Classroom Tutorial

Classroom Tutorial

For my Teach-a-Teacher project, I taught Mrs. Cooney about Google Classroom.
First, I went over the different categories of posts, which are Announcements, Assignments, Quiz Assignments, Questions, and Materials. I showed Mrs. Cooney examples of each post that I had prepared earlier, as well as ways she could use them in her class.

Announcements are just quick little blocks of text, such as a reminder or clarification, and they don’t have due dates or points. I suggested she use these for little reminders, or if she wanted to give some information she was not able to share in class. I also showed her how to get pictures on here without too much hassle.

Assignments are exactly what you think they are, they are assignments that a teacher can give students over Google Classroom. The teacher has an opportunity to include materials related to the assignment, and can even create a template for students to use for assignments like essays or open responses. I suggested she use this post for her essays, as most of them are typed, and it cuts down on the hassle of submission. She agreed this would be a good use, and also wants to use it for her discussion guides, which are basically graded classwork questions.

Next are Quiz Assignments, which are essentially Assignments, but with Google Forms included. Mrs. Cooney expressed interest in using these for her quizzes, but there is no way of stopping students from looking up answers.

Next are Materials, which are just information and materials that the teacher can share with students. Unlike the other post options, this has neither due dates nor points assigned, it is just a method of sharing information with students. In Mrs Cooney’s classroom, there is a board with that week’s schedule on it. I suggested she use this post to share that board with her students.

Finally, there is the Question post, which asks one question and provides options for students to select. This option is good for quick questions, like what food do you want for the class party, or how many of you have begun working.

Additionally, there is a Topic button, which is a way of organizing the materials, assignments, etc. This can be useful if you have a lot of documents that you share with the students, and you want to organize them.

As mentioned previously, most of the options have the option to include a number of points and a due date. To the best of my knowledge most teachers don’t use the point system, though all use the due dates. It provides a reminder of the fact that one needs to do an assignment.

Mrs. Cooney’s main concerns were availability of computers, and limiting phone access. I suggested that she use Classroom more for sharing information and major assignments with students rather than using it for most classes.

Wait why won’t this show up? All I did was copy and paste.