Is Google Classroom Working? 8 Teachers Share Their Insight

I recently sat down with 8 of my colleagues at Burlington High School for a candid conversation about Google Classroom. I wasn’t surprised to hear that Classroom has had a significant impact on workflow and communication with students. Below is a summary of what Burlington teachers had to say:

English teacher Krista Roberts has been using Classroom since September. She uses it with her sophomore Introduction to Literature class and her junior American Literature class. Krista loves how easy Classroom is to use and that it creates assignment folders automatically.

Speech and Language Pathologist Colleen Jenkins has also been using Classroom since September. She traditionally works with students in small group settings or one on one, however this year was the first time Colleen was teaching a class at the high school. Colleen mentions how much Classroom has evolved since it was introduced. In the video below, she demonstrates the latest update to the Classroom iOS app; the ability to add an assignment.

History teacher Joyce Carey states that she “can’t live” without Classroom. She describes how Classroom has allowed her to streamline workflow and reduce printing. She also emphasizes that with Classroom “there’s no excuses anymore” for a student not to get an assignment or the notes they need for her class.

Social Studies Department Chair Todd Whitten has had great success using Classroom. He uses Classroom to share primary source documents with this students and points out that he can assign, collect, and grade homework all in once place.

For twenty-year veteran educator Diana McKee, Classroom has been “a life saver.” Diana teaches English at Burlington and shares how Classroom has improved her productivity and has made her students’ lives much easier. Prior to Classroom, Diana was paying a monthly subscription for a website, however after attending the Classroom training session at BPS Con in August, she decided to give it a try. Since then, she’s been using Classroom for all five of her classes. She loves that she can see which assignments her students have completed or are working on and can offer comments on student work throughout the writing process.

History teacher Rob Parkin uses Classroom several times a week to collect homework and projects. Rob’s students use Classroom for in-depth, online discussions, and he enjoys that students can get feedback not only from him, but from each other. Rob also shares that he’s motivated to try other Google tools, specifically Google Forms, to create formative assessments.

Dr. Rachel Gould uses Classroom in her World History classes; primarily for a large scale, 10-12 page research paper. She’s found that Classroom has helped her students stay more organized and allows her to monitor their progress as they complete each stage of their research.

Math teacher Brighid Boyle has been using Classroom all year to distribute problem sets to students in her Honors Pre-Calculus course. Students receive the blank problem set through Classroom, complete the problems using Notability, and then submit their completed work back to Classroom. Brighid then uses Doctopus and Goobric to grade the work and posts the grades in Classroom.

I’d like to thank my colleagues for taking the time to sit down with me and share their experiences with Classroom. You can check out the video below for the full conversation.