Help your students navigate Classroom

Just because your students have cell phones and use TikTok doesn’t mean that they are masters of Google Classroom.

While they aren’t likely to admit it, some students would benefit from some training and support. 

Why your students need Google Classroom training

I teach several courses using Google Classroom. 

This gives me a front-row seat to observe where students get confused and some of the common issues they make when navigating Google Classroom. 

Here are some common issues students experience:

• Understanding the difference between a private comment and a class comment
• Accidently responding to a discussion question in the class comment section. 
• Forgetting to click “view assignment” to see ALL of the assignment details. 
• Forgetting to go back to the classwork page to view the next assignments. 
• Logging in to their personal Gmail account, not their school account.
• Not knowing how to view missing assignments or receive feedback. 
• Forgetting to click the turn in or mark as done button. 

I want students to focus on the content of my course, not on clicking the right button in Google Classroom. 

Google Classroom includes several tools and features that can help students track their assignments, plan their schedule, and receive feedback from students. 

Most students don’t take advantage of these helpful features. 

Providing your students with instructions on how to use Google Classroom will help them complete their assignments more efficiently and allow you to focus on your lessons, not tech support. 

Two resources to help your students master Classroom

I created two student guides to Google Classroom that you are welcome to use, remix, and modify for your classroom. 

The first resource is an 8 min video that you can watch as a class or assign as an activity for students to complete independently. 

The second resource is a quiz that includes video instructions followed by quiz questions to make sure that students have mastered the core features of Google Classroom.  

Let’s take a closer look at both of these student resources. 

Student overview of Google Classroom (video)

This video reviews each of the main sections of Google Classroom and includes some entertaining GIF surprises along the way. This video was created for students in grades 3 and up. 

Table of Contents: 

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:30 Classroom home page
• 1:18 To-do and Calendar page
• 2:11 The stream page
• 3:13 The classwork page
• 4:58 Assignment screen
• 7:38 Discussion question

Google Classroom quiz

If you want to be a little more intentional about training your students on how to use Google classroom, consider assigning this Google Form quiz. 

This is a mastery quiz. Students should be allowed to retake the quiz as many times as necessary to achieve a passing score (I recommend 80%). 

Sections of the video above are included in the quiz; Students watch a short segment and answer 2-3 questions related to the video. 

This Google classroom quiz will familiarize students with the features and elements of Google classroom so that they can focus on their academic work. 

• Preview the quiz (view only)
• Copy the quiz (make a copy and modify for your own classroom)