Microsoft Teams as a tool for student empowerment and engagement

The Covid 19 pandemic changed the rules on how students engaged with university staff. Driven by social distancing rules to prevent the spread of the virus such online technologies like Microsoft Teams became the only medium for student to tutor interaction. Some have written on the negative effects of moving university teaching online in terms of reduced motivation and lack of engagement in the taught activities and in a sense of belongingness (Marek et al. 2021; Tümen, 2020). However, others have suggested that the use online technologies have also facilitated higher quality and increase contact between students and their tutors (Gravett and Ajjawi, 2022; Kidd and Murray, 2020). These positives have often been with the students who have found universities challenging to engage, such as students who are either, 1st generation, minority, working, or international students. Our case study reports upon the experiences of tutors in a post-92 university during the period March 2019 to August 2021 as they begin to navigate the challenges of the switch to online/hybrid teaching because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through personal reflections and anecdotal sketches, we learn about how this switch initially required a steep learning curve for academics but subsequently resulted in increase student empowerment and success for the diverse students with which they engaged. The increased student empowerment was facilitated by an increased use of personal tutoring, and feedback, as part of the teaching delivery in a dissertation module, which bridged significant gaps of student belongingness and well-being. The regularity, depth and range of the interaction created student-tutor relationships which were even more enhanced and rewarding for both parties, as compared to the previous on-campus experience. The lessons learned form these will surely have to inform university practices and policies as we move beyond Covid-19 and may challenge the concept of going back to normal, as was thought was the best.