Tag Archives: Google Classroom

Shareable class templates and classwork in Google Classroom are now generally available

What’s changing

Earlier this year, we announced a Google Classroom beta that simplifies lesson planning with shareable class templates and classwork. We’re excited to announce that this is now globally available for Google Workspace for Education Plus customers in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. 

Curriculum leads and verified teachers can now share links to high-quality classes and class templates so other educators in their organization can preview and import classwork to an existing class or to a new class. This will provide educators with ideas for instructional design and enable them stay up-to-date with the best materials. 
Shareable class templates and classwork

Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why you’d use it 

This feature enables curriculum leads and teachers to easily distribute standardized curricula or classroom content to others in their organization. As a result, fellow educators can easily preview, select, and import high-quality classwork into their classes. 
easily preview, select, and import high-quality classwork into their classes.

Additional details 

  • Student information, such as assignment submissions, comments, and grades, will not be visible when previewing a shared class. 
  • Imported class materials will be saved in draft mode for the selected class. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature, however, Admins should make sure the following is set up for end users: 
    • In order to share classes, educators must have a Google Workspace for Education Plus license assigned to them. 
    • To preview and import classwork from shared classes, educators must be verified teachers. 
  • End users: 
    • To share a class, click the “Share classwork” button on the Classwork page. 
    • After receiving a class link, open it in your browser. When previewing the shared class, select the classwork items you want to export to a class. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about sharing class templates and classwork. 

Rollout 


Availability 

  • Available to Education Plus 

Resources 

Convert Google Forms into practice sets in Google Classroom

What’s changing

Last year, we announced a new tool in Google Classroom called practice sets that enables educators to transform new and existing content into engaging and interactive assignments. Students get real-time feedback on answers as they complete practice sets and then teachers receive performance insights and snapshots into student progress. 

Since launching, we’ve given teachers more control over the resources for students in practice sets and today we’re excited to announce an additional way to save teachers time when creating assignments. We know teachers have already invested a lot of time creating quiz assignments using Google Forms, and with this update, they can simply import a Google Form into practice set questions, and benefit from the assistive features, such as suggested resources and hints, in-the-moment support for students and insights. 
Convert Google Forms into practice sets in Google Classroom

Getting started 


Rollout pace 

  • This feature is now available. 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Introducing interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom

What’s changing

Educators can now turn any YouTube video into an interactive lesson by adding questions for their students to answer throughout the video. 

The interactive questions feature turns a passive watching experience into an engaging one, and improves students’ understanding of a subject by providing them with the space to make mistakes, review incorrect answers and assess correct answers at their own pace. 

Once students within a class have completed the video activity, educators will have access to a dashboard of key insights based on student engagement levels. 
Introducing interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why you’d use it 

While interactive YouTube video assignments will be beneficial to students, it will also help educators identify concepts that need more instruction time, discover students who may need extra support and also shape future lesson plans. Educators are also able to scale individualized support since students will get real-time validation as they answer certain question types in the video activities. 


Additional details 

You can now use the “Resources” tab in the Classroom left navigation to find and manage all your video activities and practice sets. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Introducing interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom

What’s changing

Educators can now turn any YouTube video into an interactive lesson by adding questions for their students to answer throughout the video. 

The interactive questions feature turns a passive watching experience into an engaging one, and improves students’ understanding of a subject by providing them with the space to make mistakes, review incorrect answers and assess correct answers at their own pace. 

Once students within a class have completed the video activity, educators will have access to a dashboard of key insights based on student engagement levels. 
Introducing interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why you’d use it 

While interactive YouTube video assignments will be beneficial to students, it will also help educators identify concepts that need more instruction time, discover students who may need extra support and also shape future lesson plans. Educators are also able to scale individualized support since students will get real-time validation as they answer certain question types in the video activities. 


Additional details 

You can now use the “Resources” tab in the Classroom left navigation to find and manage all your video activities and practice sets. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Excuse assignments in Google Classroom

What’s changing 

Following the expansion of grading systems in Google Classroom, we’re adding an additional feature that gives teachers even more flexibility when it comes to grading for assignments and classwork. 

Starting today, teachers can mark an assignment for a particular student as “Excused” instead of giving it a 0-100 score. This will exclude that particular assignment from the student’s overall grade. We hope this requested feature addresses various class scenarios, such as wanting to drop a student’s lowest assignment, excusing an assignment when a student is absent, or any other circumstance in which an assignment should not be included in a student’s grade. 
excuse assignments in Classroom


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about excused grading.

