I'll be providing you with the greatest expert advice in this post to help you get the most out of Google Classroom this school year. Any classroom using technology must have a learning management system that is well-optimized.
Any classroom using technology must have a learning management system that is well-optimized.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using a learning management system like Google Classroom, which offers teachers a lot of configuration options. In order to prevent your learning management system from becoming a barrier to learning, I'll be giving my best advice for organizing content in Google Classroom in this piece, as well as how to optimize the settings and instruct students on how to manage it.
Hint No: 1
Which would be to implement your own internal labeling system based on random values rather than date limits.
Well, that could really sound a bit perplexing, but please stick with me for a while. I'm planning ahead because I want to be able to reuse my content year after year, so that's the goal here.
Furthermore, because dates fluctuate, if all I did was name my responsibilities based solely on the actual dates, it will be exceedingly difficult to locate those assignments. I want to develop my own internal classification that is dependable and will essentially not change from year to year.
Thus, Weeks 1 and 2 have already passed. In order to do this, I'm going to go back and revise my homework and re-label them. So, I'm going to start by writing the number 1 in front of each assignment under the heading "Week 1." After that, I'll also place a period before adding a number that denotes the day of the week. The numbers 1 through 9 correspond to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on.
Thus, if you enter 1.2 in the assignment field above, it will be one of the assignments I distributed on Tuesday. I'll go ahead and add those labels to the front of each of my presentations in this place as well. Of course, you don't have to utilize this precise labeling scheme, but once you do, you may use the numbers on all of your assignments rather than just those with a Google Classroom label.
But that will enable you to double-check and locate the documents you're seeking in Google Drive or another location where you may keep them. While it's an individual marking system, it can also be helpful to teach the students since they can associate a task in Google Classroom with, say, a missing score in the workbook, and they can go back and quickly locate it depending on the labeling in Google Classroom.
Hint No: 2
To immediately add audio notes to Google Classroom, download the Mote extension.
This also connects to the last piece of advice since I'll also show you how to store your audio notes. You'll need to visit the Google Chrome online store to download Mote for free. Once you've done so and installed it, you'll notice that Mote will appear everywhere you would typically be able to enter a comment in Google Classroom.
In order to leave a student a comment regarding their work, you may just click the purple M here in the graded dashboard. When the student checks in, they will be able to hear your feedback.
Meanwhile, when you click on that comment and then choose Save As, you'll be able to save that audio comment in Google Classroom in essentially the same way that you would your text-based comment. Therefore, you could record your comments in advance or just make them as you go, and then reuse them repeatedly. It's just one more speedy technique to automate your processes and gain a little time back.
Hint No:3
In order to modify the settings such that students could reply to one of these announcements but not upload their own content to the Stream
This is done so that students can still express themselves and make comments, but they must be in reference to a post that you have already written.
If you don't alter this setting, you run the risk of having your stream clogged with various student posts in addition to your own and, at worse, of having inappropriate posts made on the stream that remain there for some time before you can discover them and remove them. We'll return to the options, go down to Broadcast, and then alter the settings such that students can only leave comments in order to fix this.
Hint No:4
To modify the Google Classroom main dashboard's email alert setup
You'll need to first go down to the settings cog after going up to the three-line menu. You can see that by default, you will receive emails for almost everything that occurs in Google Classroom there.
I would at the very least disable comments on your blogs because this would cause you to receive a flood of emails. Every time a student reacts to an announcement you post if you don't turn this off, you'll get a separate email. Additionally, you will receive emails for those classes if you are added as a co-teacher in another teacher's classes. As an alternative to having all of your Google Classroom emails land in your inbox, you could set up a filtering system in Gmail to send them all to a certain label, which you could then quickly review.
Hint No:5
Save time when grading by using the Feedback Bank in Google Classroom
In order to use this, you must first click on an assignment that a student has submitted. This will cause a dashboard for grading to appear. By selecting "Comment" from the context menu on the right after right-clicking, you can leave feedback on a student's work.
After adding a remark, select Add to Comment Bank by clicking the three dots next to the comment. Once it has been added, you can return and highlight a different section of the page by selecting Comment once more. This time, you want to type #, and you'll see that the comment you just entered will appear.
So, that's one method for coming up with comments on the spot. However, you may also prepare your own comments in advance and add them to this comment bank. So throughout the course of the entire year, I'm sure you would repeatedly leave comments on students' work.
Simply pre-write them in the Remark Bank, and when you go to comment on a student's work and type #, all of the comments that you previously contributed to your Comment Bank will appear.
Hint No:6
Ensure that everything is uploaded to Google Classroom.
Everything—including tutorials, handouts, announcements, and assignments you would typically give students—should be posted on Google Classroom. Why is this significant then?
One of them is that it lets students and families know that your Teaching is a trustworthy source for all the information they require. Another benefit is that if you consistently post everything to Google Classroom, it practically eliminates the problems of absent students not knowing where to look for work, the problem of students trying to lose work and not understanding how to get an extra copy, and it also generally makes your class more accessible because all of the resources are available in one well-organized destination.
Additionally, you will gain the ability to reuse content year after year, which will ultimately save you a great deal of time.
