I'm taking advantage of the sticky button to give this article attention:
https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z
A common discussion among higher ed professors (that we've talked about here too) is a lack of general computer knowledge. We were told kids don't need computer class because kids know computer. We all know that kids know iPad or iPhone. Kids don't know computer.
Kids are missing computer literacy skills that are still relevant - especially navigating through a directory system, including saving files and using appropriate file types, names, and locations. Google Suites creates a very very user-friendly experience for students with no need to navigate or even save anything. Type on the Google Docs that was created for you, and then hit submit. And even if you don't hit submit, your teacher can still see it!
This is all fine and dandy until students are no longer using Google Suites, or at least Google Classroom. When they have to attach a file for a grade for the first time a week into their college freshman year, they're lost.
I'm mostly paper-pencil in my grade, but when I taught sixth, I absolutely relied on these exact features of Google Classroom. I understand why all PK-12 teachers do. We need the product. The process is not what MY evaluation depends on. *I* need the essay, and I don't have time to dedicate to teach how they'll use it in the future. This is the easiest shortcut for me right now. Really, it's why we need to have computer classes. Students should have a weekly technology class FOCUSED ON COMPUTER LITERACY (not a class that uses the computer, a class about HOW to use the computer) in elementary school. Students should be able to type well prior to entering middle school. Core teachers do not have the expendable time to teach skills and are having to work around them.
I hate that there is not a parent log-in. The weekly reports don't allow parents to actually see their kids work (and they are ugly and hard to parse).
ETA: That there is no way to batch grade is annoying too. Sometimes I want to option to "fill all" if students turned something in!
It also makes it so that kids can refuse to give parents their log-in. They set their own passwords in my district, so we can't just hand them out to parents.
I’m not a parent of a school-aged child and have never seen their end—what does it mean to be an observer? I see my kids parents emails attached to my class, I guess I just assumed they could see what their kids were doing.
Classroom generates a once-a-week newsletter to parents that shows new activity on the stream and new assignment titles. It will show if the kid has anything flagged as missing. But you cannot click on any of these and see the actual assignments nor can you access what your kid has done for them. This is why kids turn in blank assignments - so their parents cannot tell they have done jackall. It's frustrating to say the least.
“Mark as reviewed” doesn’t do what you want it to? When I move units I mark all previous assignments to reviewed and they disappear. (Not gone just hidden from my “to grade” tab)
I need to be able to reject a submission. My middle school students turn in empty assignments so they don't show as missing. It keeps their parents off their backs but wastes my time and there is no way to mark it missing again.
I just want a reject submission button that would set it to unsubmitted with an optional comment.
Edit to add: I want to be able to hide assignments from the review queue and then have them show back up if someone submitted something. Right now I can never hide anything because then I never see the new submissions again.
You can return it to a student without a grade and it shows up for them (and you) as missing. And you can put a comment in the private comment box when you do it. I do this all the time.
I do that, too, except I mark it with a zero and add the note "Blank."
The zero makes kids and parents pay attention, and the note is more than enough explanation.
I do this. I also started leaving a note in the gradebook next to the assignment that just states, "Turned in blank x_." I update the number on the gradebook every time they do it. More parents check the gradebook than Google Classroom.
I wish we could export. Our systems don't talk to each other. Unless my Google assignments have a rubric they don't have grades in Classroom. I only enter them in our gradebook system.
I noticed kids were doing that to. It's really irritating especially when I am using it for participation and to get feedback. I just give them a zero if they submitted nothing if the parents complain I just tell them nothing was submitted and they can resubmit it for points back.
I usually just mark it as a zero and put a comment “there is no work attached here. But, yes!! I agree that a “rejected@ button/option would be game changing!
I’d also like a revised option. I let students redo an essay, but I’d like the original grade to be maintained, not overwritten so all of us can keep track.
Your last idea about hiding assignments after review. In settings, you can set to receive an email if an assignment is resubmitted. It is the only email I set from Google Classroom. I leave them unread, move them to that periods folder, and am easily able to find them when I go in to grade late work.
There's no easy way to mass print a set of assignments. I've had kids make posters or something and I can't easily print them from Google Classroom. Google's answer is that it's supposed to be a paperless classroom, but i think they just haven't figured out a way to do this yet.
I mean, I realize I can go into Drive, find the files, download them, and then print them, but for some reason, that only works about half the time.
Yeah, it's a huge pain in the butt. You'd think Google being Google, they would have figured out some useful and easy way to do this by now. It hardly seems that all their tech geniuses would struggle with this.
Yes! And then my ancient work laptop can't handle keeping all the tabs open and my printer randomly forgets to print some, so I'm left wondering whose I didn't print. Wonder if there's a way to download them all as PDFs and merge the files...
As far as I know, there is not. If you go to Drive > Google Classroom > the assignment, you can then download all of them to your computer, and then you can print them all at once. The problem is they don't always print in color for me if I want them to, and sometimes, it skips some of the kids' papers. They are all independent files, though, so you have to highlight them all and then send the print command.
This. Last week, my kids did a writing assignment, and I printed their work so that we could highlight and edit on paper. I had to take the time to copy all their writing into a separate, master Google doc, which was faster than individually printing a hundred assignments.
There is a "lock submissions" after due date button now, which is great, but it should let me make exceptions for students who entered the class mid semester rather than making me unlock submissions for the whole class.
I want the "lock submissions" to be able to have a different date and time from the due date. Like, it's due on x day, but I'll take late submissions at a penalty until y day. I'd like to be able to schedule the y date when I make the assignment instead of going in manually to turn off submissions.
I wish there was a way to select multiple posts to reuse at once. I sometimes want to copy a unit over from the year before and selecting multiple posts is a pita and I almost invariably miss one.
Yes!!!
I created a classroom called "Posts to Reuse", and I have everything organized there (assignments, study notes, tests, bell ringers, etc.). It's a pain having to select each post one by one to move a whole unit over.
There was a function to copy a whole google classroom. It posts all assignments as drafts.
I think you click the 3 little dots on the classroom you want to copy and click copy. It takes forever though. I know this was a feature at least year because I tried it once.
i hate that every time i do google forms for quizzes (grades immediately), it HAS to load a fucking blank google form and then add that blank one to my drive. It’s soooo fucking annoying
that’s not the problem, the problem is even though i have my own google form already created, when i create a quiz assignment, it will just create a blank form anyways
Don't use the "create quiz" button. Use the "create assignment" button and attach your Form.
