Week 1: Google Classroom

An integral part of classroom learning and feedback nowadays has become Google Classroom. Google Classroom is a place where students can communicate with their teacher and classmates on assignments for class, among other things. Both parties access the classroom with their gmail account, and can either join the teacher’s classroom or the teacher can add students to his or her classroom.

Teachers can post assignments for students to complete and submit in the same place while monitoring students’ progress as well as who has complete the assignment, who has not finished, and who turns it in late. Teachers can comment or make suggestions on student work completed in a Google Doc or slideshow, and students can review the comments or suggestions and make changes.

When teachers assign work in Google Classroom, students don’t need to worry about losing assignments or completed work; everything is save in the classroom or in their Google drive. Teachers can also post resources, in-class notes or assignments, and any other information about the class that students might need to access. If students have access to a computer and the internet, they will be able to complete their assignments. For teachers, this is a huge benefit in terms of helping students who are absent; students will be able to access any missing work within their Google Classroom, and teachers can post directions and resources related to what the student might have missed in class.

 

In our school, we almost always have access to computers for our classes when we need them. Because of this, I have done more with Google classroom in the past two years because I feel that it has come to benefit my students greatly. I post the weekly slideshows with class notes so that students can access that material as their working independently in my classroom or at their homes. I post writing assignments that students are able to complete in Google Docs, cutting down on paper (and saving me from deciphering bad handwriting!) and helping me to keep track of who has submitted their assignment and who has not— eliminating anyone’s excuse of losing the assignment.

Recently I experimented with a group project through Google Classroom in response to a text we read in class. I broke students into four main groups based on results from their winter STAR test and analyzed the results of each group. Within each group I created mini-groups of three to five (depending on class size) and chose a focus skill based on our standards and the STAR test results for that group. Each mini-group was assigned a slideshow that I posted in their class’s Google Classroom.

Each slideshow contained four questions that built off of each other, leading to an understanding of their focus skill. Students got together in their mini-groups and logged into their Google Classroom. Each student was assigned the slideshow for their group, so students could work independently if that suited their learning style better. Students  who were absent could still complete their questions, and students who didn’t finish in class could complete it at home.

This activity garnered an overall positive response from my students. They expressed an appreciation for being able to work with their groups or independently on a “project” that was related to what they read. A few offered suggestions on how to improve it. As a teacher, having students work on a project I created in Google Classroom, with the directions clearly laid out and available to each of them, I was able to monitor their work, assist students who needed it, and most importantly, allow students to work on skills they need as individuals.

This weekend I will be reviewing their responses, which I’ll use to plan a similar activity for the coming school week.