Hint No:7
Rather than publishing numerous separate individual videos with homework and supplies, build assignment bundles
Let's take an example where I wanted to teach my pupils about Ancient Greece by having them view an Edpuzzle video, and then I wanted them to complete a visual aid to demonstrate what they had learned. I'm going to make just one assignment rather than two, and I'll provide the Edpuzzle video and the set of instructions that students will use to demonstrate what they have learned from the post in this assignment.
This carries on the notion of reducing the number of locations where students have to click around to discover stuff.
Hint No:8
The operation of your learning management system
Therefore, you should begin with the hands-on, discovery-based scavenger hunt activity before moving on to a tutorial that students and family can watch as many times as necessary to understand the major components of your LMS.
Making your own guide has the advantage that you can include all of your own, quirky setup and usage methods for Google Classroom, all of which are advantages in and of themselves. But you can also use a pre-made guide if that's what you prefer. We do have one on our student channel that complies with COPPA. It's crucial that you teach them all of Google Classroom's various capabilities, many of which they probably aren't aware of, whether it's a pre-made one or one you construct.
Therefore, you should demonstrate to them how to access their assignments for all of their classes on the main dashboard as well as how to see what work is due soon, what work is still outstanding, and what work they have already finished. Additionally, you should demonstrate to them how to turn in assignments by clicking the Turn In button, add external documents to Google Classroom as part of an activity, and post or request public comments for the entire class.
Hint No:9
Turn off broadcast notifications for assignments
If you ignore this, the stream will be updated with every post you make by default. You can see that the stream would by default display both your announcements and any assignments you publish. After publishing just a few assignments and announcements, it's easy to see how immensely congested the Stream could get.
In order to fix this, you need to navigate to the settings menu, scroll down to Classwork on the Stream, and then choose No Notifications. So, when we return to the stream, the only post that is currently available is an announcement. Students will be better able to understand that announcements can be located on the Stream and assignments can be found under the Classwork tab as a result.
Hint No:10
Introduce your Google Classroom to your pupils by using a scavenger hunt.
As well as sure, even if students assert that they are familiar with Google Classroom, this is still true because there are many aspects that they are likely unaware of and because your Google Classroom will never be exactly the same as one used by a prior teacher.
Allowing students to participate in a treasure hunt can make learning more interesting and memorable since they will be doing and experiencing things on their own rather than just hearing or watching you describe how something works.
Therefore, in this example of a scavenger hunt activity, students would look for an announcement on Google Classroom, respond to it, and then snap a screenshot to document their actions. In order to receive a comprehensive perspective of all their tasks, they might also learn how to use the calendar function and how to post a private comment as opposed to a public one.
Whether you're curious about this adventure and a student-facing lesson showing students how to perform it, those are actually included in our online course on how to set up a technology-integrated classroom. That is included in our academy.
Hint No:11
Arrange your themes according to date ranges rather than categories.
In order to keep things organized, topics are a crucial tool that must be used. It's a pro and a con, but when you're coming up with themes, one problem that can easily arise is that you come up with topics based on concepts that you have in your head rather than a logical manner of structuring lessons that would be totally explainable for students.
In order to organize your Google Classroom, people frequently create categories for things like projects, group work, and assignments. You'll then find some Google Classrooms where the topics are organized according to academic disciplines like mathematics, biology, reading, etc. And the issue with both of those organizational structures is that they effectively want students to read their thoughts.
But what are my new responsibilities, they must determine on their own. A new assignment can be in math or reading, and students will have to use Google Classroom to find the resources they require. I believe that using weeks and date ranges are the ideal method to set up Google Classroom since I believe in limiting the amount of clicking that students must do. So, for instance, I would create a topic here for Week 1 and then add the Week 1 date ranges. Then I would create a second discussion for Week 2 and include the Week 2 date limits.
Additionally, since I already have assignments online, all I need to do is drag & drop them into the appropriate topic areas. Now take note that I added a date range and utilized Week 1 here. That was done on purpose, and it produced.
Hint No:12
Distributing the direct URL for assignments
The students won't be taken to the exact task if you establish a hyperlink to it or embed it someplace else without sharing the direct URL or just copying & pasting the link into Google Classroom. Instead, they will be taken to the "Classwork" page.
Ideally, you should click the three-dotted when you are over a specific task, choose Copy Link, and then hover over the assignment. When you provide pupils that link, it will lead them right to that particular assignment. Students will be taken to their individual work with their own copy if you have it configured to produce copies for them.
Hint No:13
Do not attach any of your evergreen resources to a topic.
Finally, Well, for instance, let's assume I have a document here that I want students to have access to during the course of the entire year and contains a variety of tutorial videos that they may view.
The initial thing to do is click Create up here, and then I'll select Material rather than Assignment. Then, rather than selecting a topic, I'll just leave it blank and connect that reference page to this stuff. You can now notice that the resource paper remains at the top of Google Classroom when we return to the Classwork tab.
So resource paper will always be at the head, even when we develop new categories and post new tasks. You can continue to publish fresh materials that children would need during the whole school year because we put this as view-only content, which means that every time you edit the document, the updates would be visible.
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