A Critical Look at Google Classroom
Posted on: 7/14/20
When my school abruptly switched to Remote Learning in mid-March because of COVID-19, I told my 5th graders, "Just make sure to check Google Classroom!" My school was 1:1 Chromebooks and logging on to Google Classroom (GC) was often step #1 when my kids opened up their devices. As long as they accessed GC during Remote Learning, they would be able to start seeing their assignments for the day since I posted a To-Do Google Doc and most of their assignments were integrated into the GC Stream, as shown in the screenshot on the right.
GC is a type of Course Management System (CMS). CMSs are an integral part of online learning. Essentially, a CMS is the virtual classroom platform that my students access. Instead of passing out a paper quiz, I can have my students go on GC and click on a post to take a Google Form quiz. Thinking back on my own schooling, I've had teachers that used Edmodo (I remember that my teacher used this when I was in 5th grade...15 years ago!), Blackboard, ANGEL (no longer active), Desire2Learn, and GC. GC is the only CMS where I have had experience using it on both the student end and the teacher end.
With any CMS, it is worthwhile to consider the features it provides. This is to determine how to make the best use of the platform, as well as to determine if that CMS is the best choice for hosting your course. I broke down the different features of GC below. For each feature, you will find a brief description, an accompanying screenshot from my own GC, the affordances and constraints of the feature for assessment, and the assessment implications. Click any feature in the green box below to jump to it or scroll down.
Privacy Policy
The Privacy Notice for G Suite for Education can be found in more detail here and the Online Agreement can be found here. The texts explain specifics about user accounts and how Google uses data. User accounts are created and managed by the school. When an account is created, school administrators may need to provide personal information (e.g. name, email address). Later, Google may collect additional data like an IP address and location, as well as a user's phone number and profile photo (if a user posts those). Google does not use collected personal information for advertisements. Information they collect will be shared outside of Google in the following circumstances: with user (or parent) consent, with G Suite for Education administrators, for external processing, and for legal reasons. The school decides what settings are enabled in terms of user controls of how information is used in Google services. Of relevance are the options available for parents. Parents of K-12 students can access the personal information of their child, request for their child to have limited access to features or services, or request for deletion of account. It seems that with GC and the rest of the G Suite for Education tools, there is some control given to school administrators and parents in terms of privacy settings and control. If a parent prefers for their child to have limited access and/or their account removed entirely, the parent just needs to contact school administrators. A teacher will need to adapt accordingly with assignments. For example, if the assignment involves using Google Docs to write a paper, the student can hand write the paper or use another appropriate word processing application. Reference materials for assessments could be displayed for the whole class via a projector or printed out as hard copies.
Stream
The Stream on GC is similar to a feed you encounter on social media sites like Facebook. All of the things I have created on GC show up here, unless I delete it. I can enable if I want students to be able to post and/or comment or if it is for teachers only. If the post contains an assignment, it displays a count of those that are Turned In, Assigned, and Graded (see screenshot). Whenever something is posted on the Stream, students receive an email notification through Gmail.
The Stream makes for a quick way to view assessments. As the teacher, I can publish an assessment within a post on Classwork (see Classwork feature) and have it show up immediately on the Stream or schedule it for a later time and date. Once it is published, students simply need to find the post on their Stream and click it to open it up and begin. In the screenshot above, I am able to post an assessment, a reading Google Form, that is contained within the G Suite for Education tools. I am also able to post a link that takes my students to an external site, Padlet, for them to complete an assessment on that website.
The Stream is the way to display assessments and all other posts. Since posts are kept on the Stream, I can have a student scroll down to a specific assessment if we need to discuss it further.
Classwork
The Classwork page is similar to the Stream in that it also appears as a feed. The key differences are that Classwork provides a more compact view of ONLY assignments and it hosts the Create button, which is where I can create assignments to then post. In the Classwork section, students can see all of their assignments. If they click into an assignment, they can see a more detailed breakdown of the instructions, their submitted work, and the status of it (Is it graded? Missing? Turned in?). Teachers can also categorize the assignments by topic, such as Reading (see screenshot).
