Teams Overview#
Using teams in your course is an effective way for learners to interact and collaborate on small group projects or activities. You define the structure of teams in your course by defining “team-sets”, groups of teams based around a specific topic or assignment. Each learner can belong to one team per team-set, so you can set up a team-set where learners can join a team to discuss a certain course topic, or set up a team-set where learners can join a team to work on a group assignment.
You can also configure “instructor-managed” team-sets. This is a setting which allows course staff much greater control of course teams. In instructor-managed team-sets, instructors create and control the membership of all teams. More information on instructor-managed team-sets and instructions on how to set them up are contained later in this document. To make controlling course team memberships across teams and team-sets easier, there is a CSV upload tool that allows course staff to add and remove learners from teams across team-sets in bulk. More information on this tool can be found in the section Managing Teams via CSV Upload
When a team is created, it is given an name and description to identify it. A primary communication language can optionally be specified and a primary country that members identify with. Team characteristics might serve as the basis for attracting new members, resulting in small groups of learners with similar interests and goals who will work together on projects or activities within the same topic area.
Teams are most effective when learners have a clear reason for joining a team, and a clear outcome to achieve with fellow team members. For example, you might create an assignment that consists of a group project or activity, and ask learners to join teams of their choice within a specific team-set to complete the assignment. Team members can use discussions within the team to communicate and collaborate on the assignment. If you want only to provide a way for learners to connect socially, consider using discussions within the course rather than teams. For more information about using discussions, see Running Course Discussions.
See also
Managing Team Discussions (concept)
Enable and Configure Teams (how-to)
Teams Configuration Options (reference)
The Learner’s Experience of Teams (concept)
Managing Teams via CSV Upload (reference)
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