Page 7 - Athelstan Argus - December 2020

TEAMS TOP TIPS

from Alastair Cornish (Teacher of Mathematics at TDA)
‘Findings from a few weeks on the other side of the camera’.

1. BE PREPARED - you need to be more prepared than if you were teaching face to face!

2. Check your PPT several times especially if you have a penchant for copy and paste!

3. Answers and animations need to be looked at and make sure they work. You cannot easily change the
PPT once you have uploaded it to Teams.

4. If you are at home wear what you would normally wear in school - feel as if you are there. If you are
already in school, then wear what you would if students were in school.

5. BE PREPARED

6. Remember that the camera is on you, and they have a small screen at the bottom of their screen showing
you. They can also hear you so be careful. Even a little mutter will be heard across the classroom or into
their ears if wearing headphones very loudly if the volume is up.

7. You may know your class but make sure you have a seating plan with you - it helps when asking
questions. You can tick off who you have asked as you go.

8. Be comfortable - you are sat down and not moving about. You may get cold so if at home check on
heating and have a jumper etc. at hand. If at school, depends if the heating on but the same thing goes!

9. As a teacher you use your voice - look after it. You may be using it differently and perhaps you do not
need to project as much as in the classroom. Make sure you have drinks near you at the start of the
lesson. You may be at home but leaving the computer is the same as leaving a classroom – difficult and
not advised.

10. BE PREPARED

11. If you are teaching to a lesson in school, then
work with the person in the classroom. You are
now a team and should work together as one.
The cover supervisors know how to work with a
remote lesson. Go and talk to them as they are
the experts on what happens in the classroom
when you are elsewhere. Not only that, but they
are also the ones who have got the students in
and are the ones who let them out! You need to
work with them especially if there are any