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.

Reading aloud nurtures literacy, cognitive growth, and emotional well-being in children. In addition to helping to boost academic learning, reading aloud can reduce stress and strengthen bonds between children and caregivers. Explore how Reading Coach and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat help you transform classroom reading activities and inspire lifelong learners.

Bring reading to life for every student

Reading Coach, a Learning Accelerator, helps students discover the joy of reading while improving literacy skills—whether practicing challenging words or co-creating stories with responsible AI. Reading Coach makes reading fun for everyone. 

By providing real-time feedback and personalized tips, it helps students improve reading skills at their own pace by tracking their progress over various time periods, ensuring they remain engaged and continue to build their reading fluency.

Reading Coach is designed to support independent reading practice, making it an ideal tool to use throughout the school year—and to celebrate occasions like WRAD. To keep learners motivated, it offers encouragement through digital badges and rewards. Readers can earn streak badges for completing reading practice and they can also unlock new characters and story settings for every 20 minutes they spend reading. Rewards can even be traded with friends, gamifying the reading experience and inspiring curiosity for what comes next!

Reading Coach empowers students to build fluency at their own pace to:

• Improve literacy with engaging AI-generated stories featuring customizable characters and settings.
• Focus on specific words to overcome fluency challenges.
• Practice passages in 81 languages with multilingual support.

Whether at school or home, students can engage in personalized, AI-powered reading practice that keeps them motivated and on track. Bookmark and download the Reading Coach Quick Guide PDF to learn how to get started. Check out our “Educator’s guide to Reading Coach” blog post to learn how to use the tool.

From practice to progress, keep students engaged

Reading Coach offers three easy ways for students to get more involved in their reading. By providing helpful and interactive formats, it helps students build confidence, improve comprehension, and strengthen fluency. Explore these three engaging modes to make reading experiences personalized and unique:

• Create a story: Generate interactive, AI-powered stories by choosing characters, settings, and reading levels in 14 languages. Students decide what happens in each chapter, exploring practice words tailored to their needs.
• Read a passage: Access a digital library from ReadWorks, featuring over 110-leveled texts organized by Lexile level, genre, and word count. A variety of topics provide engaging, educational content that aligns with students’ interests.
• Add a passage: Upload custom passages, like assigned articles, textbook excerpts, or the student’s own writing. This mode supports individual learning needs and specific objectives, making practice more targeted and meaningful.

With Reading Coach, every practice session becomes an opportunity for students to progress their reading level and build their creativity. Take the Reading Coach training module on Microsoft Learn to learn how to integrate this tool into your classroom and lessons.

Create immersive read-aloud sessions

WRAD is the perfect opportunity to introduce inclusive and engaging reading activities using Reading Coach. Try these ideas to celebrate literacy in your classroom:

• Build confidence with reading practice: Use Reading Coach to help students prepare for group read-alouds. Real-time feedback on pronunciation and fluency can help them feel more confident.
• Create read-aloud challenges: Motivate students by tracking progress and rewarding reading streaks. Celebrate achievements with class-wide recognition or small prizes.
• Collaborative storytelling: Use the story-generating capabilities in Reading Coach to inspire students to co-write stories using AI. Encourage group sharing to make storytelling an interactive and fun experience.
• Host multilingual reading sessions: Incorporate stories in various languages, encouraging students to explore diverse perspectives and cultures.

In addition to WRAD, classrooms and families across the US will celebrate the joy of reading during Read Across America Day on March 3, 2025. Mark these events and join each movement by transforming your classroom into a hub of literary exploration and skill building. Use Reading Coach to create immersive read-aloud sessions that highlight stories from your classroom, your community, and around the world.

Design engaging activities with Copilot Chat

Celebrate the power of stories and literacy by using Copilot Chat to plan your WRAD and Read Across America Day activities. Copy and paste these prompts into Copilot Chat to generate book recommendations, fluency strategies, engagement ideas, and event plans tailored to your grade level or audience.

Adjust the prompts as needed to make them uniquely yours and inspire a love of reading in your students:

• Generate a list of culturally appropriate books suitable to read aloud to [grade level] students on World Read Aloud Day. For each, include 3-5 comprehension questions designed to spark age-appropriate discussions.
• Create a detailed set of read-aloud strategies specific to [book title] to help [grade level] students improve their reading fluency, such as modeling expressive reading, echo reading, or choral reading. Include tips on how to scaffold for varying reading and language abilities.
• Suggest creative strategies to keep [grade level] students engaged during the read-aloud of [book title]. Ensure strategies are culturally appropriate, promote active participation and comprehension, and include options for differentiation to support diverse learners.
• Design an engaging event for Read Across America Day aimed at [specific audience, e.g., K-12 students or families] that takes place in [location, e.g. the school library or classroom]. Incorporate creative ways to build a love of reading and suggest culturally inclusive books for different grade levels. Include promotional ideas and a timeline for planning.

Keep refining responses by exploring questions suggested by Copilot Chat or by following up with more specific prompts to further personalize the activities.

Events like World Read Aloud Day and Read Across America Day are more than just celebrations of stories—they’re movements that highlight the vital role of literacy in building inclusive communities. By using Copilot Chat to design creative and engaging activities and empowering your students with innovative tools like Reading Coach, you can inspire a lifelong love of reading, amplify voices, and create a brighter, more equitable future.

As we approach these celebrations, make them occasions to remember and carry the spirit of each into every day of the year.

The post Inspire lifelong readers with the power of reading aloud appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Reading Coach, a standalone Learning Accelerator, helps students improve reading skills through personalized learning practice. Designed to support both independent and guided learning, Reading Coach uses AI-generated stories with customizable characters to engage students and focus them on reading practice to strengthen reading fluency. Follow this guide to learn how to use Reading Coach to help build literacy skills.

With tools for tailoring reading instruction and extending learning beyond the classroom, Reading Coach empowers students to practice reading at their own pace. Explore how you can integrate Reading Coach into your classroom or have students use it at home. 

Educator benefits:

• Personalize reading practice to meet individual student needs.
• Create an inclusive learning experience with Immersive Reader—a feature that helps to improve reading skills for people of nearly all ages and abilities—with practice passages in 81 languages.

Student benefits:

• Improve literacy with engaging AI-generated stories featuring customizable characters and settings.
• Focus on specific words to overcome fluency challenges.
• Celebrate progress with badges and motivational rewards.
• Independent practice and learn at their own pace.
• Easy access for students at school or home.