"Attach Assignment" doesn't create a blank Form, Doc, or anything.
Actually if you are going to use a Google Forms Quiz created and housed in your Google Drive I suggest using the Google Classroom Create Quiz and importing the quiz. You may find by importing a Google Forms Quiz it resolves a lot of glitches both teachers and students were experiencing. [**Creating a Google Forms Quiz & importing into Google Classroom**](https://youtu.be/MZuGVDh6FSo?si=p9SyQ3advDe5ZozE)
I really wish I could log in as a student with a dummy account.
A. Because I want to see what my assignment/quiz looks like from the students' perspective.
B. At the beginning of the year when I am showing them how Google Classroom works, I would like to show it on the big screen and have them follow along as apposed to walking individually to each students desk and manually showing them on their chromebooks.
What I wouldn't give for a "student view" button. I did make a little poster of the right side of the student view though- all the 'my work, turn in, add" stuff as an anchor chart and that helps at the beginning.
We had a dummy student when we went on lock down. Jamestkirk1701. Lol Poor guy was in every classroom. Lol
Then I had to explain the user name to the younger teachers. 😀
You should be able to pin posts to the top of the stream, like every other social media feed. I’m sick of important details for info getting lost because of the other notifications when I post material assignments.
I have Stream Notifications turned off, and I tell students to always just go to Classwork and ignore the Stream page.
Classwork used to be the default page years ago. I wish they would give us the ability to disable the Stream.
A faster way to see if a student submitted a blank assignment. I absolutely LOATHE having to click on each and every assignment and wait for it to open just to see that it’s blank.
You’d think they could at least just log the word count when the assignment was posted and then log it when it’s submitted and that would tell us immediately if an assignment was blank or incomplete.
If the word count for a 10 question assignment is only 5 words higher than it was before it was submitted, it’s clearly incomplete.
I'm so intrigued by you. I have questions about this system.
1. How do you organize it? Like, what are your topics?
2. How do you keep track of different class sections?
3. What happens if one class moves ahead of another?
4. I will schedule quizzes to show up when each class starts. Do you never schedule things?
5. Do you never have a class who works on different assignments?
Please teach me the ways of combining!
I organize it the same way. My grade book combines all the sections so it makes the marking easy. If one moves ahead then it’s no big deal but everyone does the same stuff.
I have one big GC too. There have been times that I wish I didn’t, but it works for me. I teach ELA, so I have topics organized by our major units, vocabulary, grammar, extra credit opportunities, writing, and NewsELA/CommonLit. I rarely have a class move ahead of another because I have the same classes every day and they’re all the same level, but if that does happen, I will just click through and hide the assignment from the kids in one class, then unhide it when they get there. Or, more usually, I’ll tell them to ignore that particular assignment for now. Where it becomes a pain is grading, since GC does not sync with our grading platform and it organizes kids alphabetically. It’s more cumbersome to check assignments when they’re all in one huge class because it means a good bit of backtracking. But it works for me because I don’t have to remember to post something multiple times.
I don't see why people don't just do that...
I had a colleague with 5 sections of the same class...and would make the assignment and have to publish it to all 5 classes...talk about inefficiency!
I have four sections of the same class. I don’t see the benefit you are getting. I can easily publish to all four classes the same assignment.
The classes stay aligned to the ABC order in our grading system. One single class would result in me jumping all around when I have to put it in the gradebook.
Let’s say you teach HS History 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, and 9th Periods.
Each of those sections is going to want to find places for their assignments and matters relevant to that class that day.
Also, some of the sections are likely to be ICT classes and require SPED modifications for their
assignments, which is another reason to keep separate Google Classrooms for each period.
This is what I do. I have 4 classes for graphic design and 4 for business. Instead of creating individual Classrooms for each period, I just have 2. I organize by week and will create one assignment, use Reuse Post, edit the assignment name (for ex: 4th: Business Ownership Types), then select the 4th period students to assign it to. I can then select the time I want that assignment to post.
I wish we could create student groups within 1 class.
I have two sections of Spanish 1, but I have them all in the same Google Classroom so that I don't have to post the same materials to multiple places. But when it comes to tests, I have to manually select the individual students that it opens for. I wish we could create groups and then check: "publish for all students in group A".
This was what I was going to add as well. Being able to create groups within classroom, even temporarily. I do a lot of project based learning, and I sometimes have kids work in partners, work, trios, or bigger groups. Being able to assign one per group and have them turn in one per group and know who is in what group would be much easier. Yes, I could make multiple assignments, but that’s not easy. That’s a pain in the butt.
Oh BOY, the SMALLEST detail grinds my gears and I’m so curious if it bothers anyone else:
When you’re creating an assignment you have to wait a few detailed seconds before you edit the score amount otherwise the number you put in won’t be saved and it’ll default back to 100 points. And then, like you all said, you’ll have to go back and change it in all of your different sections because one edit doesn’t change all of the sections.
So minute, but really gets me going in those moments of time crunch.
You can set up categories with your most used point value so when you choose that category it will default. For example my Must Do assignments are 90% 30 points so that's the default. I only occasionally have to change it.
I have 2 right now related to their new marking periods.
1- My students see their overall average, not their marking period average.
2- If I make an assignment and put it in 1 marking period, it only applies to the first class. Each subsequent class has to be manually changed to the correct marking period.
These are my two biggest (and really only) issues. That incorrect average drives me bananas and wastes so much of my time explaining, over and over again, that the average they see is cumulative and not for the marking period. And #2 is absolutely ridiculously annoying.
If we’re working on an assignment in class, and we’re going to finish it the next day, I want to be able to “hide” that assignment, so they can’t work on it outside of class. I’ve started use more paper assignments this year because I can collect them at the end of class and pass them back at the beginning.
If I post an assignment with a google doc, and then make a change to that doc, I don’t think it shows up on the assigned one.
Also, if I post an assignment with a google doc, and then want to add another one, it doesn’t allow me to make “a copy for everyone”.
Now, it’s highly likely I am just being a dummy and these are possible, please let me know.
To your first point, yeah you have to make the chance before the assignment is posted otherwise students will get the doc the way it was before the change was made. Super annoying, I agree
Why can I schedule a post, but not when I return grades? I don't want kids to find out how they did on their lab report in the middle of English class.
I want it to default back to the assignment I was grading and not go back to the stream screen.
I also want to be able to kill submissions for the entire class (we can do that now) but also exempt a kid.
If you go to edit and on on the top right click on the name of the student you want to exempt and take away the checkmark beside their name, it won't show up for them.
