Create a new channel by clicking the ellipses next to the team name and selecting "Add channel." 

You will be prompted to name the channel and provide a description. You have the option to make the channel public (visible to every member of the team) or private (visible only to team members who are added to that channel). 

The default tabs for each new channel created will be Posts, Files, and Notes. You can add as many additional tabs as you would like. 

Some instructors have found it helpful to create one channel for each week or unit of the semester.

• In the Files tab of a unit channel, you could post relevant documents to the information for that week; slide decks from lectures; homework assignments and guides, etc.
• In the Posts tab of a unit channel, students, TAs, and instructors can engage in conversation about the unit material and ask and receive answers to homework questions. 
• In the Notes tab of a unit channel, you could house lists and links to assignments, readings, in-class activities, websites, videos, and/or other content that you plan on sharing during instruction.

Some instructors find channels to be useful in assigning persistent groups throughout the semester. The instructor can assign participants to a certain channel (they can even create private channels so that students can only see the groups to which they are assigned). 

• Can have public channels if students need to visit each other’s groups
• Can have private channels if you want students in their groups for the whole semester or for a large portion of time and they do not need to access other groups.
  • Advantage to private channels is that you can assign students to them because you cannot assign students to public channels (every member of a team will be able to see all public channels within that team).
  • To speed up the process of creating private channels, consider having TAs create them and add students to them.