How to access Reading Coach

Reading Coach is available for free and can be accessed with school-issued credentials (Microsoft Entra ID) or any personal Microsoft account. To use the web app, follow these steps:

1. Go to coach.microsoft.com
2. Select Get started.
3. Sign in with your Microsoft school account or with your personal Microsoft account.
4. Choose a reading passage mode, then explore, practice, and enjoy!

You can also find the Reading Coach app in Microsoft 365 or download the Windows app.

If this is the first time using Reading Coach on a device, a pop-up will appear asking for microphone access so you may need to enable your web pop-up blocker. Select Allow to continue. After reading, students can easily review results, including pronunciation accuracy, reading time, and words to practice.

Tip: When students finish a reading passage, they’ll see the option to Keep reading or Read something else on their results page. If they don’t finish the passage, they’ll see the option to Read again.

Explore reading modes

Reading Coach offers three flexible ways for students to engage more deeply with their reading. By providing supportive, interactive formats, it helps students build confidence, improve comprehension, and strengthen fluency. Explore these three engaging modes to personalize their reading experience.

“Create a story” mode

With “Create a Story” mode, students can generate interactive, AI-powered stories by choosing characters, settings, and reading levels in 14 languages. Students decide what happens in each chapter, exploring practice words tailored to their needs to keep learning focused on each student’s interests and abilities. This mode fosters creativity and personalized learning, making reading engaging and fun. It also ensures AI-generated story content is moderated for age appropriateness and aligns with the Microsoft Responsible AI Standard.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Select Create a story using AI.
2. Choose a main character and a setting for the story.
3. Select a reading level.
4. Select Create my story!
5. Select Start reading to begin and select the red Stop reading button to end the recording.

When students finish reading, a pop-up will appear with choices for the next chapter of the story. They can select a choice to continue or See results to finish reading.

“Read a passage” mode

“Read a passage” mode provides students with a digital library from ReadWorks, featuring over 110-leveled texts organized by Lexile level, genre, and word count. This digital library supports students’ diverse reading abilities with topics including science, famous figures, nature, and more to provide engaging, educational content that aligns with students’ interests.

To get started in this mode:

1. Select Read a passage.
2. Choose a reading level and select a passage.
3. Select Start reading to begin and select the red Stop reading button to end the recording.

When students finish reading, a results page will appear and they can choose to read the passage again, read something else, or practice more challenging words.

“Add a passage” mode

“Add a passage” mode allows students to personalize their reading by uploading custom passages, like assigned articles, textbook excerpts, or their own writing. This mode supports individual learning needs and specific objectives, making practice more targeted and meaningful.

To upload your own passage:

1. Select Add a passage.
2. Enter a title in the text field.
3. Paste or type the passage into the text field.
4. Select Start reading to begin and select the red Stop reading button to end the recording.

When students finish reading, the results page will appear and they can choose to read the passage again, read something else, or practice more challenging words.

Tip: Encourage students to keep a reading log with their reading materials or device to track their reading level and progress, helping them stay motivated and see their improvement over time.

Support accessibility

Immersive Reader is embedded in Reading Coach to support inclusive learning for all students. When students select “Start reading,” they unlock a set of powerful accessibility tools that can help boost comprehension and keep them engaged.

• Text preferences: Adjust text size, spacing, font, and colors for easier reading.
• Grammar support: Break down syllables and highlight parts of speech to improve understanding.
• Reading scaffolds: Focus on one line at a time or use the Picture Dictionary in Immersive Reader for extra support.
• Word pronunciation: Select a word to hear its pronunciation and practice saying it correctly.

Tip: Before students dive in, take a moment to show them how Immersive Reader works. Let them explore the tools to figure out what works best for them to give them time to help them feel confident and maintain their focus.

Student progress and practicing challenging words

Each time students read a passage, they can see insights on their progress like accuracy, time spent reading, and words they should practice. They can also track progress toward unlocking new story elements or earning badges. Over time, the Achievements page gives a summary of their total reading time, number of reading sessions, average pronunciation accuracy, and average words per minute as well as any badges earned and characters or story settings they’ve unlocked.

After reading, students can focus on the words they found most challenging with the Word Practice feature. It’s personalized based on their progress, so they’re working on exactly what they need to improve their reading skills.

Here’s how it works:

1. After reading a passage, select Practice words in the results box.
2. Reading Coach will highlight five challenging words. Choose one to practice.
3. Break the word in syllables or listen to it being read aloud to hear the pronunciation.
4. Select the microphone to practice reading the word aloud.
5. The word and star fill level will change based on improvement. Keep practicing until both turn green.
6. Select Next word to practice the others.

When all the words are correct, a pop-up will appear. Select Close to continue or select I’m done to finish practicing.

Tip: Encourage students to take ownership of their learning by celebrating small wins. After practicing challenging words, have them reflect on their progress—what words were tricky, what strategies helped, and how their accuracy improved. This builds confidence and reinforces a growth mindset.

Earn badges and unlock story elements

Reading Coach motivates and rewards students throughout their reading journey. They can celebrate their progress by earning badges and unlocking characters or settings, providing a tangible representation of their hard work and accomplishments.

• Badges: As students progress, they earn badges for reaching milestones and accomplishments. These badges are visual symbols of success, such as reading with high accuracy or maintaining a consistent reading habit.
• Story elements: Each time a student spends 20 minutes reading with Reading Coach, they unlock a new character or story setting to use in AI-powered stories. They can choose to keep the unlocked element or swap it for another. And they can see all their story elements in “Create a story” mode or on their Achievements page.

Reading Coach is a free, powerful Learning Accelerator that supports personalized, engaging, and inclusive reading practice for students. Integrate it into your classroom or encourage families to use it at home to help students improve fluency, build confidence, and celebrate progress.

The post An educator’s guide to Reading Coach appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Discover how our accessibility tools, along with Microsoft Copilot, can help you create a learning environment where everyone feels included and has the tools and resources they need to succeed.

Boost equitable education

Educators play an important role in cultivating learning environments where all students can participate. Microsoft provides built-in accessibility tools to foster independence, boost confidence, and promote participation in an encouraging way. Dive into the accessibility tools in Microsoft 365 Education to create inclusive and empowering learning environments for both students and educators. Explore accessibility and inclusivity courses in the Microsoft Learn Educator Center.