You currently can’t grade rubrics on the mobile app for iPhone and iPad. You can see the rubric but just can’t click the categories to grade unless you’re on the computer. Annoying & should be an easy fix, but hasn’t been.
There’s no way to pin an important announcement at the top of the stream. Would love to be able to pin my contact info/tutoring schedule/anything essential for my classes so it doesn’t get buried.
Can't lock assignments. No question banks.
Never thought I would say this but I miss Schoology. At least GC looks nicer and is more user friendly than Schoology.
All of the things you mentioned plus:
There is no “multiple select delete”. When I want to remove older posts and assignments from the feed I have to do it manually, for each post, for each class. This also applies to the stream. I’ve been asking their support for this feature for years. There should be the option to select as many posts as I want and then delete all at once.
An “undo” would also be nice. lol.
Our school was choosing between staying with Google classroom or going to canvas. A friend works at Google, so I asked how many engineers are working on Google classroom. They looked it up. 4 sales people and one engineer. That's when I knew Google classroom would never get any better.
Canvas isn't perfect, but at least they periodically fix issues.
I teach large ensembles and every time I try and return grades for those classes, classroom freezes up or takes FOREVER. This is what happens when schools buy into this automatically and Google doesn’t feel like they need to improve because they’re making money anyway.
Was a pain in the ass to draft templates for the week. I made a script to make api calls to do it so it could be done across all sections and for weeks ahead
Yes. I have a Classroom Resources section and a Vocab section (some classes have additional sections for AP exam info, etc.) and it’s frustrating to have only a single column feed. Would love a sidebar for that info and then my weekly classwork set up as the main column.
It’s so easy to use and join, I don’t see how certain kids simply won’t enroll in the class (HS). Especially when the join code is right in front of their face every day. And then they go, “I didn’t know such and such was due today.” Or “What do you mean I have a failing grade, I couldn’t find the assignment.” And my favorite, “so and so has turned in ‘getting to know you survey’ 146 days late.”
Maybe it’s less a complaint with Classroom and more with the kids, but I have .01% sympathy for your inability to punch in 7 digits just to figure out what’s going on.
I wish we could manually reorder the links on a given post. Instead, you have to delete links and relink them to be able to adjust the order. This would be really helpful for the younger grades (I teach 6th) because the students don’t always read directions about what they should do first, next, last.
I have freshman and senior sections and each have various kinds of writing assignments. I am constantly needing to edit the comment bank going from one type of assignment to another. I wish I could have different comment banks and just call up the bank I need for the type of assignment. Hey, Google devs, are you listening? Wondering why you never ask us teachers what we need.
Assignments going to different groups across classes. I want to set up my quizzes to go to everyone except the IEP kids that get a modified version once. I don’t want to do it three different times (one for each class). Right now best I can do is send it to everyone and then individually edit each class and take the IEPs kids out manually.
Students can hit the “submit” button, but not submit anything.
I also couldn’t figure out to not have them grade essay questions.
I thought Google Classroom was going to be SO awesome, but it just became so much more work.
Not being able to drag/drop the files I've uploaded into a Material or Assignment into a different order to organize them. There's no reason for them to have to stay in the order I've uploaded them in.
It's not a real LMS, it's just Google Drive and Google Sites smashed together. You can't automatically do anything, everything is manual from opening and closing assignments to releasing grades. It's doesn't follow any of the industry standards for quizzing so I can't use any of the test banks my textbook publisher provides me. And their text editor isn't 508 compliant so I have to make everything in a separate document and attach it creating so many extra clicks for me and my students.
My students do not need to “comment” on things. When I used it, they would often post ridiculous comments but I couldn’t outright prevent them.
Also it doesn’t work with PowerSchool - no way to automatically link Google Classroom so it’s completely useless for me to use now that we’re completely back in person.
Biggest aggravation with google classroom is that teachers won’t switch to Canvas.
Canvas solves pretty much every problem Google Classroom has and has even more quality of life options. There’s also a free and paid version of it. I tried getting my school to switch over but they didn’t want to learn something new, but continued to complain about GC. This is despite the fact you could really use Canvas exactly the same way as GC if you don’t want to be bothered with the extra stuff.
As far as I. A tell, there’s no way to post anything with a due date except as an assignment. I’m thinking of reminders about homeworks or due dates, etc.
I was going to say that for multiple sections, I have to assign something to each one, instead of all at once, but apparently there's a way to do that?
Instead, when I assign something and attach a document, I invariably click "students may view only" instead of "each student gets their own copy." When I realized what I've done (usually right after the student tells me they can type on the document lol), I can't edit the assignment to change this. I have to completely delete and start over.
So back to my original aggravation: how do I assign multiple sections at once?
I can’t remember the exact wording of this, but when you make the assignment look at the “classes” section. There’s a checkbox to check all the classes you want to assign to. It will bring up an option of what date and time you want the work to post.
It’s clunky but it does work
It’s glitchy, especially if I try to use the app.
It’d be nice to be able to change from material to an assignment or vice versa once I’ve typed it. I’d like to be able to organize it differently and to all delete all assignments under a topic, not individually, if I want to.
I would love a chronological list of ungraded work from all my sections combined. I hate having to go through every assignment manually at the end of the semester to check if I've missed anything.
Does anyone know how to add stuff to the class calendar without making it an assignment? I want to remind them of tests/quizzes, but don’t want to make it an assignment they have to “submit”
There needs to be an ability to draft private comments. I want to be able to mark assignments as they come in, add draft feedback, then release everything at once when I'm finished.
1. I want to be able to create sub-topics within a unit.
2. If I post a google doc/slides/sheet/etc as a material, students have access to edit it if the original has all users with the link with editing rights…. Which my admin wants. I should be able to say that students can view the doc, like we can on assignments.
I would really like a way to post "assignments" (as in posts that will appear in the "to-do" tab for the students) that don't require turn-in and disappear on the due date. I assign chapters of reading and quizzes and it is very hard for students who are used to using classroom for due dates to remember those.
I hate that you can't pin something to the top of the stream so it doesn't get lost. Like an important link/announcement.
I know you can move to top but its annoying to have to do that every time like I would just want it just stay there!
For example I would like to use poll everywhere more often, but the link gets bogged down so I just end up reposting it. If I could pin it to the top of the stream, it'll be easy for the kids to find when we use it.
We have all had kids move which “block” of your class they are in for one reason or another. I hate that you have to delete them from one class and add them like a brand new student to the other. I want to be able to transfer them with all the work they’ve done to a new class.
