Teams assignments in the uk

[MarkB56710]

Hi all,

I have raised a Microsoft feedback request asking for the Teams Assignments button in Teams to be renamable at tenant level.

 

Who knows whether Microsoft will listen or not, although I did have some success with a Sway-related request I submitted a couple of years ago, so it is worth a try.

 

For me, this is mainly a UK education terminology issue. I think Google got this right with Google Classroom. The name immediately makes sense to staff, pupils and parents.

In our schools, Assignments is much bigger than the name suggests. It is not just homework or a one-off task area. It can effectively become the digital classroom space where staff share work, collect evidence, give feedback and manage learning activity.

In the UK, I think many schools would more naturally call this Classroom, Classwork or Learning Activities. “Assignments” feels quite US-focused and can make the feature sound narrower than it really is, which can affect staff understanding and adoption.

For MATs especially, being able to set this wording centrally would help keep language consistent across schools and make Teams easier to explain to staff, pupils and parents.

 

I would be interested to know what others think. Do you find the term Assignments works well in your schools, or does it create confusion with staff, pupils or parents? If you could rename it, what would you call it?

 

Please vote or comment on the Microsoft feedback item if you agree:

Allow renaming of Assignments at a tenant level. · Community

[Chrish5]

I think people have gotten used to it now (although we've had it available for some years but not all staff utilise it).  But yeah happy to add my vote to give us the ability to change it.

Edited October 16 by Chrish5

[Boredguy]

After using it for the past 5 years, think our users have gotten used to the term "Assignment" since for us it's normally a class based assignment they have to complete more so that us using it for homeworks

[TechMonkey]

It's something assigned to someone.  Makes sense and covers a wider meaning than just homework.  Naming it Classroom seems wrong as Assignments isn't the whole thing, classwork doesn't work as it might not be classwork it could be anything else, and Learning Activities may not cover it as it may be a task, not a learning activity.

 

The issue of having it renameable is that it makes help articles harder to write or support as well as meaning moving between work places is trickier as it may be called something else.