Classroom management made easy with Class Notebook

Class Notebook is one of Microsoft’s education features. It’s a variant of OneNote and comes with pre-created sections for collaboration, content sharing, teacher planning and individual student sections.

Class Notebook is an ideal application for sharing media-rich content, planning, assessment and giving feedback. Its design encourages collaboration between students and teachers.

Getting started

Setup through Class Teams

The best way to use Class Notebook is by setting one up through Class Teams.

Set up a class in Microsoft Teams.
Invite students to the class.
Open the Class Notebook section in the left side menu of the team.
To start a Notebook you can either:
1. use the setup wizard to start from scratch
2. reuse content from an existing OneNote.
Personalise the student Notebook to suit your context by removing default sections or adding additional ones for student organisation.
Select create.

Steps for creating a Class Notebook within a Class Team. Click on the Class Notebook tab, click on Set up a OneNote Class Notebook, remove any sections from the default, click Create.

Using the collaboration space with students

The collaboration section in a Class Notebook is ideal for whole class discussions and brainstorming activities. All students can view and edit subsections and pages. Teachers can control which students can edit and view sections within the notebook. You can track student contributions through the ‘show authors’ feature in the ‘history’ menu.

Manage Section Permissions window with each section visible in the Class Notebook Collaboration section. The sections are each named with a different style of art. The cursor hovering over the edit icon to the right of the first section Art Deco.

Display content and present information in the content library

Only teachers can edit the content library. You can use the space to present pre-prepared content or use as a whiteboard for in-class instructions.

Students can review the content at their own pace and make copies of pages for their own sections of the Class Notebook.

An example page from the Content library showing an example of a self-portrait drawn by a student and instructions around how to draw a self-portrait using the grid method drawn with a pen tool.

Plan your activities within the ‘teacher only’ section

The ‘teacher only’ section is hidden from students. You can use it to plan within your class Notebook. For example:

create sections to plan out your week
store resources for your different topics or subject areas
when you’re ready to share it with your students, create a copy or move the page to the content library.

Multiple teachers in the Class Team, such as co-teachers or specialist teachers, can access this section.

A page in the Teacher only section of the Class Notebook showing a weekly timetable with planning details added for each lesson.

Distribute and review student work in student folders

Each student within the Class Team has an individual section in the notebook.

You can add feedback directly within the Class Notebook, such as recording audio or video feedback or using the inbuilt stickers.

If you’re using the Class Notebook add-in you can also:

distribute content to student sections
do a quick review of student work
If you’re using a device with touch capabilities you can also annotate student work.

teacher uses the Distribute page function to distribute an Assignment page to students. The page then appears in the students’ folders in the Assignment 1 section as a page.

An example page from the Content library showing an example of a self-portrait drawn by a student and instructions around how to draw a self-portrait using the grid method drawn with a pen tool.

Class Notebook with magnified navigation tabs showing the student sections for Joan Clark and Belinda Pearson in the navigation tab after the Teacher Only section.

A maths page in a student folder in the OneNote showing a Maths problem, the student’s hand drawn working out and a crayon sticker and recorded feedback added by the teacher.

Resources

What is Class Notebook and how can it help me

Find department-specific advice around accessing and using the apps and its features on:

Read more about Class Notebook, the Class Notebook add-in and how the app can help you in and around the classroom on Class Notebook overview on the OneNote website.

Getting started and how to use it

Find video guides and resources on OneNote for teachers | OneNote, including video guides:

to help you get to know OneNote and Class and Staff Notebooks and how to make the most of it
on how to use the available accessibility features.

Search for OneNote or Class Notebook guidance in the teacher academy on Microsoft Learn.

Professional development

Self-paced online training:

New features and inspiration

Learn about new features and find inspiration on the Microsoft education blog for OneNote.

Technical support

Search Microsoft support articles for OneNote Class Notebook resources.

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