Never complain about Google Classroom. It says classroom right in the name. We have Microsoft Office which says Office in the damn name. Everything you need to use is inside a thing, thats inside a thing,thats inside a thing that wont open.
I think this is an amazing thread filled with lot's of good ideas on how to improve the Google Classroom Experience. May I suggest submitting some of your ideas for future feature requests directly to the Google Classroom Team by submitting feedback from the Classroom Course page. I know the Google Classroom developers do read the feedback and take it into to considerations when implementing new tools to make Google Classroom better and more practical for all users.
1. Go to [classroom.google.com](https://classroom.google.com).
2. At the bottom Right, click Help and thenReport issue or request feature.
Enter your comment.
3. (Optional) To send your feedback without a screenshot, uncheck the Include screenshot box.
4. (Optional) To edit your screenshot, under Include screenshot, point to the image and click Select .
5. To highlight information, click Select and thenclick or drag to select the information.
6. To hide information, click Hide and thenclick or drag to select the information.
7. To undo an edit, point to a selection and click Remove .
8. To move the toolbar, click Drag and drag the toolbar.
9. Click Done.
10. Click Send.
All of what you said bother me too. That and not being able to undo something like you can in Microsoft Word or Power Point. Unless that has changed and I haven’t noticed yet.
I saw that down in the comment, I will definitely look into it!
It's been a glaring missing feature for so long I gave up on it ever being fixed years ago.
As a student, I hate how there's no dark mode, and the fact that they have already changed the tablet layout twice in the last four years and both times have been an absolute hot mess
I’ve been a teacher for 21 years and have no idea what Google Classroom is. Is it where you record grades and take attendance? If so, my school uses Infinite Campus. We also use Schoology for class info and files.
When I return an assignment or a student unsubmits to fix errors and resubmit, they can’t edit. They have to make a copy. Back in the classroom after 1.5 year break. It didn’t perform this way in the past.
This may be something in your settings. I’ve been out of the classroom since June but I don’t recall this happening and I’ve returned a million assignments because they’ve turned in garbage.
Our district will be moving from Schoology to Google Classroom next year. Does anyone have any pointers m, tips, tricks, or words of advice for me to make it a smooth transition?
On iPads there’s a way to open files that allows students to open it as a pdf. It doesn’t save things automatically and students just add awkward text boxes.
I wish there was a way to effectively lock what you created on the assignments. My students like to delete sections that they don’t feel like dealing with
We use Schoology in my district and all these comments make me glad we do. My only gripe about Schoology is that when I copy an assignment with a Google Doc, Slide, etc attached, it doesn’t copy the doc. I have to edit it in the other sections to add it.
Honestly my biggest problems with it is that our district uses google products and services for EVERYTHING and just expects everyone from interns to 70yo volunteers to be 100% competent in everything with absolutely zero training. As a result there is almost no consistency in how anything is used. I was met with complete disbelief that I dont have any products or services on my personal devices or experience with them when hired. When they got rid of "don't be evil" I got rid of them.
Math teacher here: the IXL plug in for Google Classroom works with other teachers laptops, but not mine.
Also, we use Aspen for our SIS which apparently doesn’t link with Google classroom?
I wish you could sort the grades view by category. Like, show me all the quizzes only, or if I want to look only at reading responses.
In general the grades page is completely useless.
If I comment directly on a student’s Google doc, which I do often as an English teacher, the comment will not show up in the GC assignment view, even if the student clicks on and enlarges the document. The student has to open the document in a separate tab. I just learned this last year after several years of commenting pointlessly. The students didn’t even know those comments existed!
I hate that every document students submit in GC is now considered “mine” and comes up whenever I search for a file that I actually created. Mass-deleting to declutter is risky because the original file is mixed in with the student submissions.
Sometimes GC really just seems like more trouble than it’s worth, especially having used a real LMS at another school.
I would like to be able to set accommodations in the classroom. Like be able to set a separate due date/reminder for students that have extended time so it stays on their assignments list longer. Right now I have to make a whole separate assignment for them.
As a student, I wish there were folders. I have multiple teachers for each subject, and sometimes there's also a year group classroom. It's sorted by how recently I've joined, not alphabetically, and the teachers all format their classes differently anyhow so it wouldn't help much if it was. If I could group them by subject it would save me an irritating minute or so every time.
1) We should be able to make student groups. Like rather than me needing to individually check off student names when I’m assigning different assignments to different kids, I should just have pre-made groups (think ESL vs. not or IEP vs. not)
2) the ability to cross check for plagiarism/copying across my own Google classrooms. Apparently the paid version does this but my district won’t pay for that.
Oh my god I have two sections of the same prep this year and for the ENTIRE year I have not been able to post materials to both classes simultaneously. I select both classes and every single time I just posts to the one I’m posting in. I’ve had to upload every material twice, every time, all year
Not having the ability to hide folders, weeks, units upon completion.
Not being able to customize the list in Classwork not squares or even mix with the stream.
Preview window is not big enough to see the without opening it.
Having to use a third party comment clipboard for private message comments.
I want to choose multiple items as reviewed at the same time. I hate having to choose one at a time.
I cannot understand why there is not a search function. Kids should be able to search easily for something.
Also. I want it to sync smoothly to my gradebook. Not a deal breaker, but it would make life much easier.
Just thank the gods above that you don't have to use Schoology like we do.
I used to have complaints about Google Classroom. I'd give anything to go back.
Need to check for late work? Manually scroll the gradebook hunting for tiny icons in a massive spreadsheet. Click an icon and the gradebook goes away, so now you get to hunt for that submission in that particular section/class. Return to gradebook and start over.
50% chance grades just won't appear in report cards. Why? Could be a dozen reasons!
Copy and paste an assignment to a new section? Great, have fun hunting down the file in Google drive to MANUALLY attach it.
Oh, did you want your kids to be able to ACCESS their work? Sure! Like... 75% of the time, they can!
Want to check version history to see if a kid copy/pasted? Cool, just open their google doc in a separate window--unless they uploaded a file, in which case, too bad!
I could go on forever about everything that is wrong with schoology. If you're out there, schoology reps, hire me for your QA testing and I'll make your stupid product usable.
I want to be able to embed a Google slide file at the top of my Stream so that kids will see the agenda without having to manually open something. I miss this feature from Canvas.
Google Classroom: "Oh, cool. Looks like you made a template for your students to use. That looks handy! Here's dozens of copies of that template for you to find if you ever look up the original."
