Do you know that you can create a poll and then launch it before, during, or after your lesson using Microsoft Teams?

The feature enables teachers to create/launch polls that students can view and answer before, during or after the lesson meeting.

The polls, quizzes and surveys are sure ways of providing feedback to the lesson; makes it easier for students to respond to and are faster and more accurate. They also create a two-way dialogue between the teacher and students and are certainly a micro-learning tactic. Ultimately, it will show the teacher how students are understanding the materials in “real-time.”

Even better still, any member of the class can create a poll, and all members of the team can vote and see the results. This means it’s both democratic and transparent, and can be recorded if you need to refer back to the poll results at a later date.

A simple trick goes as . . .

Once the teacher publishes the poll, the students will be notified via a pop-up and in the meeting chat. They will be able to vote and see the poll outcomes in real-time. If the poll isn’t closed, the students can also choose to participate in it after the meeting has ended.

There are two ways to do this:

How To Add A Quick Poll Form To Teams

1. Open a Team and select the Channel you want to poll. This will open the Conversations area.
2. Type a new message and type @Forms select the Forms icon when it appears. This instructs the Forms bot that you want to create a poll.
3. Within the same message immediately after @Forms start typing your question. Add a question mark after it. Forms won’t recognise the question if you don’t.
4. Now type between two and six answer options with a comma between each.
5. You should now have a message that is formatting like this: @Forms Question? Option 1, Option 2, Option 3,
6. When you are ready to poll, send the message by clicking on the blue arrow. Within a few seconds it will be available to the whole Team to respond by selecting one of the options.

With Microsoft Forms, you can create surveys, quizzes, and polls, and easily see results as they come in.

Teams display a pop-up notification – All you need to do to is @ mention Forms in your Team conversation area, ask a question and then type in the response options. Within seconds your poll will be available to the Team members. A Quick Poll Form can have up to six options and one response per person.

Ask Questions To Your Teammates Directly In Your Conversations Threads – Once a poll is prepared, it can be published before the meeting to allow participants to respond before the meeting begins, thereby collecting information ahead of it. In this case, the poll appears as a card in the meeting chat.

During the meeting, the organizer or presenters can publish polls at the point when it’s a good time to ask the question. Because the full meeting experience is available, Teams uses a pop-up notification displayed in the middle of the meeting window to display the poll card

When you launch your poll, it will pop up as a notification on the meeting screen and also appear in the meeting chat window. Attendees can also create ad-hoc polls during a meeting to get quick feedback on the spot.

How To Add A Quiz (Multiple-Choice Type Questions) Poll/Survey Form To Teams

1. In Teams, select Calendar.
2. Find the meeting you’ve scheduled for which you want to add polls, and click or tap it.
3. Select Chat With Participants.
4. Select Add a tab  , and then select Forms.
5. Select Save. A new Polls tab will be added to your meeting.
6. Select Add a button to Create New Poll.
7. Add your question and answer options.
8. As appropriate for your meeting, select Share results automatically after voting and/or Keep responses anonymous.
9. Select Save. This will save your poll as a draft until you’re ready to launch it during your meeting.
10. Note: You’ll see DRAFT marked in green in the upper left corner of your poll to indicate it hasn’t been launched yet.
11. To create more polls for your meeting, select Add button Create New.
    
12. You can launch a poll using either of these methods: In the Polls tab, select Launch on the poll for which you want responses. You can do this before, during, or after your meeting OR Select the Polls icon in your meeting window, which will open a Polls pane. Select Launch on the poll for which you want responses.

When you launch your poll, meeting attendees will see your question and answer options in a poll notification that appears in the middle of their meeting screen.

• Polls that have been launched and are accepting responses will be marked in red with LIVE in the upper left corner of the poll.
  • Polls that have been closed and are no longer accepting responses will be marked in dark gray with CLOSED in the upper left corner of the poll.
  • If you want to reopen the poll, select the drop-down list next to Export results and choose Reopen poll.
• If you want to close a poll, export poll results, or a delete a poll, select the drop-down list next to View results and select Close poll, Export results, or Delete poll, respectively.

To view the results . . .

If you want to see which choice each user chose, open the Forms application and click on the poll form.

Only the person who created the poll will be able to see the responses in Forms, but the responses can be exported to Excel and shared with the team, just like any other document.

Dear Teacher . . . There is a lot to gain in making our lessons more entertaining, and ultimately, more enterprising; and polls, surveys or quizzes are just one way of beating the routines. Please try it and see it for yourself.

Good luck in all your endeavours.

Be EMPOWERED and EXCEL!!