Empower student autonomy

Learn how built-in, inclusive technology in Microsoft 365 empowers students to personalize their learning experience, removing barriers and reducing stigma.

Immersive Reader

Available in Microsoft products like Reading Coach and Microsoft Edge, Immersive Reader helps students improve reading comprehension, stay engaged, and build confidence, while also supporting learning differences. Students can use line focus to concentrate on one part of the text at a time. They can break words into syllables, adjust font size, and increase line, word, and letter spacing to reduce visual crowding to improve readability. Immersive Reader can also be used to increase text size, adjust colors for better contrast, and read text aloud to support comprehension.

Speech-to-text with dictation

Dictation lets students use voice-to-text instead of typing. For learners with sensory processing difficulties, chronic pain, or fatigue, dictation offers an alternative to typing that reduces physical and cognitive strain. For students with dysgraphia or disabilities for which writing may be challenging, dictation allows them to express their thoughts and ideas verbally instead of relying on writing skills.

Microsoft Translator

Translator provides visual access to spoken content to help learners, like those who are deaf or have a hearing disability, follow conversations to enhance participation. Likewise, while multilingual differences are not a specific disability, they can often create a barrier to learning. For multilingual learners, Translator provides immediate access to translated text, supporting comprehension to help learners keep pace with classroom activities.

Live captions

Available in Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Windows 11, and Copilot+ PCs, live captions convert speech to text in real-time. For students with hearing disabilities or auditory processing disorders, this tool provides visual reinforcement of spoken content, providing better access to lectures, discussions, and most auditory information. Plus, it fully supports multiple languages, making it accessible for multilingual speakers too.

Empowering all students to reach their potential

Additionally, Copilot can help educators meet the diverse needs of all students. From adapting teaching strategies to providing tailored resources, Copilot enables educators to create learning experiences that empower every student to succeed.

The Northern Ireland Education Authority provides a powerful example of how Copilot can promote equity in the classroom. Educators use Copilot prompts, based on student input, to help them express their creativity to create original art and design pieces that showcase their unique talents.

Play the video to see the transformative power of Copilot in action and discover how it opens new possibilities for every student.

Personalize learning experiences using Copilot

Whether you’re a classroom educator, a paraeducator, or lead special education, getting started with Copilot can help you support the needs of all learners. Try using and customizing the following prompts in Copilot. Be sure to log in with your school account for enterprise data protection to ensure the safety of sensitive student information. And, remember to use the attachment feature to add lesson or unit plans, relevant documents, and images for more targeted responses.

• Based on this lesson plan, generate strategies for accommodations for specific areas of my lesson in my [grade level] classroom to support students with [specific need such as ADHD, dyslexia, or anxiety].
• Draft goals and action steps for a student with [specific need such as autism or executive functioning challenges]. The student [met or did not meet] their previous goal to [goal from last IEP such as improve time management skills by completing in-class assignments within the given time frame].
• Provide step-by-step guidance for teaching [skill needed such as social skills or communication skills] to a student with [specific need such as anxiety or a speech disorder] in a non-stigmatizing way.
• Using the information I provided, suggest one-on-one support strategies for assisting students with [specific need such as sensory processing disorders or autism] in a [scenario such as specific group activity or independent learning task].
• Generate differentiated assessment methods that allow students with [specific need such as a specific learning disability] to demonstrate their understanding of [subject or topic]. Include both formative and summative assessment options that minimize stress and optimize engagement.

Using these prompts in Copilot can help you easily adapt learning experiences to meet every student’s unique needs, creating a more inclusive, supportive, and equitable classroom.

Streamline IEPs with Khanmigo for Teachers

Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) are essential for documentation and planning to support all students. However, creating and tailoring these plans requires a significant amount of time and effort from educators. Khanmigo for Teachers, free for educators in over 40 countries thanks to our partnership, offers an IEP Assistant to help streamline the process.

Educators provide context on the learning environment, disability category, and current challenges and strengths to quickly generate an initial draft. The plan should then be refined based on professional judgment, evaluation, and analysis. Be sure that the final IEP is tailored to the student’s specific needs and complies with all applicable school policies and legal requirements.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities is a meaningful opportunity to reflect on how to support all students. Microsoft provides accessibility tools to empower every student to engage independently and confidently in their learning. Copilot enhances learning by helping educators plan inclusive lessons and develop individualized learning goals. Explore how Microsoft can help you create a classroom where learning is truly inclusive for every student.

The post Meeting the needs of all students with accessibility tools for the classroom appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Recognized in over 100 countries, World Mental Health Day is more than just a date. It’s a call to action that resonates with communities, schools, and individuals worldwide. In recent years, the spotlight on mental health—especially for young people—has grown brighter. As educators, parents, and community members, we’ve seen firsthand how important it is to address student mental health needs.

The good news? Our efforts are starting to make a difference. Kathleen Ethier, Director of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positively notes, “There is still a great deal of work to be done to address the crisis in youth mental health, but the data can really give us some hope that when we come together, we put young people first, we do what is needed, we can see positive change.”

Let’s keep the momentum going. Together, we can make a lasting impact on students’ well-being.

Get started with SEL training

Help students develop a growth mindset, navigate their emotions, and build a foundation for their future success by starting with some of our SEL training paths and modules. Learn more about instructional strategies to support SEL and wellness tips for educators, so you can start making an impact right away.

Explore our SEL training for educators:

• SEL skills learning path: Learn how to create student-centered classrooms that foster emotional intelligence, equipping your students with skills they need to thrive in the future.
• Teach SEL with Reflect: Learn how to seamlessly integrate SEL into your teaching practice with Reflect, a Learning Accelerator that supports student engagement and well-being.
• Developing wellness skills: Take your knowledge to the next level. Enroll in a variety of Microsoft Learn modules and explore supporting resources, designed to help you cultivate wellness skills in your students.

Support student well-being with Reflect

Guide your students as they build important social, emotional, and academic skills with Reflect. Reflect is a Learning Accelerator that offers quick check-ins, age-appropriate reflections, intentional brain breaks, and actionable data in the Reflect web app or Microsoft 365 learning apps.

One-on-one attention has an enormous impact on students’ engagement, learning, and well-being. Make Reflect part of your routine to give each of your students a place to share their feelings and give yourself data to track their status, progress, and needs.