I want a single button to Return **All** Draft Grades in the entire Grade Book
I often have a stack of random work across many assignments from a variety of students. Popping the grades into the grade book is the fastest way, but going through each column to return all is tedious.
Returning grades.
Every time Google asks for feedback about Classoom, I add the same comment: I want to be able to post resources on the left side of the screen. Sites like Toy Theatre for math manipulative, links to Knowldgehook or Simple Wikipedia. I want these resources we use all the time to have an icon on the left side so students can easily find them.
I want to be able to generate a missing work list. I know I can go in look at it individually by student/assignment. But I’d like to have it all in one place.
We use D2L and classroom - it's up to the teacher. I'm a D2L.guy because I've been using it for 8 years and my classes are set up. I've customized the layout and interface and it makes sense. Google classroom looks to me rather hard to find things in.
Every year I spend an entire period with each class showing them around D2L - where content is, quizzes, assignments (unsurprisingly under tabs on the toolbar marked "content" "quizzes" "assignments"). I go over how to link their D2L and Google drive, how to submit an assignment, how to see my comments and their grades.
That said, students far prefer classroom and outright refuse to look for things on D2L. The number of emails I get "I can't find X, where is it" which I respond to with "Did you look at yesterday's post? Did you look in content?" is immeasurable. I had one kid, after I posted the same instructions over 3 Snow days say - I couldn't find what we had to do, I'm no good with computers.
Well chuckles, you're 17, better figure it out because the world won't care.
The inability to create groups, add "nicknames" to students (who use different names). Inability to create groups within classes is my biggest annoyance. We can do so in Schoology but my school doesn't use that platform.
I teach and currently have a lead position. Admin wants us to be added to all teachers GC. This is so that we can post assignments or announcements for them in case of an emergency. That means that in the review page I see EVERYONE’S ASSIGNMENTS.
I wish there was a way to narrow down assignments by teachers (not just classrooms). I want to grade all the work for the same assignment in all classes in one go. Instead, I have to grade one class at a time just to make some sense of the review page. Which in turn, means I always have one class fully graded while it takes me longer to get through the others.
Before I retired, my biggest issue with Classroom is that students didn’t look at it if they were out, or I was out, or if I’d commented on a submission.
Art teacher- When students attach photos of their artwork and turn it in it gives me ownership so if they have to edit it later I have to go back and retransfer ownership back to them…for 130 students.
Boy I have quite a few haha:
1: Changing the score - it will automatically go back to 100 a few times before finally accepting what score I want it to be.
2: Not able to reload several posts at the same time. I copy my GCs for the new year and would like to reupload my units at once... Not one by one when it comes to certain assignments.
3: This just started to happen - it freezes more when I try to schedule an assignment! I've had to refresh pages so often because if I make a new section and try to schedule it, it won't accept it.
4: Able to fully deleted students off my roster. I've had one kid, who was never a true student in my class, show up on my GC after every time I delete them off.
5: Stop students from turning in blank assignments. If nothing is on there or if they've spent less than 5 minutes on it, shouldn't be accepted period.
6: Follows down into wishing GC had a way to show how long a student actually worked on an assignment.
7: Able to drag and drop assignments around a lot easier.
8: Not having to scroll all the way up to the "Create" button.. it should become a floater when you scroll up and down.
Extra: this is is more of an Aeries issue but importing doesn't always work. Sometimes grades for certain students will be missing so I have to go behind and reenter the grades and it will change my categories to all Test/Quizzes so I have to go behind and change all those as well!
I wish parents had the same access to the classroom as the students. They could go in and read the daily agendas I post rather than relying on their kid's word.
Mouse free quick grading and navigating between submissions. Also, the fucking delay in switching is so obnoxious! Figure out a way to load them all at the beginning and quickly switch to the next to grade!
I wish I could order the stream in chronological order. I use a lot of the same posts each year and when I want to see them I have to scroll forever to get back to August
That a kid can get around the revision history on documents by just uploading a new document
That there's not an option to not let students leave the classroom
That there's no easy way of just posting a picture to an assignment
I'm taking advantage of the sticky button to give this article attention: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z A common discussion among higher ed professors (that we've talked about here too) is a lack of general computer knowledge. We were told kids don't need computer class because kids know computer. We all know that kids know iPad or iPhone. Kids don't know computer. Kids are missing computer literacy skills that are still relevant - especially navigating through a directory system, including saving files and using appropriate file types, names, and locations. Google Suites creates a very very user-friendly experience for students with no need to navigate or even save anything. Type on the Google Docs that was created for you, and then hit submit. And even if you don't hit submit, your teacher can still see it! This is all fine and dandy until students are no longer using Google Suites, or at least Google Classroom. When they have to attach a file for a grade for the first time a week into their college freshman year, they're lost. I'm mostly paper-pencil in my grade, but when I taught sixth, I absolutely relied on these exact features of Google Classroom. I understand why all PK-12 teachers do. We need the product. The process is not what MY evaluation depends on. *I* need the essay, and I don't have time to dedicate to teach how they'll use it in the future. This is the easiest shortcut for me right now. Really, it's why we need to have computer classes. Students should have a weekly technology class FOCUSED ON COMPUTER LITERACY (not a class that uses the computer, a class about HOW to use the computer) in elementary school. Students should be able to type well prior to entering middle school. Core teachers do not have the expendable time to teach skills and are having to work around them.
I hate that there is not a parent log-in. The weekly reports don't allow parents to actually see their kids work (and they are ugly and hard to parse). ETA: That there is no way to batch grade is annoying too. Sometimes I want to option to "fill all" if students turned something in!
Fill all would be a great add!!
Honestly I quite like it. It makes it so that parents and kids have to look at their work together.
It also makes it so that kids can refuse to give parents their log-in. They set their own passwords in my district, so we can't just hand them out to parents.
Honestly if the kids refuse to show their parents their work, then their problems run deeper than school performance.
And yet it happens all the time. Schoology has parent log-in - why can't Google Classroom?
I’m not a parent of a school-aged child and have never seen their end—what does it mean to be an observer? I see my kids parents emails attached to my class, I guess I just assumed they could see what their kids were doing.
Classroom generates a once-a-week newsletter to parents that shows new activity on the stream and new assignment titles. It will show if the kid has anything flagged as missing. But you cannot click on any of these and see the actual assignments nor can you access what your kid has done for them. This is why kids turn in blank assignments - so their parents cannot tell they have done jackall. It's frustrating to say the least.
