Using Microsoft Teams to Support Collaborative Knowledge Building in the Context of Sustainability Assessment

Abstract

The current study investigates students’ use of Microsoft Teams as a collaborative knowledge building platform for a group sustainability assessment project. Ashby’s sustainability assessment method was used to provide scaffolding. Surveys (n=16) were administered to assess the nature of student collaboration, including students’ experiences using collaboration tools in the past, the activities students engaged in while working on the group project in MS Teams, self-assessment of collaborative abilities, comfort with giving, receiving and sharing comments and feedback, assessment of the effectiveness of Ashby’s sustainability assessment method in developing these abilities, and their overall assessment of MS Teams as a collaborative knowledge building tool. Students rated their collaborative abilities to be good to excellent and felt that the project was effective in developing those abilities. They are comfortable providing and receiving feedback and sharing their contributions openly. They found MS Teams to be extremely useful, and better than alternative platforms for key tasks including messaging, file sharing and collaborative authoring.

CoLabS: A collaborative space for transdisciplinary work in sustainable community development

“…A number of project management and online collaboration applications have been used in other research efforts related to sustainable development, such as the use of Trello in a study on transportation innovation (Majchrzak et al, 2018), Adobe Connect in work on climate change and agricultural systems (Eigenbrode et al, 2014), and Microsoft Teams as a knowledge building platform for sustainable assessment projects (Buchal and Songsore, 2019). The aim of this research effort is not to challenge the merit of using these platforms for sustainability work; rather, it explores a collaboratory approach that aligns with sustainable principles both in its development and use.…”

Pre-service Teachers' Experiences of Dialogical and Reflective Supervision through Digital Technology

“…According to Martin and Tapp (2019), teaching and learning with the Microsoft Teams application Paksuniemi,Keskitalo,Frangou,& Korkko 466 is located within the social constructivism paradigm of educational theory. Microsoft Teams allows messaging, collaborative authoring, and file sharing, and thus it promotes many kinds of interaction as well as individual and collaborative learning (Buchal & Songsore, 2019;Poston, Apostel, & Richardson, 2019). The study suggests that videoconferencing systems, like Microsoft Teams, need some improvements to fit better to learning-related features and to enhance usability (Correia et al, 2020).…”

“…The digital tool promoted dialogue between the supervisor and the pre-service teachers, as well as among the pre-service teachers, independent of place and time (cf. Buchal & Songsore, 2019;Leighton et al, 2018).…”

“…(Pre-service teacher 13) One pre-service student also commented on the quality and content of the feedback: The results indicate that Microsoft Teams served as a practical platform for pre-service teachers to share experiences, ask questions, give comments, and generally provide and receive constructive feedback that helped them develop their teaching further (cf. Buchal & Songsore, 2019). Because all the text was saved on the chat forum, the pre-service teachers were able to go back to it and engage or re-engage with comments and feedback at any time (cf.…”

“…Martin and Tapp (2019) found that using Microsoft Teams developed collaborative learning as a process of peer interaction mediated and structured by the tutor. Buchal and Songsore (2019), in their turn, claim that their investigation showed that students found Microsoft Teams useful and felt comfortable using the platform to receive and provide feedback and to share their contributions. We investigate the possibilities new digital tools offer for supervising pre-service teachers' practical training in the Finnish teacher education context.…”