Class Teams Homepages have arrived – allowing teachers and educators to create an engaging central hub for their classes within a few quick clicks. In this blog, we’ve rounded up our best ideas for what to include in your Class Teams Homepage.
Not sure how to get started with Class Teams Homepages? We cover how to set up and customise a Class Teams Homepage in this guide.
Class Teams Homepages are automatically now automatically generated, pulling in a lot of pre-existing content and information so that teachers don’t need to worry about spending time building and editing pages for each individual class.
However, it’s always nice to inject a bit more personality into your learning resources – so we’ve rounded up our favourite ways to make your homepages stand out and facilitate student learning.
Create an engaging welcome banner.
Once set up, your Class Teams Homepage automatically generates a generic welcome banner.
Make this look a lot more engaging and personalised by editing the image and text.
Here, we have created a welcome banner for a history class.
Split up your content into sections.
Divide up your content in a more easily-digestible manner by using sections.
Tap the plus icon in the top left corner of the page to add a new section.
Bonus tip: Use spacers and dividers to break up sections and make your pages more visually appealing.
Include an area for announcements.
Add reminders about upcoming exams, revision classes or project deadlines to your Class Homepage.
The default page includes an area where teachers can add their own announcements, or you can create your own by inserting a text block.
Make announcements stand out even more by adding an image with text overlay.
Build a resource list.
A must-have on any Class Homepage is a bank of learning resources for your students to access whenever they need to.
It’s tempting to populate your homepages by uploading lots of resource files to that individual Class Team, but this takes a long time and duplicates a lot of work that will need to be re-done and re-uploaded when you roll over to the new academic year.
Instead, create a central resource area in SharePoint for all of your learning resources so that you can reuse and reshare them year after year.
Then, use your Class Homepage to signpost your students to those learning resources.
You can do this using several web parts, including Quick Links, Buttons, Links and Images.
Alternatively, you could use buttons and linked images to make a certain resource stand out.
(Here’s a little bit more about centralised learning resources, in case you’re new to our blog.)
Embed your Class Schedule.
Class Schedule pretty much does what it says on the tin – it shows upcoming classes and events.
It’s automatically populated with scheduled meetings for that class.
This is really useful for students – they can get a quick glance at any upcoming revision sessions or events relevant to your class.
Cloud Design Box customers get access to our exclusive My Events Web Part that gives students a quick glance at your upcoming events by showing your calendar events from Outlook.
Remind your class of Upcoming Assignments.
Teachers can reduce some of the time spent reminding and chasing students for homework by including the Assignments web part on their Class Teams Homepages.
Similar to Class Schedule, this automatically populates so you can just add and let the technology do the work.
Cloud Design Box customers get access to our exclusive My Assignments Web Part that allows students to see more of an in-depth view of all their current and upcoming assignments from their SharePoint homepage.
Answer student FAQS.
Answer some common questions your students might have about the course or module.
For example, how to submit homework or how/when they can get in touch with you for support.
You can do this by simply adding a text box to your homepage.
Cloud Design Box customers can create a more interactive FAQs section with our exclusive FAQs web part.
Introduce yourself.
Did you know you can add a short bio and photo of yourself to your homepage?
Great for the start of the new academic year to let students get to know you a bit more.
Don’t be shy – show your face and add a few facts about yourself.
Say it with a video.
We all know that video content is a great way to engage students. So, if you have found a great resource on YouTube about your topic, add it to your Class Homepage for your students to watch.
You could even record and upload your own.
Show your recent files.
Recent files show up automatically on the default Class Teams homepage. It might be tempting to remove it, but we think this feature is quite useful as it allows students to jump back in and access their most recently opened/modified files.
It’s all about making it easy for students to access what they need to learn.
Note: Only teachers and educators can make changes to your Class Homepage, so you don’t need to worry about students making unnecessary changes, and you have total control of what you’d like to share.
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