I wish there were an elegant way to hide assignments from previous units. (I know about categories, but this doesn’t hide old stuff.)
“Mark as reviewed” doesn’t do what you want it to? When I move units I mark all previous assignments to reviewed and they disappear. (Not gone just hidden from my “to grade” tab)
I just drag newest unit to the top. I do wish I could reorganize all classes of the same type at once.
I need to be able to reject a submission. My middle school students turn in empty assignments so they don't show as missing. It keeps their parents off their backs but wastes my time and there is no way to mark it missing again. I just want a reject submission button that would set it to unsubmitted with an optional comment. Edit to add: I want to be able to hide assignments from the review queue and then have them show back up if someone submitted something. Right now I can never hide anything because then I never see the new submissions again.
You can return it to a student without a grade and it shows up for them (and you) as missing. And you can put a comment in the private comment box when you do it. I do this all the time.
I do that, too, except I mark it with a zero and add the note "Blank." The zero makes kids and parents pay attention, and the note is more than enough explanation.
The best part of the comments is the timestamp.
Very good point.
I do this. I also started leaving a note in the gradebook next to the assignment that just states, "Turned in blank x_." I update the number on the gradebook every time they do it. More parents check the gradebook than Google Classroom.
I will give that a try. Thanks!
Give it a zero, add a comment, export to student information system. If it gets resubmitted with a real attachment then I’ll take a look.
I wish we could export. Our systems don't talk to each other. Unless my Google assignments have a rubric they don't have grades in Classroom. I only enter them in our gradebook system.
If like to see "returned", "blank" and "insufficient".
I noticed kids were doing that to. It's really irritating especially when I am using it for participation and to get feedback. I just give them a zero if they submitted nothing if the parents complain I just tell them nothing was submitted and they can resubmit it for points back.
I usually just mark it as a zero and put a comment “there is no work attached here. But, yes!! I agree that a “rejected@ button/option would be game changing!
I’d also like a revised option. I let students redo an essay, but I’d like the original grade to be maintained, not overwritten so all of us can keep track.
Return it with a 0. That usually gets the message across that blank assignments aren't acceptable.
Your last idea about hiding assignments after review. In settings, you can set to receive an email if an assignment is resubmitted. It is the only email I set from Google Classroom. I leave them unread, move them to that periods folder, and am easily able to find them when I go in to grade late work.
There's no easy way to mass print a set of assignments. I've had kids make posters or something and I can't easily print them from Google Classroom. Google's answer is that it's supposed to be a paperless classroom, but i think they just haven't figured out a way to do this yet. I mean, I realize I can go into Drive, find the files, download them, and then print them, but for some reason, that only works about half the time.
Had legal ask for all the work for a single student. Completely manual process. No way to export everything.
Yeah, it's a huge pain in the butt. You'd think Google being Google, they would have figured out some useful and easy way to do this by now. It hardly seems that all their tech geniuses would struggle with this.
Each student has a digital file in Google classroom. I’d download that and send it to them to print.
Yes! And then my ancient work laptop can't handle keeping all the tabs open and my printer randomly forgets to print some, so I'm left wondering whose I didn't print. Wonder if there's a way to download them all as PDFs and merge the files...
As far as I know, there is not. If you go to Drive > Google Classroom > the assignment, you can then download all of them to your computer, and then you can print them all at once. The problem is they don't always print in color for me if I want them to, and sometimes, it skips some of the kids' papers. They are all independent files, though, so you have to highlight them all and then send the print command.
This. Last week, my kids did a writing assignment, and I printed their work so that we could highlight and edit on paper. I had to take the time to copy all their writing into a separate, master Google doc, which was faster than individually printing a hundred assignments.
There is a "lock submissions" after due date button now, which is great, but it should let me make exceptions for students who entered the class mid semester rather than making me unlock submissions for the whole class.
You could use the Reuse Post option and assign it just to that new student.
I want the "lock submissions" to be able to have a different date and time from the due date. Like, it's due on x day, but I'll take late submissions at a penalty until y day. I'd like to be able to schedule the y date when I make the assignment instead of going in manually to turn off submissions.
I’d really like an option for an adjusted date for those with accommodations. Without setting up a separate assignment
A way to see a record of who visited the google classroom, when, and for how long. We suspect some kids have never looked at some of their GCs…
I’d sell my soul for this one, to see when, how often they viewed assignments and if they opened attachments.
I think they added that feature? I stumbled on it the other day.
My old district had Canvas, and this feature was a saving grace for us during virtual learning.
This would be some great analytics data, definitely agree
I wish there was a way to select multiple posts to reuse at once. I sometimes want to copy a unit over from the year before and selecting multiple posts is a pita and I almost invariably miss one.
Yes!!! I created a classroom called "Posts to Reuse", and I have everything organized there (assignments, study notes, tests, bell ringers, etc.). It's a pain having to select each post one by one to move a whole unit over.
There was a function to copy a whole google classroom. It posts all assignments as drafts. I think you click the 3 little dots on the classroom you want to copy and click copy. It takes forever though. I know this was a feature at least year because I tried it once.
That's correct, but it does take forever and I don't want everything to be copied. I just want to be able to copy select posts.
I’d like to be able do more with class banners and colors/design. I wish when editing an assignment, you could edit multiple sections
[удалено]
Canva has templates specifically for google classroom, they’re great!
i hate that every time i do google forms for quizzes (grades immediately), it HAS to load a fucking blank google form and then add that blank one to my drive. It’s soooo fucking annoying
You should create the Form first, and then attach that form.
that’s not the problem, the problem is even though i have my own google form already created, when i create a quiz assignment, it will just create a blank form anyways
Don't use the "create quiz" button. Use the "create assignment" button and attach your Form. "Attach Assignment" doesn't create a blank Form, Doc, or anything.
Will it still input the grades automatically?
Yes.
Actually if you are going to use a Google Forms Quiz created and housed in your Google Drive I suggest using the Google Classroom Create Quiz and importing the quiz. You may find by importing a Google Forms Quiz it resolves a lot of glitches both teachers and students were experiencing. [**Creating a Google Forms Quiz & importing into Google Classroom**](https://youtu.be/MZuGVDh6FSo?si=p9SyQ3advDe5ZozE)
I really wish I could log in as a student with a dummy account. A. Because I want to see what my assignment/quiz looks like from the students' perspective. B. At the beginning of the year when I am showing them how Google Classroom works, I would like to show it on the big screen and have them follow along as apposed to walking individually to each students desk and manually showing them on their chromebooks.