Explore engaging activities in Reflect

Reflect offers a variety of fun activities for you and your students to practice well-being skills.  Incorporate SEL into your classroom with ready-to-use activities and materials:

• Stories: A library of engaging stories that help students explore social-emotional skills and offer AI-powered reading fluency practice.
• Inside Out 2 collection: Reflect brain breaks celebrating Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2, including stories, coloring pages, and games.
• Memory game: Players can identify emotions while matching the Feeling Monster cards.
• Kindness balloons: Students can explore a range of emotions and feelings as they share kind words about each other.

Check out the entire collection of short, inclusive activities in Reflect designed to promote SEL and help you gain well-being insights. Note that some activities may require authentication with your Microsoft school or institution account.

Navigate student emotions with Reflect Compass

Reflect Compass is a tool that helps you navigate student check-in results with 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.

 Explore these Reflect Compass features and resources:

• Ask follow-up questions to better understand students’ emotions during Reflect check-ins.
• Explore a variety of evidence-based strategies to help process emotions, all neatly categorized by type.
• Play the Compass podcast for episodes dedicated to specific feelings and strategies to help students navigate their emotions.

Use Reflect to foster a happier, healthier, and more balanced school community with age-appropriate reflections, intentional brain breaks, and actionable data. If you’d like more help getting started, check out Reflect Teacher’s Guide PDF.

Introduce mental health concepts with Minecraft Education

Minecraft Education is an excellent platform for introducing mental health concepts to students and building social-emotional skills like self-awareness and communication. Through immersive, inclusive, and engaging learning experiences, Minecraft provides a safe space where students can express themselves, collaborate with their peers, and navigate their emotions in a low-stress environment.

Ready to help your students practice essential mental health skills? Explore these exciting Minecraft Education challenges:

• Build Your Joy in Minecraft: Join Joy and Anxiety from Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 in this creative challenge. Students will solve a puzzle using Microsoft MakeCode then use Minecraft as a canvas to build a representation of something that brings joy to their lives.
• The Mindful Knight: Introduce students to the basics of mindfulness with this engaging quest. The interactive environment encourages students to make responsible choices during social interactions, guiding them towards becoming mindful social participants.
• Reflect World: Students will build SEL skills through a creative experience involving collaboration, problem-solving, and communication. After playing, discuss each emotion, the adventure it leads to, and ways to regulate emotions in real life.
• Minecraft Social and Emotional Kit: These specially designed worlds and activities support SEL. Your students will explore emotional well-being, empathy, and responsible decision-making through interactive gameplay.

Join us as we celebrate World Mental Health Day 2024 with resources designed to support student well-being and foster a positive learning environment. With tools like Reflect and Minecraft Education, you can prioritize mental health and help students practice empathy, strengthen emotional resilience, and create a more supportive classroom experience.

The post Support and celebrate student well-being on World Mental Health Day appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Dyslexia Awareness Month 2024 offers an opportunity to recognize the strengths that come with dyslexia and to empower those valuable skills in classrooms. Join us as we honor the unique strengths and power of Dyslexic Thinking.

Understanding Dyslexic Thinking

Of the more than 7 billion people on earth today, 1 in 5 are dyslexic. This genetic difference in an individual’s ability to learn and process information gives dyslexics a pattern of valuable strengths, referred to as Dyslexic Thinking skills. Dyslexic Thinking is an approach to problem solving, assessing information, and learning that involves:

• Pattern recognition
• Spatial reasoning
• Lateral thinking
• Interpersonal communication

Understanding how to nurture and empower Dyslexic Thinking is fundamental to the fabric of the future.

Rethinking human intelligence

Studies show that dyslexic thinkers are highly sought after by employers, especially as we enter the fifth Industrial Revolution, a phase of industrialization where humans can use AI to create more sustainable, human-centric solutions. Dyslexics excel in creative thinking, complex problem solving, and effective communication, making them ideal contributors in this era.

Made By Dyslexia have made it their mission to teach the world the brilliance of Dyslexic Thinking and to empower it in every home, every school, and every workplace. Their ground-breaking report, “Intelligence 5.0: A new school of thought rethinking the intelligence needed in Industry 5.0,”concludes that today’s world needs a different kind of intelligence focused on human skills such as complex problem solving, adaptability, resilience, communication, and creative thinking. These are skills dyslexics naturally possess but aren’t measured by traditional education and workplace tests which instead focus on dyslexic challenges.

In this report, Made By Dyslexia advocates for a shift in how we define intelligence. This new paradigm, Intelligence 5.0, emphasizes skills frequently found in dyslexic thinkers, like leadership, creativity, and problem-solving, which are increasingly in demand in the modern workplace.

We all need to rethink the human intelligence needed in the 5.0 world. Creativity, problem-solving, and communication are the most sought-after skills in every job, in every sector, worldwide. And these skills are inherent to dyslexics.

Kate Griggs, Founder & CEO, Made By Dyslexia

Key findings from the report

Dyslexics have the intelligence the world now needs. The headline research from the report reveals that one of the world’s largest recruitment firms, Randstad Enterprise, finds that Dyslexic Thinking skills are the most in-demand skills in every job, across all sectors, globally. Yet, despite this, outdated views on intelligence remain.

In the same report, global research with YouGov found that although 73% of people recognize that problem-solving is a good indicator of intelligence, nearly half still believe that accuracy of reading, spelling, punctuation, and grammar are also key signifiers of intelligence. Traditional assessments typically disadvantage dyslexic thinkers, whose strengths areas aren’t well-measured by standardized tests.

Interestingly, just 6% of global respondents believed that scoring highly in exams was the best indicator of intelligence, with only 5% believing high scores on psychometric tests are a strong indication of intelligence.

In this report, Made By Dyslexia sets out four key steps that schools and workplaces can take to better recognize and amplify Dyslexic Thinking skills.

1. Define dyslexia as a valuable skill.
2. Offer support and adjustments so Dyslexic Thinking can thrive.
3. Tailor testing and exams (or recruitment processes) for Dyslexic Thinking.
4. Offer support and community through employee resource groups (ERGs) in the workplace.

Intelligence 5.0 calls for a new way of thinking that prioritizes human skills, especially those inherent in Dyslexic Thinking. By recognizing and empowering these abilities, we can create a more inclusive, equitable, and innovative future, one where dyslexic thinkers are celebrated and empowered to lead the way.

