The chat feature in Microsoft Teams is a useful tool that allows students to communicate with their teachers and peers during online lessons. However, there may be times where the chat feature isn’t necessary and is causing distractions during lesson time.
Similar to the mute feature on Teams, this can easily be controlled and turned off, enabling you to teach without any interruptions.
There are two simple ways to turn off the chat function, this can be done before or during your online lesson:
Disable chat function in Class Teams before your lesson.
You can disable the chat function before your lesson starts through Meeting options. This can be accessed on the calendar entry for your meeting.
Meeting options is found under Details on the calendar entry.
When the Meeting options menu appears, you can disable the meeting chat, along with other options for your meeting, such as who can present and allowing your students to un-mute themselves.
To turn off the chat feature, change the Allow meeting chat option from enabled to disabled. Make sure to click Save after – this disables the chat function and activates any other changes you’ve made.
Your students are made aware that the chat function isn’t available in the chat window when the lesson starts.
Disable chat function in Class Teams during your lesson.
Teachers can also disable the chat function during the lesson. This can be useful when you want to disable the chat during certain parts of your lesson.
At the top of your screen, there are a few options that allow you to control your meeting. To disable the chat function, you need to select the more actions menu (…).
When the drop-down menu appears, select Meeting options.
To turn off the chat feature, change the Allow meeting chat option from enabled to disabled. Make sure to click Save after – this disables the chat function and activates any other changes you’ve made.
Enable chat function in Class Teams during your lesson.
At some point during your lesson, you may want to turn on the chat function to allow your students to communicate again. This can be done the same way by selecting Meeting options and enabling Allow meeting chat.
Using Meeting options is a great way to control your lessons and prevent any distractions during lesson time. The simplicity of this process also allows you to quickly change these options during your lessons giving you the freedom to activate and deactivate at any time and allowing students to contribute and communicate at the right times to enhance their learning.
Watch our step-by-step video on how to turn off the chat feature in Class Teams:
