Google Workspace: Classroom

Google Classroom is an online learning platform for schools and colleges that aims to simplify creating, distributing and marking assignments in a paperless way. Google Classroom is designed to help students and teachers communicate, collaborate, organise and manage assignments, go paperless, and much more! Classroom also seamlessly integrates with other Google tools like Google Docs and Drive.

Getting Started with Google Classroom

Inviting students to your class

Save time by using class email groups to invite students to Google Classroom. Continue to create Google Classroom classes in the traditional way. When you come to invite students, simply enter the class code email address and all students in the class will be added to Google Classroom and receive a notification in Gmail.

Manage Student Groups

By using student groups, you can provide targeted assignments, differentiate instruction, and foster collaborative activities.

Create a student group

Go to classroom.google.com.
Select the class then click People.
In the top right corner, click Create Group.
Name your group (e.g., “Reading Group A”, “Math Project Team”).
Check the boxes next to the students you want to include.
Click Create.

Edit a Student group

Go to classroom.google.com.
Open Google Classroom and go to the class.
Click People.
Find the group and click More > Edit group.
Change the name, add or remove students.
Click Save.

Add or remove students

Go to classroom.google.com.
Click the class and then > People to view all students and groups.
Locate the group you want to modify.
Click on the group name to expand the list of members.
Adding students: Check the box next to any student you want to add to the group.
Removing students: Uncheck the box next to any student you want to remove from the group.
Click Save to finalize your changes.

Delete a student group

Go to classroom.google.com and open the class containing the group you want to delete.
Click the class and then > People.
Locate the group you wish to delete.
Next to the group name, click the More icon (three vertical dots).
Select Delete group
A pop-up window will appear to confirm the deletion. Double-check that you are deleting the correct group.
Click Delete to permanently delete the group.

Delete multiple student groups

Go to classroom.google.com.
Click the class and then > People.
Check the boxes next to the groups you want to delete.
In the “Bulk actions” menu, click Delete. Then, confirm the deletion.

Find groups

Go to classroom.google.com.
Click the class and then > People.
To expand a group and find the list of students within it, select the group name.
To collapse a group and hide the member list, select the group name again.

Use a group

The next step is to learn how to utilize your student groups effectively. Let’s delve into some practical applications.

Go to classroom.google.com and open your class.
Click on the Classwork tab.
At the top, click Create and choose Assignment.
On the right side of the assignment creation page, next to “Assign to,” you’ll see a button with the number of students and groups in your class. Click this button.
A window will pop up with two tabs: “All students” and “Groups.” Click on the Groups tab.
Check the box next to the group you want to assign the assignment to. You can assign to multiple groups by checking multiple boxes.
Once you’ve selected all the groups, click Done.
Complete the rest of the assignment details, such as the title, instructions, and due date.
Finally, click Create to post the assignment to the selected groups.

Topics

On the Classwork page, you can group posts under topics, rearrange posts within a topic, and rearrange topics to follow your curriculum which allows you to better manage how students see the content in the class.

Create a Topic

Open your class and click Classwork.

At the top, click Create then Topic.

Enter the topic name and click Add.

Add a post into a Topic

Open the post settings by clicking the three dots.

Click the Topic drop down and select the desired topic.

Click Save.

Or click and drag the Post to the desired topic.

Rearrange topics

Click the three dots of the topic.

Click Move up or Move down to arrange it.

NOTE – You can also rearrange the posts in the topic using the same method.

Google Classroom Guardian Summaries

Google Classroom Guardians allows teachers to invite parents or guardians to receive email summaries about their student’s progress in class. These summaries include information about missing and upcoming work, as well as announcements and other class activity.

Key Points for Teachers:

Enables communication: Guardians stay informed about their student’s work without needing direct access to Classroom.
Easy to set up: Teachers can invite guardians directly from their Classroom, and guardians simply accept the invitation via email.
Privacy focused: Summaries don’t include grades, and guardians can’t view students’ actual work.
Customisable: Teachers can choose whether to send daily or weekly summaries.
Promotes engagement: By keeping guardians in the loop, it can encourage more involvement in their student’s learning.

Google Classroom – Comment Bank

The Comment Bank allows you to write a set of comments that you can easily click and add to student assignments without having to type them out each time.

You have 2 ways to add comments to the comment bank.

Method 1 - Click Add to bank and enter your comment

Open a student assignment in the grading tool.
In the top-right of the document, in the toolbar, click Comment bank.

3. Click Add to bank and enter your comment.

Method 1 - Add an existing comment to the comment bank

Open a student assignment in the grading tool.
Go to the comment you wrote and wish to add into the comment bank.
In the top-right corner of the comment box, click the three vertical dots and select Add to comment bank.

4. (Optional) Edit your comment.

5. Click Add.

Note: To view and modify your comment bank, open an assignment or go to the comment bank manager.

Comment Tags

When using a document, you can tag someone in a comment that you are making. If for example you wanted to ask someone’s opinion on a piece of text, you can insert a comment and use the @ symbol along with their name or initials to tag them.

Click the box next to Assign to make sure they action the comment.

Version History

Google automatically saves your docs every time you stop typing or make an edit but Version History automatically saves a copy of the doc when large changes are made such as adding a new paragraph of text. It also notes who has made those changes.

You can use Version History to go back and see what changes have been made and by who, only the latest 100 revisions will be shown, anything older will have been removed.

You can name a version of your document to easily find it in future, otherwise each revision will be shown by the date and time. If you are confident in what you’ve done, it might be worth naming it to save yourself time in future.

To access Version History, click File and find Version History in the list then select See version history. You’ll then be shown a page with changes along with a list of versions and names on the right hand side.

Highlighted text is text that has been added where text that has been striked through is text that has been removed. The colour corresponds to who has edited it.

Explore

A relatively new feature in Docs, Sheets and Slides, the explore button will provide different options in each app.

In Docs it will scan through your text and suggest relevant websites, images and other content from the web or items stored in your Google Drive. The general idea is that you can add images and citations that Google think is relevant to your writing without leaving the Doc.

You can find the Explore icon in the bottom right corner of a Doc window, once you click it you will have all of Google’s suggestions and content at your fingertips.

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