Students complaints

Question

Hi 

I am part of management and have set up Microsoft Teams for all our lesson. Students are self-isolating so all lessons are happening online live. However, students frequently report that:

1. Their MS Teams keeps freezing 
2. They are getting kicked out of classes (Teacher is the only presenter) 
3. It was working fine then all of a sudden the microphone and camera stop working and students are unable to hear the teacher

What should we recommend them to do? Why does this repeatedly keep happening? Where can we report it? 

Your help will be much appreciated 

Sumiyya Iqbal

Answer 1

Respected teacher, 

I'm R7anubis, I'm a windows insider, and a student myself, I'm from India as well, I know what the current scenario is like for students and teachers.

I'm very sorry for the inconveniences.

As for the kicking out part, I'll be honest with you. 70% of them are lying. No one can kick students out, if only the teacher is the organiser/presenter. I study in a very big university myself. We are using teams as well. I know what my classmates do, and what other college going students do as well.

As for the mic not working, video not working, teams freezing, few students might have network issues, or slow systems. BUT, I think you should know by now that most of the students say the same thing when they don't have an answer to the question. I'll be honest, I do it myself sometimes. 

And, finally, unable to hear the teacher or see their presented screen suddenly.

This might be a genuine problem, if the teacher has bad network, or a slow unresponsive system/mobile, and teams sometimes experiences lags as well.

BUT, again, they might be lying, you never know. All students want to do now is get free attendance, and escape ( 70% of them atleast, to be honest).

I don't mean any offense, I only want to help you.

Note: Please ask your students to send photos, or screenshots of when teams freezes, or when they're unable to unmute or switch on video ( for mute and video, the icons will be greyed out if it isn't available) This method will help you find out who is lying, and who isn't. Ask them to send the screenshot with some kind of proof, like other students names being visible, or proof that the photo is of their laptop/mobile itself.

This is a very good method to help you find out whether the students are genuinely facing issues, or lying to you.

If you have any queries, please feel free to ask again

I hope this helps,

A student,

Your friendly neighborhood Insider.

Answer 2

Hi Sumiyya,

I'm Nik, an independent advisor here to assist you with your queries.

Firstly, I would like to let you know that Microsoft Teams app has a dependency with various devices and platform and it has some hardware requirement for a better experience, please refer the following link:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams...

Also, I would advise you to use MS teams web app https://teams.microsoft.com in the browser. It supports most of the latest browsers, e.g. Edge, Chrome and Safari 13+ and It will avoid any device and platform hardware dependency with student various devices and provide a seamless experience.

Now, to answers your questions:

1. Their MS Teams keeps freezing

[Comment] You can suggest students to manually restart the app by right-clicking the icon in your dock (Mac) or taskbar (Windows) and selecting Quit. After you quit, click the app icon to open it again.

2. They are getting kicked out of classes (Teacher is the only presenter)

[Comment] Other than the presenter, no one is allowed to remove attendees, so I suspect there are some other reasons students are being kicked out. Maybe there is some network glitch that forces the student to leave a meeting.

Also, If you are scheduling a team meeting, then try to change "Meeting option" > "Who can bypass the lobby?" to "Only you" then As the meeting organizer, only you can get into your meeting directly and get organizer role.

3. It was working fine then all of a sudden the microphone and camera stop working and students are unable to hear the teacher

[Comment] I have seen the issue with unsupported USB camera(external) and Bluetooth headset. Please ensure that students use a wired headphone and integrated camera to their laptop.

Also, please check that device settings are in places:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/mana....

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/mana....

Please let me know if you have any question and I will try my best to answer your question.

Regards

Nik