The Classwork section gives the students and the teacher a straightforward way of seeing everything that has been assigned. By clicking on an assignment, a teacher can easily view the status of the amount that are Turned In or Assigned (meaning it has not been submitted yet). It also displays the due date for the assignment. For students, the Classwork section will help them keep track of their assignments.
People
A roster of the class appears when People is selected on GC. From there, the two main courses of action are that a teacher can select on students to email them (it opens a new tab to Gmail with an email addressed to them) or can click on an individual student to see a summary of all of their assignments. For the latter option, GC displays all of their assignment names, the due dates, and the status of the assignment (e.g. Assigned, Turned In, Missing, or the grade they received). There is also an email button where I can type an email within GC and check a box to include a student work summary (see screenshot).
The People feature is beneficial in that it is the pathway to messaging students. The messages can contain feedback about assessments. I can select who I want to email and GC generates the email - all I really need to do is type the message and click send. One constraint is that emails are sent out via Gmail. While Gmail and GC are all part of the G Suite for Education, it would be helpful if messages could be contained within GC. It would make it one less website that my students need to access. Although the email messaging is not self-contained within GC, the CMS still provides a quick path for me to email my students. In my emails, I can type out my feedback and I can always look back at feedback by accessing Gmail's sent box. Students can communicate back to me by responding to the email.
Grades
The Grades section provides the teacher with a grade book within GC. On it they see the assignment name, due date, status, and the grade. Teachers can manually type in the grades (see screenshot - grades intentionally left blank), or the grade will automatically be there if the teacher had previously graded the assignment.
This feature provides a thorough grade book. Students are ordered by first or last name. The individual assignments are ordered by due date starting with the most recent. It does not seem possible to order the assignments in any other way. This might be inconvenient, for example, if a teacher wanted to view all of the math assignments side-by-side. In addition, the grade book only shows assignments posted on GC. During a regular school year, I would have GC assignments and non-GC assignments (e.g. paper assessments), so GC grades would not be 100% of what made up a student's final grade in a subject. In addition, my district used Skyward for our grading software, so I would have to manually check grades on GC and then enter them on Skyward. It would be helpful if GC was able to import grades to other grading software programs, if that is even a possible option.
The Grades feature works well enough as a grade book for GC assignments. I can use this feature to keep track of how my students did on assessments. This will help me see any trends and determine grades for report cards.
Create
The Create button, found in the Classwork section, is where assessments are created. Teachers can create an Assignment, Quiz Assignment (generates a Google Form) , Question, or Material. Depending on the type of assessment chosen, teachers include a title, instructions, point total, due date, topic (for categorizing in Classwork), and rubric. Teachers then click a button that says Add to insert a Google Drive file, link, computer file, and/or a YouTube video. They can also click on a Create button (this button is different than the aforementioned Create button) to design a Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Drawings, and/or Forms from scratch to put into the post. The Create feature supports different kinds of assessments. Since there are different options, see below for a more specific breakdown.
-Create Assignment
Personally, this is the feature I use the most. It is versatile in that I can post many types of assessments into it. If students are going to write a paper, I attach a Google Doc template. If they are going to work on a presentation, I can attach a Google Slides template. When uploading these documents, I can select if students can only view the file, can edit it, or if it will make a copy for each student (this will likely be the option if it is for an assessment). In addition, I can set a point total, due date, topic, and rubric. The rubric is a newer feature that I have yet to use with my students - check out my recent blog post where I explore this feature. Another newer feature that I can select is for GC to run originality reports on assignments. A drawback though is that you can only enable originality reports for three assignments per class.
-Create Quiz Assignment
This feature immediately generates a blank Google Form quiz for you to assign. From there, it is similar to Assignments in that the teacher can set a point total, due date, topic, rubric, and originality report. Two unique affordances are that the teacher can enable grade importing (grades from Google Form will appear on GC grade book) and locked mode on Chromebooks (disables access to other tabs and applications while taking the quiz on a district-managed Chromebook). I use Google Forms often, though I have had to do a few extra steps to be able to access what answers students put - GC only shows the point total, not the actual responses. I have to actually open up the original, editable Google Forms, which I do by searching for it on my Google Drive. From there, I can go to a section labeled "Responses" to go over answers. While I am used to what I need to do to view responses, it is a bit cumbersome that it is not fully integrated within GC.
-Create Question
This feature works well as a quick comprehension check, a survey tool, and a place for discussion about a posed question. Teachers input a question and instructions, choose if students respond by short answer or multiple choice, choose point total, select due date, select if students can reply to each other, and select if students can edit their response. The Add and Create choices are also available for this feature. If a teacher wanted to ask multiple questions, they would need to select respond by short answer and in the directions they could say to label the answers to the multiple questions as 1a and 1b. If a teacher wanted to ask multiple questions, a Google Form might fit their goals better.
-Create Material
For this feature, teachers can only choose to add a description, Add a file, or Create a file. I use this feature when I want to post an important reference material, such as a PDF of math properties. While the PDF itself is not an assessment, it is posted to support students while working on math assignments. In a way, this feature is similar to just posting a PDF on the Stream. A key distinction is that when posted as a Material, I can categorize it by a topic (e.g. Math). This means it will be easily accessible in the Classwork page under that topic - I am not able to set a topic category if I published it via the Stream.
In terms of the assessment process, the features that stem from the Create button is where the design of the assessment comes in. This is where I am able to create assignments to push out to my students. Students work on the assignment and eventually click to submit it to me for evaluation. If I assigned a Google Doc, Slides, Sheets, or Drawings, I can even pop in to a student's work to check their progress. This is an especially helpful way for formative assessment. Students are able to see an icon that I am on their document and we can chat within the document for support.
Mobile App
GC is available as a mobile app for phones and tablets. The app contains many of the same features as the computer version. I have found it helpful to also have the apps for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides downloaded on my phone so that I can open up student work easier. More apps does mean more use of device storage, so this option may not work well for everyone.
The app allows me to open up student assignments on the go. I have graded and posted feedback to students while on an airplane! While I usually prefer to grade on a computer, it is helpful to have a mobile version I can use if the need arises. On the app, I can even draw, write, and add text on a student's Google Doc, PDF, or image file (see screenshot), which is helpful if I need to mark certain sections. The ability to draw, write, and add text is an affordance of the app that the computer version does not have. This affordance is helpful for providing feedback on assessments. One major constraint is that there is not an app for Google Forms and I have not found a way to open up a student's Google Form responses via the GC app. Instead, I have had to use my phone's web browser to go to Google Forms to review student results. I use Google Forms a lot, so I choose to only grade those on my computer. While I usually prefer to review GC on my computer because of the larger screen, the app is helpful if I need to review assignments and I am away from my computer.
Google Meet
This feature, Google's version of video conferencing, was added within GC a few months ago. I quickly introduced my students to it so we could use it during Remote Learning. As the teacher, I can toggle on/off for there to be a Google Meet link posted at the top of the GC page (see screenshot). When it is toggled on, students click on the link to be taken to our class video call.
The video call can be used in many ways. Some ways I used it were for one-on-one and small group conferencing, math review lessons, and class presentations. A student or I could share our screens to present information and we could chat in a built-in chat box. One constraint though is that if the link is posted on GC, anyone in my class could pop in - if I wanted to provide individual feedback to a student without interruptions, it would be best for me to create a separate, external Google Meet link for just the student and I to join.
This feature was incredibly helpful in providing an opportunity for my students and I to converse about feedback. I would give verbal feedback about a previously submitted assignment and discuss next steps with the student. I also used it to replicate how I would have given feedback in person. During Google Meets where we went over math questions, I provided immediate feedback on the video call, just like I would have done if we were in the classroom.