challenges.

To learn more, explore how to get started with Reflect in Teams, download the Quick Guide to Reflect, or take the Microsoft Learn module Build social and emotional skills in your classroom community with Reflect.

Top tips for using Learning Accelerators to boost learning

1. Know the tools: Before using Learning Accelerators, it is important to know their features and possibilities. Access the available documentation and tutorials to learn more about each tool. As a Microsoft Showcase School, we are also able to get training and advice from the community via the Global Showcase School Leaders Team.

2. Use the tools together: Learning Accelerators can be used together to enhance learning. For example, use Reading Progress to practice reading, Reflect to stimulate reflection and discussion of ideas, and Reading Coach to improve reading aloud skills.

3. Use the tools often: To enhance learning with Learning Accelerators, it is important to plan regular study sessions and use the tools frequently.

4. Take advantage of customization possibilities: Learning Accelerators have several customization options that can be used to create a more efficient study environment that suits your and your students’ needs.

Using the right tools to accelerate learning

Microsoft Reading Coach, Search Coach, Speaker Coach, and Reflect are examples of how technology can be used to accelerate learning. All these Learning Accelerators are designed to improve reading and writing skills, which are essential for the development of learning in many areas of knowledge. As educators, it’s important for us to be empowered by technology like Learning Accelerators so we can attend to our students with more assurance in their individualized learning opportunities.

Coming up next from The Beacon: Insights from the Global Showcase School Advisory Board: Learn how one school system supports better learning outcomes with efficient and effective data practices.

The post The Beacon: How to boost learning with Learning Accelerators appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.