Tools and resources to support and celebrate Dyslexic Thinking

Microsoft digital learning tools

Educators and families can support the unique needs of dyslexic thinkers with Microsoft’s digital learning tools. These tools, integrated into familiar Microsoft Education products, offer a range of benefits, including:

• Personalized practice: Tools like Reading Coach and Math Assistant in OneNote help students develop essential skills in reading, writing, and math through tailored practice and feedback. These tools empower students to practice independently while helping increase engagement and confidence.
• Real-time feedback: Educators can monitor student progress and offer personalized support with Education Insights. This tool provides valuable data and analytics to help educators make data-informed decisions to support each student’s unique abilities.
• Accessibility features: Tools like Immersive Reader and Dictation are specifically designed to support students with learning differences, creating an inclusive environment where all students can thrive.

Learn more and get started with tools to support Dyslexic Thinking using these handy quick guide PDFs:

• Digital tools for dyslexia quick guide
• Reading Coach with AI stories quick guide
• Reading Coach in Immersive Reader quick guide
• Immersive Reader quick guide
• Speech to Text (Dictate) quick guide

In addition, watch the video to discover how the dynamic partnership between Microsoft and The Prince Couple’s Foundation in Sweden offers non-stigmatizing technologies to help all students reach their full potential in school and beyond.

Dyslexia training, in partnership with Made By Dyslexia

Learning differences call for different teaching approaches. In partnership with Microsoft, Made By Dyslexia offers a series of free, transformative modules on Microsoft Learn that help educators explore how to support and celebrate Dyslexic Thinking in their classrooms. These training courses, led by expert educators from schools known for their innovative dyslexic strategies, are designed to equip you with the skills and knowledge to support dyslexic thinkers:

• Dyslexia Awareness, Parts 1 and 2: Learn how to spot, support, and empower every dyslexic learner with essential strategies to identify and nurture their strengths.
• Dyslexia Teaching, Parts 1, 2, and 3: Deepen your understanding of dyslexia with specialist strategies showing you what to teach, why it helps, and how to apply skills and proven approaches to support dyslexic learners in your classroom.
• Dyslexia and technology: Explore the challenges dyslexic learners face and discover technology tools from Microsoft to support them.
• Empower Dyslexic Thinking in Schools: Learn about the seven archetypes of Dyslexic Thinking in kids with practical tips and instructional guidance.

For Dyslexia Awareness Month 2024, join us in celebrating the unique strengths of Dyslexic Thinking. Create inclusive classrooms where every student can thrive and explore the ways to support dyslexic learners in your classroom with help from Microsoft and Made By Dyslexia.

The post Celebrate the strengths of Dyslexic Thinking appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

This year’s focus is promoting multilingual education, emphasizing the potential of literacy to foster mutual understanding and peace. Research highlights the cognitive, pedagogical, and socioeconomic benefits of a first language-based, multilingual approach—benefits you can bring to your community as a school leader and educator.

To support you in this important work, our learning tools and Learning Accelerators can help you personalize education and create supportive learning environments. These solutions offer features to enhance literacy for Multilingual Learners of English (MLEs), ensuring that every student can thrive. Additionally, Microsoft Copilot can help you develop inclusive policies and practices and empower you to cultivate lifelong learning.

Implement inclusive policies and practices for multilingual education

A first language-based, multilingual approach to education recognizes the linguistic diversity of students as an asset to learning and social participation, fostering greater equity in education. You can promote this approach by advocating for inclusive policies and implementing practices that value and include students’ culture and linguistic backgrounds.

AI-powered tools, like Copilot, offer powerful support in advancing multilingual education within your school. To get started, use Copilot to refine and develop policies and practices that promote multilingual education. You can even upload your existing policies to get personalized recommendations and revisions. For enhanced data protection, sign in using your school account.

Here is a prompt you can personalize and use in Copilot:

Develop policies and practices to support a first language-based multilingual program, including timelines, active community involvement, and guide for implementation. Ensure that inclusive language policies are developed and supported by students, families, and staff and that the process fosters shared ownership and sustainability. Language diversity should be viewed as an asset and practices should be implemented that leverage students’ multilingual strengths. Consider programming that supports learners who are multilingual within the mainstream classroom through co-teaching and interaction in diverse groups.

As you explore the strategies from the Copilot prompt, consider which practices you can implement immediately to support MLEs in your classroom. You can also extend the prompt to think about how you might present these ideas to school leadership to support multilingual education in your school.

Empower MLEs with Microsoft tools for literacy

You can also promote multilingual education in your classrooms by leveraging the existing literacy skills of MLEs in their home languages to build on their strengths. Microsoft offers a variety of literacy solutions to support MLEs, helping you ensure that inclusive school policies translate into effective, day-to-day classroom practices.

Support access to text with Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader provides MLEs with literacy tools that help them access texts in their preferred language. This tool empowers learners to take charge of their literacy experience and customize their support.

Learn more about how you can use Immersive Reader to support literacy needs.

• Read text aloud: Build literacy skills by having text read aloud. As the text is read, the words are highlighted, allowing MLEs to follow along and match the word to the appropriate pronunciation and spelling. 
• Translate to home language: Translate individual words or the entire passage into students’ home language. This feature enables students with different levels of English proficiency to engage with the text in their preferred language.
• Visualize words: Use the Picture Dictionary tool to visualize text that represents a selected word. This tool can make it easier for MLEs to understand and retain new vocabulary.

To learn more about how to integrate these features into your classroom, check out the Immersive Reader Quick Guide.

Provide customized reading feedback with Reading Progress

Reading Progress, a Learning Accelerator, makes customized literacy instruction possible with immediate, personalized feedback, allowing MLEs to sharpen their individual literacy and pronunciation skills. Schools like the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, United Kingdom, used Reading Progress for teaching Spanish as a foreign language and made significant literacy gains in Spanish:

• 22.43 words-per-minute increase in reading rate.
• 13.29% improvement in reading accuracy.
• A reduction of 7 average mispronunciations per task.

Learn more about how you can use Reading Progress to support the literacy needs of MLEs.

• AI-generated passages: Create personalized reading passages by selecting challenge words, topics, age, length, and language for your MLEs.
• Comprehension questions: Develop comprehension questions with the power of AI and edit them before sharing with students, providing a tailored reading experience. Customize the questions to the needs of MLEs to help students gain lifelong reading comprehension skills.
• Pronunciation sensitivity: Support your MLE with customized pronunciation sensitivity that accommodates your student’s speech pattern and accent. This tool can help your students develop nuanced pronunciation skills for challenging words.