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Excuse assignments in Google Classroom

What’s changing 

Following the expansion of grading systems in Google Classroom, we’re adding an additional feature that gives teachers even more flexibility when it comes to grading for assignments and classwork. 

Starting today, teachers can mark an assignment for a particular student as “Excused” instead of giving it a 0-100 score. This will exclude that particular assignment from the student’s overall grade. We hope this requested feature addresses various class scenarios, such as wanting to drop a student’s lowest assignment, excusing an assignment when a student is absent, or any other circumstance in which an assignment should not be included in a student’s grade. 
excuse assignments in Classroom


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about excused grading.

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Google Classroom now supports roster import from SIS partners

What’s changing

Educators can now easily import students from their student information system (SIS) to Google Classroom using OneRoster. This integration saves educators time and helps make class setup much quicker. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Make more informed decisions using Classroom analytics

What’s changing

We’re introducing analytics in Google Classroom, providing a centralized view of Classroom data and insights for educators and education leaders. 


Designated education leaders and support staff now have direct visibility into student performance and engagement in the classroom, including if assignments are being completed, how grades are trending, and how Classroom features are being adopted. Education leaders will see a bird’s eye view of insights, with the ability to easily drill down further to identify which students, classes, and schools may need support. 
class page
Educators will also be able to see the same type of data for the classes they teach, providing them with a centralized snapshot of how each student in their class is trending. For example, if an educator sees that a student has low assignment completion this month, they can drill down to the list of missing assignments and follow up to see how to best support this student. 
student view

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it matters 

This feature provides relevant insights that are immediately actionable, so education leaders and educators can make informed decisions around how to best support student success. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: Super Admins automatically have access to Classroom analytics and must enable Classroom analytics for designated education leaders to access data on the entire organization or limited to specific organizational units. Educators will automatically be able to see class-level analytics for their classes. 
  • End users: 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

Resources 

Changes to YouTube player embedded within Google Workspace for Education services

What’s changing

In June, we introduced updates to the embeddable YouTube player within Google Workspace for Education services. This included a new URL (www.youtubeeducation.com) for the YouTube player to serve embedded content within Google Workspace for Education services. 


As a result of this change, if your organization allowed or blocked YouTube videos within Google Workspace for Education services, you were asked to add “www.youtubeeducation.com” to these allowlists or blocklists. This preserved the way your organization used YouTube videos within Google Workspace for Education services, such as Google Classroom or Slides.


We are removing this feature while we evaluate performance and quality. As an immediate next step, if you updated your allowlist or blocklist to include "www.youtube.com", you’ll need to revert your allowlist/blocklist to include "www.youtube.com" as soon as possible to preserve the way your organization uses YouTube videos within Google Workspace for Education services. If you do not revert your allowlist/blocklist to include www.youtube.com as soon as possible, this could change your organization’s access to YouTube videos.

Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • This change is now in effect for Classroom services. 
  • This change will be in effect for Slides, Sites, and Forms starting on October 30th, 2023. 

Availability 

  • This impacts Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Expanding grading systems in Google Classroom

What’s changing

Currently, teachers can set up grading systems in Google Classroom using points, grade categories, or grading periods. These options are numerical-based, meaning they correlate to points or percentages. 

In order to support other forms of grading, such as letter grades or proficiency ratings (ex. unsatisfactory to excellent), we’re introducing customizable grading scales so that a school’s or teacher’s grading preferences are better reflected in Google Classroom. With this update, teachers will have the option to select from numerical, letter grade, proficiency, four-point grading scales, or set up their own scale. 

Once the grading scale is selected and personalized (if the teacher chooses to do so), teachers can create assignments right away and any existing assignments will automatically have their newly selected grading scale. When grading assignments, teachers can enter either the grade with the points value or the level from the grading scale and Classroom will automatically display both to teachers and to students once a grade is returned.
Expanding grading systems in Google Classroom

Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why you’d use it 

This feature gives teachers more flexibility in deciding which grading scales to use for assignments and classwork. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • To configure grading scales including accessing grading scale templates, go to Class settings > scroll down to the Grading Scales settings > click Add. From there you can either choose a pre-set grading scale or create your own scale. 
      • Teachers also have the option to copy other classes once they have grading scales set up. 
      • Any new classes created will have the grading scale from the last edited class. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about grading & returning assignments. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade 

Resources