How to use Reflect to capture a pulse on student feelings (SEL) in Microsoft Teams

Video Tour on Adding & Using Reflect

Microsoft Reflect messaging extension for Teams overview

We thrive when we are working and learning in environments that support our emotional well-being. These are environments in which we feel heard, valued, safe, and included.

Group leaders (e.g., meeting leaders, managers, teachers) struggle to collect information about the emotional state of each of their group members, yet this information is helpful for understanding how to support their groups’ engagement, productivity, collaboration, well-being, and intra-group relationships.

The Reflect messaging extension helps team members be more aware of their own, and each other’s, emotional state during communication by giving them the ability to create simple, effective, and engaging emotional check-ins directly in the flow of a conversation in Teams.

Group leaders can check-in with their team members about how they are feeling in general, or about a specific topic, such as an assignment, the experience of learning or working from home, or current events in their community.

Key Features

• Aligned with the latest research and best practices for social-emotional learning, organizational psychology, and emotionally supportive environments
• Available as a chat extension for channel discussion, in group and meeting chats and in 1:1 chats
• Includes a list of suggested check-in questions and offers the ability to create custom questions for checking in with colleagues
• Check-ins can be set so responses are public, private to sender, or fully anonymous
• Runs on an organization's own Azure service
• Professional development resources for educators available at: https://aka.ms/checking-in-with-students and https://aka.ms/remote-wellbeing

Posting a new Reflect poll

To post a new Reflect poll to a conversation, first select the Reflect icon from the messaging toolbar. 

Customize the Reflect using the options in the create Reflect dialog box and click Send. 

Responding to a Reflect poll

There are two ways to respond to a Reflect poll. You can either select an emoji in the message in the chat thread or you can register a response in the "View Results" screen. 

Viewing responses to a Reflect poll (public, anonymous, and creator only options)

Viewing results from a public Reflect poll 

Viewing results from an anonymous Reflect poll or a poll set so that only the creator of the poll can view the results