Discover more in the Reading Progress Quick Guide and the “Support reading fluency practice with Reading Progress” training module on Microsoft Learn.

Offer opportunities for literacy practice with Reading Coach

Reading Coach Preview offers personalized reading fluency practice through AI-generated stories with customizable characters and settings, and options to choose your own path through the story. This innovative tool supports students with targeted word practice, motivational rewards, and includes Immersive Reader for a fully accessible learning experience.

Learn more about how you can use Reading Coach to support literacy needs.

• AI generated stories: Generate unique stories with the “Create a Story” mode that offers 26 main characters, from dogs to dragons, and 13 varied locations like castles or outer space. Students pick a character and location, set their reading level, and AI crafts a story with the option to choose a path through each chapter. Challenging words from one chapter are automatically included in the next chapter.
• Pick passages from a library or add your own content: Educators can help students pick leveled passages from a curated library of fiction and non-fiction passages or provide their own content to read.
• Practice pronunciation with coaching: Practice difficult words and explore their pronunciation through visual syllable cues, hearing the word read out aloud, and getting coached on the mispronunciation. This feature helps MLEs decode text and access content more effectively.

Reading Coach Preview is currently available for free in English to use at school with a Microsoft Entra ID (school account) or at home using a personal Microsoft account. Get started with Reading Coach online or download the Windows app.

Discover more about AI-generated reading passages in Reading Coach Preview with the Reading Coach with AI stories Quick Guide and the “Build reading fluency with Reading Coach” training course on Microsoft Learn.

Get actionable literacy data with Education Insights

Education Insights in Microsoft Teams for Education offers a wide range of actionable student data to help you make informed decisions to support each student’s unique academic and linguistic needs. With Education Insights, you can easily streamline your decision-making process, analyze academic and literacy trends, and identify students who may need additional support.

Learn more about how you can use Education Insights to support the literacy needs of MLEs.

• Analyze progress and data: Review individual, group, and whole class data efficiently to monitor reading progress and inform inclusive instructional decisions. This tool provides a clear overview that helps you quickly identify trends and address challenges that MLEs may be having.
• Practice challenging words: Create personalized or whole-class practice assignments to address MLEs’ reading and language needs. Education Insights analyzes challenging words and phonics rules from Reading Progress and Reading Coach data to inform instruction and create vocabulary activities that target areas where students need the most support.

To learn more about using Education Insights to explore actionable student data and support literacy, visit the Educator’s guide to Insights in Microsoft Teams from Microsoft Support.

Celebrate International Literacy Day 2024 with us and empower your MLEs through cutting-edge learning tools from Microsoft. Get started with Learning Accelerators and transform your classroom with a multilingual approach that meets every learner’s needs.

The post Celebrate International Literacy Day 2024 with Microsoft Education appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

When all students can access learning experiences and content, the benefits impact everyone. Learn about six exciting Microsoft classroom accessibility tools for inclusive learning you can use to create more equitable education experiences for everybody.

1. Accessible versatility in Copilot

Microsoft Copilot is your AI assistant to support more accessibility in the classroom.

Microsoft Copilot with commercial data protection is an AI assistant that can inspire creativity, support increased efficiency, and help you explore new ideas and concepts. It can also help you create a more accessible classroom for your learners.

Copilot can:

• Express ideas in various formats, like images and figures, from text descriptions.
• Provide alternative text for images in PowerPoint or Word documents.
• Extract data from images or PDFs and transfer it to Word document charts or Excel spreadsheets to better support screen readers.
• Draft translated text into multiple languages for students, families, and community members.
• Customize explanations to make content accessible, like simplifying complex topics for different age groups and incorporating student interests.
• Dictate prompt text using speech-to-text without using a keyboard, mouse, or trackpad.
• Utilize text-to-voice to listen to generated content.

Watch this video to learn how Microsoft employees access and interact with accessibility features from Copilot and Copilot for Microsoft 365.

2. Leveled-up resources with Accessibility Checker

Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker analyzes and offers recommendations for improving a file’s accessibility. As a tool inside of applications like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote, Accessibility Checker quickly scans files and offers immediate fixes for any identified issue.

Accessibility Checker helps identify and resolve common errors and warnings such as:

• Alternative text (alt text): Screen readers use alternative text to describe images and non-text content, helping users understand their purpose and meaning.
• Table headers: Users rely on table headings to understand the content that is read by a screen reader.
• Slide titles: Slide titles enable users to navigate within a presentation, including finding and selecting a single slide to immediately go to.
• Color contrast: High text-background contrast enhances accessibility for a wider range of users.
• Closed captions: Without captioning, the information in a video or audio segment can be entirely lost to people with disabilities.

3. Accessible literacy with Immersive Reader

Microsoft Immersive Reader is a text-to-speech classroom accessibility and learning tool that helps students access text. When students need assistance understanding digital text, they can launch Immersive Reader and it will read aloud words displayed on the computer screen. Immersive Reader is available in over 100 languages and built into Edge browser, Word, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, OneNote, and many other Microsoft applications.

Watch this video to learn how students like Sam can use Immersive Reader to access learning.

Check out the Immersive Reader quick guide for more tips. You can also read about how to use Microsoft tools to support dyslexic thinkers and how to enhance reading instruction with Immersive Reader on our blog.

4. Live on-screen captions and translations

Microsoft provides live captioning in Teams for Education and PowerPoint. This accessibility feature uses automatic speech recognition to show a written transcription of spoken content during presentations or meetings. Plus, it fully supports multiple languages including Spanish, Chinese, and more, making it accessible for emergent multilingual speakers too.

Check out this video to learn more about how live captions can help break down language and learning barriers.

Discover how to utilize real-time, automatic captions or subtitles to enhance your students’ learning experiences.

5. Improved speech-to-text with Dictation in Microsoft 365

With Dictation in Microsoft 365 apps like Word, you can help all students participate fully in learning.

Dictation in Microsoft 365 is a built-in speech-to-text accessibility tool that provides a range of ways to write and improve writing skills. People, including those who may have limited mobility, can use their computer’s microphone to dictate documents and presentations. Dictation also offers advanced spelling and grammar checks, word suggestions with Read Aloud, and is available in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook.

