Online Collaborative Learning Using Microsoft Teams in Higher Education Amid COVID-19

Abstract

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most universities needed to move to online teaching and learning, in some cases with very limited knowledge or experience in running online programmes. Engaging students online has become an imminent challenge that universities and academics are still trying to address. This paper reports on the findings from the experience of making the transition from an established collaborative learning activity delivered in a face-to-face environment to online collaborative learning supported by Microsoft Teams. Supported by an action research methodology, the paper evaluates this experience by comparing the outcomes of students' learning in the previous face-to-face and the online activities and the suitability of Microsoft Teams as a learning environment for collaborative learning for a postgraduate project management module. This research contributes to the growing knowledge of technology-enhanced learning by shedding light on how Microsoft Teams can support active and online collaborative learning in Higher Education.

The Pros and Cons of Teaching English Language Speaking Skills Online From the Points of View of EFL Teachers at King Khalid University’s (KKU’s) Tehama Campus

“…Teachers' responses show different opinions about online classrooms being a perfect environment for developing practical speaking abilities and think that technical problems associated with online teaching waste time. However, online classes decrease students' anxiety and affect fluency because using technology in online classes, helps students deliver speaking tasks better; This is in agreement with Tan et al (2022), Albaqami and Alzahrani (2022), and Truong and Murray (2019) who showed how online tools have a positive effect on students' motivation and agrees with statement 15.…”

Student metacognition in online learning using website hyperlink facilities on Microsoft Team’s platform

“…Preparing teaching and learning processes enhancing students' metacognition aided by IoT facilitation is one of the solutions for learning preparation generation in the 4.0. revolution and 5.0 society. Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) is a workspace platform Microsoft Corp. provides for real-time collaboration and communication (Tan et al, 2022;Deželak et al, 2023;Ma & Buechler, 2021). Many available features are applicable for online learning and metacognitive enhancement.…”

“…Here in this paper, we employed discovery learning model with a website hyperlinks facilities involvement in the Microsoft Teams platform to facilitate learning biological coordination system and examined the effectiveness of such an online platform in enhancing metacognition in terms of metacognitive knowledge and awareness. Microsoft Teams, as a part of the Microsoft 365 software, facilitates an online interface for collaborative activities (Tan et. al., 2022).…”