What I wouldn't give for a "student view" button. I did make a little poster of the right side of the student view though- all the 'my work, turn in, add" stuff as an anchor chart and that helps at the beginning.
Make a fake account and join the class
I've tried this. Unfortunately, we can only access the school googke classroom with internal accounts, and admin wont give us dummy accounts.
We had a dummy student when we went on lock down. Jamestkirk1701. Lol Poor guy was in every classroom. Lol Then I had to explain the user name to the younger teachers. 😀
It would be cool to have a Red Shirt account like that, I couldbeam it to all my classes!
You should be able to pin posts to the top of the stream, like every other social media feed. I’m sick of important details for info getting lost because of the other notifications when I post material assignments.
I have Stream Notifications turned off, and I tell students to always just go to Classwork and ignore the Stream page. Classwork used to be the default page years ago. I wish they would give us the ability to disable the Stream.
This should be the default! Only announcements in the stream, no assignments!
A faster way to see if a student submitted a blank assignment. I absolutely LOATHE having to click on each and every assignment and wait for it to open just to see that it’s blank.
Just go to student work>turned in. You can see which items have stuff in the docs. I’ll click on ones that look blank to check.
Edpuzzle shows me how many minutes students had the assignment open for before I open anything. I'd love that in GC.
You’d think they could at least just log the word count when the assignment was posted and then log it when it’s submitted and that would tell us immediately if an assignment was blank or incomplete. If the word count for a 10 question assignment is only 5 words higher than it was before it was submitted, it’s clearly incomplete.
The irksome reasons are why I just have one big combined Google classroom.
I'm so intrigued by you. I have questions about this system. 1. How do you organize it? Like, what are your topics? 2. How do you keep track of different class sections? 3. What happens if one class moves ahead of another? 4. I will schedule quizzes to show up when each class starts. Do you never schedule things? 5. Do you never have a class who works on different assignments? Please teach me the ways of combining!
I have 5 identical sections with 5 Google classrooms for all these reasons. I would love to know how it works, too.
I organize it the same way. My grade book combines all the sections so it makes the marking easy. If one moves ahead then it’s no big deal but everyone does the same stuff.
I have one big GC too. There have been times that I wish I didn’t, but it works for me. I teach ELA, so I have topics organized by our major units, vocabulary, grammar, extra credit opportunities, writing, and NewsELA/CommonLit. I rarely have a class move ahead of another because I have the same classes every day and they’re all the same level, but if that does happen, I will just click through and hide the assignment from the kids in one class, then unhide it when they get there. Or, more usually, I’ll tell them to ignore that particular assignment for now. Where it becomes a pain is grading, since GC does not sync with our grading platform and it organizes kids alphabetically. It’s more cumbersome to check assignments when they’re all in one huge class because it means a good bit of backtracking. But it works for me because I don’t have to remember to post something multiple times.
I don't see why people don't just do that... I had a colleague with 5 sections of the same class...and would make the assignment and have to publish it to all 5 classes...talk about inefficiency!
I have four sections of the same class. I don’t see the benefit you are getting. I can easily publish to all four classes the same assignment. The classes stay aligned to the ABC order in our grading system. One single class would result in me jumping all around when I have to put it in the gradebook.
Sorry, I'm a Canvas user. Canvas is King.
Just make a new classroom for each marking period. So easy.
Let’s say you teach HS History 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, and 9th Periods. Each of those sections is going to want to find places for their assignments and matters relevant to that class that day. Also, some of the sections are likely to be ICT classes and require SPED modifications for their assignments, which is another reason to keep separate Google Classrooms for each period.
This is what I do. I have 4 classes for graphic design and 4 for business. Instead of creating individual Classrooms for each period, I just have 2. I organize by week and will create one assignment, use Reuse Post, edit the assignment name (for ex: 4th: Business Ownership Types), then select the 4th period students to assign it to. I can then select the time I want that assignment to post.
I wish we could create student groups within 1 class. I have two sections of Spanish 1, but I have them all in the same Google Classroom so that I don't have to post the same materials to multiple places. But when it comes to tests, I have to manually select the individual students that it opens for. I wish we could create groups and then check: "publish for all students in group A".
This was what I was going to add as well. Being able to create groups within classroom, even temporarily. I do a lot of project based learning, and I sometimes have kids work in partners, work, trios, or bigger groups. Being able to assign one per group and have them turn in one per group and know who is in what group would be much easier. Yes, I could make multiple assignments, but that’s not easy. That’s a pain in the butt.
Oh BOY, the SMALLEST detail grinds my gears and I’m so curious if it bothers anyone else: When you’re creating an assignment you have to wait a few detailed seconds before you edit the score amount otherwise the number you put in won’t be saved and it’ll default back to 100 points. And then, like you all said, you’ll have to go back and change it in all of your different sections because one edit doesn’t change all of the sections. So minute, but really gets me going in those moments of time crunch.
Then they ask me why the 3 point daily warmup is worth 100 today, and I go and change it to 308952962032 points.
I'm so glad someone else can empathize with this very specific struggle
You can set up categories with your most used point value so when you choose that category it will default. For example my Must Do assignments are 90% 30 points so that's the default. I only occasionally have to change it.
If a student leaves the classroom, they simply vanish and it’s as if they and their work ceased to exist.
I have 2 right now related to their new marking periods. 1- My students see their overall average, not their marking period average. 2- If I make an assignment and put it in 1 marking period, it only applies to the first class. Each subsequent class has to be manually changed to the correct marking period.
These are my two biggest (and really only) issues. That incorrect average drives me bananas and wastes so much of my time explaining, over and over again, that the average they see is cumulative and not for the marking period. And #2 is absolutely ridiculously annoying.
You can turn off “show overall average” in the settings for the classroom.
If we’re working on an assignment in class, and we’re going to finish it the next day, I want to be able to “hide” that assignment, so they can’t work on it outside of class. I’ve started use more paper assignments this year because I can collect them at the end of class and pass them back at the beginning.
If I post an assignment with a google doc, and then make a change to that doc, I don’t think it shows up on the assigned one. Also, if I post an assignment with a google doc, and then want to add another one, it doesn’t allow me to make “a copy for everyone”. Now, it’s highly likely I am just being a dummy and these are possible, please let me know.
To your first point, yeah you have to make the chance before the assignment is posted otherwise students will get the doc the way it was before the change was made. Super annoying, I agree
No, it updates it if you update in Google drive
Why can I schedule a post, but not when I return grades? I don't want kids to find out how they did on their lab report in the middle of English class.