6. Real-time translations with Microsoft Translator

Real-time translations with Microsoft Translator can help you create belonging among your students and families.

Microsoft Translator helps improve communication between students, teachers, administrators, and parents for multilingual speakers and those who need vision or hearing support. With the conversations feature, you can have real-time conversations with automatic two-way translation that helps you connect and communicate with families.

Read more about how to use Microsoft tools to accelerate learning for multilingual learners.

Join Microsoft in celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day! Foster a learning environment where all students, educators, and families feel included and have the classroom accessibility tools and resources they need to succeed. Explore the Microsoft accessibility tools page for even more resources and apps that you can integrate into teaching and learning to make accessibility a priority every day.

The post 6 Microsoft classroom accessibility tools for Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2024 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.  

AI in education tools

• Microsoft Copilot quick guide
• Reading Coach with AI stories quick guide
• Microsoft Teams for Education AI features quick guide
• Khanmigo for Teachers quick guide

Microsoft 365 tools

• Classwork in Microsoft Teams quick guide
• Microsoft OneNote Class Notebook quick guide
• Microsoft OneNote quick guide
• Microsoft Word quick guide
• Microsoft PowerPoint quick guide
• Microsoft Forms quick guide
• Microsoft Loop quick guide
• Microsoft Stream quick guide
• Minecraft Education quick guide
• Microsoft Lens (formerly Microsoft Office Lens) quick guide
• Microsoft Bookings quick guide
• Microsoft Editor quick guide
• Microsoft Planner quick guide
• Microsoft To Do quick guide

Learning Accelerators

• Reading Progress quick guide
• Reading Insights quick guide
• Speaker Progress quick guide
• Speaker Coach quick guide
• Search Progress quick guide
• Search Coach quick guide
• Math Progress quick guide
• Reflect quick guide

Accessibility tools

• Digital Tools for Dyslexia quick guide
• Immersive Reader quick guide
• Reading Coach in Immersive Reader quick guide
• Math Solver quick guide
• Microsoft Translate quick guide
• Speech to Text (Dictate) quick guide
• Live Captions for PowerPoint 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.

I think when we’ve got kids that need different support mechanisms to learn, the Microsoft assisted learning tools become really, really vital.

The International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPWD) on December 3 is an annual event that reaffirms the ideals of inclusion and equity for people of all abilities. Started by the United Nations in 2018, member nations continue to celebrate and uplift people with disabilities with the intention to protect their rights and dignity across the globe.  

Microsoft’s commitment to inclusion in K-12 education, especially those with disabilities, is an essential part of an equitable education. As a company, we believe that all learners deserve the same opportunities regardless of ability, income, language, location, or identity. Our best-in-class learning solutions and education technologies help all students accelerate their learning in and out of the classroom. When all students can access content, the benefits impact everyone. 

Microsoft accessibility solutions will help you:

• Improve reading comprehension for students with dyslexia 
• Support students with dysgraphia or physical impairments write assignments 
• Provide alternative display options for students who have auditory processing disorders 
• Create more accessible documents, slideshows, and spreadsheets for everyone 

Addressing dyslexia with Immersive Reader

Dyslexia is the most common neuro-cognitive disorder, impacting nearly 20% of the population and accounting for 80-90% of all learning disabilities. If you’re an educator, chances are you’re interacting with dyslexic students daily, whether you notice it or not. Dyslexic thinkers often excel at pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, lateral thinking, and interpersonal communication. Yet, students with dyslexia often struggle with reading tasks because of phonological processing difficulties. 

Microsoft’s Immersive Reader is a text-to-speech tool that helps dyslexic thinkers decode text. When students need assistance understanding digital text, they can launch Immersive Reader and it will read aloud the words displayed on the computer screen. It also includes features like word splitting, one-line focus, identifying parts of speech, and dictation so that dyslexic thinkers can attend to difficult areas like punctuation and grammar. Immersive Reader is available in over 100 languages and built into the Edge browser, Word, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, and many other Microsoft applications. See how to use Immersive Reader to enhance your reading instruction! 

Overcoming dysgraphia and physical limitations with Dictation

Students with dysgraphia or fine motor impairments often find it difficult to write and type words on a keyboard. Whether the root cause involves working memory issues, in the case of dysgraphia, or limitations using body parts, these disabilities make traditional activities like drafting an essay or composing an email both daunting and time-consuming.  

Dictation is a speech-to-text tool that’s available in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook. With Dictation, whatever a student says with their voice is written as words within an application. This allows students to freely convey their thoughts rather than trying to overcome cognitive or physical disabilities. Dictation also includes advanced spelling and grammar checks as well as word suggestions to help students while they are composing. All that’s needed is a computer microphone and a reliable internet connection to start dictating. 

Addressing auditory processing difficulties with Live Captioning

Auditory processing disorders (APDs) are disabilities that impact between 2% and 7% of all children. APDs aren’t conditions that cause hearing loss. Instead, students with an APD may hear words differently because of how the central nervous system processes auditory information. For example, a student with an APD might process “raise your hand” as “chase your lamb” despite understanding what it means to raise hands in class. In schools, misinterpretation becomes more pronounced in noisy classrooms or when listening to complex information. 

To help those who have an APD, Microsoft offers live captioning in PowerPoint and Teams for Education. Live captioning uses automatic speech recognition technology to display a written, on-screen transcription of whatever is spoken during a live presentation or meeting. The real-time display provides essential support for students who have trouble processing spoken words. Live captioning fully supports Spanish, Chinese, and many more languages so that non-native speakers can follow along as well. See how to use real-time, automatic captions or subtitles in PowerPoint and live captions in Microsoft Teams meetings to support your students’ learning journeys. 

Supporting vision impairment with Accessibility Checker

Students who are blind or have sight limitations often use a screen reader to navigate and understand content. They rely on their screen reader to describe images, understand table structures, and identify sections or slides while listening to printed text. Without properly labeled elements for images, tables, and headers, a student with vision impairments often hears a disjointed, confusing readout of whatever is being shared. Poor color contrast also impacts students with color blindness or low vision. 

Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker analyzes and offers recommendations for improving a file’s accessibility. As a tool inside of applications like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote, the Accessibility Checker quickly scans files and offers immediate fixes for any identified issue. Making these changes increases the likelihood that a student with a vision impairment can understand content in the same way as their peers. 

