Get the most out of Google Classroom and engage your students with these top tips.
With BETT 2024 held in London last month, Google for Education announced some changes to Google Classroom that should have teachers and administrators excited as well as reminding us of some of the recent updates towards the end of last year. Let’s look at a few of the top ones to see how they can spark engagement for your teachers and students.
1. 'Visit a Classroom’ for Administrators
This is great for those teaching across multiple classes, managing release of teachers or those in leadership positions and needing oversight over classes. With the upgraded editions of Google Workspace, users with a Custom Admin role will be able to ‘drop in’ to classes without needing to be added as a Teacher to the class. This is also a great way to add relievers to a class without interrupting the flow of learning for classes within your school. Check out one of our previous posts about this to see how this can be enabled for you!
2. ‘Share Templates’ feature
Google Classroom’s new share templates feature lets teachers create high-quality lesson plans with assignments, rubrics, and materials in their Google Classroom and create a shareable link, rather than adding a co-teacher and having them reuse each post. They can share this link and these assignments, resources etc with other educators in their school or district through a shareable link. This allows colleagues to see the structure and import specific assignments or the entire set of assignments and resources into their own classes, saving time and promoting consistent, collaborative learning. See more about this update here.
3. Interactive video questions
Google Classroom’s new YouTube experience lets teachers turn any YouTube video into an engaging lesson. Teachers can pause the video and insert multiple-choice or open-ended questions at key points. Students answer the questions directly within Classroom, allowing for a more active learning experience. As they watch the video pauses and asks the question the teacher has added. Students must answer this question before moving on. This helps gauge student understanding, identify areas needing review, and provides teachers with insights into student performance.
All your YouTube questions resources can now be found in the resources section of Google Classroom’s Home Page.
4. Practice Sets
Google Classroom’s Practice Sets allows teachers to create interactive quizzes and exercises for students. These sets can be auto-graded, saving teachers time and providing students with immediate feedback. Teachers can add hints and link to helpful videos to support students who get stuck, eliminating the need to wait for teacher explanation before being able to answer Practice sets also provide valuable insights into student performance, helping teachers identify areas where students need more help and tailor future lessons accordingly. Check out this blog on how to get started and another blog on a few updates to the tool.
Keep an eye on our socials for more updates on Google Classroom and the rest of the Google Workspace for Education!