Empower all students with Microsoft’s accessibility tools

All students deserve the chance to create, engage, and fully participate in classroom activities. Microsoft’s accessibility solutions allow each student to unlock their own diversity, skills, and abilities with tools to promote a more equitable learning environment.  

Get started with the learning tools built into Microsoft 365 Education to foster a learning environment where all students and teachers feel included and empowered. Learn more by exploring the Accessibility and Inclusivity courses offered in the Microsoft Learn Educator Center. 

The post Supporting the needs of all students appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

October marks Dyslexia Awareness Month, dedicated to honoring these exceptional individuals, representing approximately one in five students. Their unique abilities encompass extraordinary creativity, problem-solving skills, and a talent for thinking holistically—an indispensable asset in today’s ever-changing world. Educators play a vital role in identifying, supporting, and empowering every dyslexic learner.

Dyslexic thinking a valuable skill

We’re excited to share that Microsoft Education has launched a new training on dyslexic thinking on Microsoft Learn, created in partnership with the global charity Made by Dyslexia. This training module aims to help you understand dyslexic thinking, a set of skills highly valued by employers and recognized on LinkedIn profiles. It will provide you with the knowledge and strategies needed to create a truly inclusive classroom where both you and your students can thrive. Explore how Microsoft Education can support you in unlocking the power of dyslexic thinkers in your classroom.

The new course covers:

• Understanding dyslexic thinking skills: Dive deep into the 7 essential dyslexic thinking skills found in children, unlocking their potential in your classroom.
• Relevance in the workplace: Discover why dyslexic thinking skills have become indispensable in the modern workforce, and how they can benefit your students’ future careers.
• Creating inclusive classrooms: Learn practical techniques and approaches to foster inclusive learning environments where all students, including dyslexic thinkers, can excel.
• The role of technology and AI: Explore the exciting ways technology and AI are revolutionizing dyslexic learning and teaching, giving you the tools to adapt to the digital age.

Supporting dyslexic thinkers in the classroom

Microsoft Education offers a wide range of tools designed to support students with dyslexia, empowering educators to provide flexible learning supports and assessment options. Let’s explore some of the learning tools and Learning Accelerators that can assist dyslexic learners in succeeding in the classroom.

Text-decoding options

Dyslexic thinkers often face challenges in translating their creative ideas into written form due to difficulties with spelling, punctuation, and grammar rules. This struggle can be evident in both the initial writing and editing stages, as they grapple with memory-based learning and applying rules.

Immersive Reader, available across Microsoft tools, supports students’ developing spelling and grammar skills by offering features like word splitting, one-line focus, highlighting parts of speech, and dictation in over 100 languages.

Change how text appears with Text Preferences in Immersive Reader.

LinkedIn has recently incorporated Immersive Reader as a new way to digest content. This new accessibility feature in LinkedIn is particularly useful among members with dyslexia, making it much easier for them to read and enjoy long form articles and content. With just one click, individuals can unlock a series of tools such as the ability to read content aloud, translate content in real-time, and change reading and text preferences on any article or Newsletter published on LinkedIn. LinkedIn Learning will also share a free course on Dyslexic Thinking later this month.

Multi-sensory reading practice

Reading fluency can pose challenges for dyslexic thinkers, as they often struggle with recognizing and working with sounds, letters, and individual words. In some reading programs, fluency is considered a prerequisite for comprehension and is given top priority for mastery. To help dyslexic thinkers, however, it’s essential to place equal emphasis on both comprehension and fluency. One way to do this is to leverage Reading Progress.

Reading Progress supports students’ reading fluency with independent practice, self-assessment, personalized feedback. Educators can use Reading Coach to identify challenging words and provide targeted practice. Both Learning Accelerators are integrated in Microsoft Teams for Education. Using Reading Progress and Reading Coach alongside Immersive Reader allows educators to individualize reading instruction for all learners.

Big picture thinking for math

To help dyslexic thinkers achieve success, harness their language-based strengths and broad thinking abilities. To support their learning, offer chances for students to engage their senses, through writing, hands-on demonstrations, or verbal discussions. Additionally, when it comes to math, these learners excel when they grasp the meaning behind symbols instead of relying on memorization of a function.

Math Assistant in OneNote offers equation reading in multiple languages, step-by-step explanations, various input options, and student-created practice quizzes which can benefit dyslexic learners.

Math Assistant in OneNote offers various tools to help dyslexic thinkers, including equation reading and step-by-step explanations.

Celebrating dyslexic thinking

The world increasingly requires the unique approach of dyslexic thinking—an approach that excels in problem-solving, information assessment, and learning. Research underscores how dyslexic thinkers possess the exact skills in high demand in today’s workplaces. The Value of Dyslexia report points to emerging roles and advanced tasks across industries that align with the inherent strengths of dyslexic thinkers.

Ready to learn more about dyslexic thinking? The Microsoft Learn platform offers training and modules built in partnership with Made by Dyslexia. Check out Dyslexia Awareness, Dyslexia Teaching, Dyslexia and Technology, and Dyslexic Thinking. These modules help educators identify, support, and empower dyslexic learners, while providing strategies and solutions to benefit all students.

Let’s celebrate the incredible potential within dyslexic minds and collaborate to create truly inclusive classrooms where all students can thrive. By doing so, we unlock the extraordinary capabilities of dyslexic thinkers and pave the way for a brighter future for all. Join us in commemorating Dyslexia Awareness Month and commit to fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment for dyslexic thinkers and all students.

Lastly, Microsoft is proud to sponsor “Lessons In Dyslexic Thinking” the brand new podcast series by Made By Dyslexia. The podcast features conversations with the world’s most inspiring dyslexics where we find out what Dyslexic Thinking is and how each of us can employ it to change the world. Hear powerful stories from spies and sports stars, explorers, and entrepreneurs. Listen to the latest episode with HRH Princess Beatrice on Apple, Spotify, or Amazon, or watch the Lessons In Dyslexic Thinking playlist.       

Want to learn more?

• Watch Dyslexia Doesn’t Have To Mean Difficulty
• Take the available Dyslexia training, in partnership with Made By Dyslexia 
• Download the Quick Guide on Immersive Reader
• Explore Building reading foundational skills: A guide to Reading Progress and Reading Coach in Teams for educators

The post Celebrating dyslexic thinkers during Dyslexia Awareness Month 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.

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