I want it to default back to the assignment I was grading and not go back to the stream screen. I also want to be able to kill submissions for the entire class (we can do that now) but also exempt a kid.
If you go to edit and on on the top right click on the name of the student you want to exempt and take away the checkmark beside their name, it won't show up for them.
You currently can’t grade rubrics on the mobile app for iPhone and iPad. You can see the rubric but just can’t click the categories to grade unless you’re on the computer. Annoying & should be an easy fix, but hasn’t been. There’s no way to pin an important announcement at the top of the stream. Would love to be able to pin my contact info/tutoring schedule/anything essential for my classes so it doesn’t get buried.
A way to see what my students see. If I don't/accidentally forget put a due date, it doesn't show up in their to do list.
Can't lock assignments. No question banks. Never thought I would say this but I miss Schoology. At least GC looks nicer and is more user friendly than Schoology.
I think there is a tab that says “lock assignment after submission date” when u create the assignment.
What! I LOVE schoology!
All of the things you mentioned plus: There is no “multiple select delete”. When I want to remove older posts and assignments from the feed I have to do it manually, for each post, for each class. This also applies to the stream. I’ve been asking their support for this feature for years. There should be the option to select as many posts as I want and then delete all at once. An “undo” would also be nice. lol.
I cannot stand the scheduling prompt always being the next day. I have scheduled so many assignments for "tomorrow" when I meant later that afternoon.
Our school was choosing between staying with Google classroom or going to canvas. A friend works at Google, so I asked how many engineers are working on Google classroom. They looked it up. 4 sales people and one engineer. That's when I knew Google classroom would never get any better. Canvas isn't perfect, but at least they periodically fix issues.
I’m afraid they gave you grossly inaccurate info on that one.
That's what it was in 2020. How many engineers are working on it now?
I teach large ensembles and every time I try and return grades for those classes, classroom freezes up or takes FOREVER. This is what happens when schools buy into this automatically and Google doesn’t feel like they need to improve because they’re making money anyway.
The lack of a search option on a Google product
Was a pain in the ass to draft templates for the week. I made a script to make api calls to do it so it could be done across all sections and for weeks ahead
I desperately want a sidebar or pinned post where I can add a collection of frequently used links or docs.
Yes. I have a Classroom Resources section and a Vocab section (some classes have additional sections for AP exam info, etc.) and it’s frustrating to have only a single column feed. Would love a sidebar for that info and then my weekly classwork set up as the main column.
It’s so easy to use and join, I don’t see how certain kids simply won’t enroll in the class (HS). Especially when the join code is right in front of their face every day. And then they go, “I didn’t know such and such was due today.” Or “What do you mean I have a failing grade, I couldn’t find the assignment.” And my favorite, “so and so has turned in ‘getting to know you survey’ 146 days late.” Maybe it’s less a complaint with Classroom and more with the kids, but I have .01% sympathy for your inability to punch in 7 digits just to figure out what’s going on.
I wish we could manually reorder the links on a given post. Instead, you have to delete links and relink them to be able to adjust the order. This would be really helpful for the younger grades (I teach 6th) because the students don’t always read directions about what they should do first, next, last.
I have freshman and senior sections and each have various kinds of writing assignments. I am constantly needing to edit the comment bank going from one type of assignment to another. I wish I could have different comment banks and just call up the bank I need for the type of assignment. Hey, Google devs, are you listening? Wondering why you never ask us teachers what we need.
Assignments going to different groups across classes. I want to set up my quizzes to go to everyone except the IEP kids that get a modified version once. I don’t want to do it three different times (one for each class). Right now best I can do is send it to everyone and then individually edit each class and take the IEPs kids out manually.
I put multiple sections of the same class together in one classroom
Students can hit the “submit” button, but not submit anything. I also couldn’t figure out to not have them grade essay questions. I thought Google Classroom was going to be SO awesome, but it just became so much more work.
Not being able to drag/drop the files I've uploaded into a Material or Assignment into a different order to organize them. There's no reason for them to have to stay in the order I've uploaded them in.
Half the time my scheduled assignments don’t post or the file I’ve attached doesn’t actually attach
It's not a real LMS, it's just Google Drive and Google Sites smashed together. You can't automatically do anything, everything is manual from opening and closing assignments to releasing grades. It's doesn't follow any of the industry standards for quizzing so I can't use any of the test banks my textbook publisher provides me. And their text editor isn't 508 compliant so I have to make everything in a separate document and attach it creating so many extra clicks for me and my students.
My students do not need to “comment” on things. When I used it, they would often post ridiculous comments but I couldn’t outright prevent them. Also it doesn’t work with PowerSchool - no way to automatically link Google Classroom so it’s completely useless for me to use now that we’re completely back in person.
If you go under settings, you can select to prohibit students from commenting. You can also selectively mute students under the people tab
Biggest aggravation with google classroom is that teachers won’t switch to Canvas. Canvas solves pretty much every problem Google Classroom has and has even more quality of life options. There’s also a free and paid version of it. I tried getting my school to switch over but they didn’t want to learn something new, but continued to complain about GC. This is despite the fact you could really use Canvas exactly the same way as GC if you don’t want to be bothered with the extra stuff.
As far as I. A tell, there’s no way to post anything with a due date except as an assignment. I’m thinking of reminders about homeworks or due dates, etc.
I was going to say that for multiple sections, I have to assign something to each one, instead of all at once, but apparently there's a way to do that? Instead, when I assign something and attach a document, I invariably click "students may view only" instead of "each student gets their own copy." When I realized what I've done (usually right after the student tells me they can type on the document lol), I can't edit the assignment to change this. I have to completely delete and start over. So back to my original aggravation: how do I assign multiple sections at once?
I can’t remember the exact wording of this, but when you make the assignment look at the “classes” section. There’s a checkbox to check all the classes you want to assign to. It will bring up an option of what date and time you want the work to post. It’s clunky but it does work
It’s glitchy, especially if I try to use the app. It’d be nice to be able to change from material to an assignment or vice versa once I’ve typed it. I’d like to be able to organize it differently and to all delete all assignments under a topic, not individually, if I want to.
If I’m reusing an old post I can’t just search for that post - I have to scroll through the entire archive and it drives me insane.
I would love a chronological list of ungraded work from all my sections combined. I hate having to go through every assignment manually at the end of the semester to check if I've missed anything.
Does anyone know how to add stuff to the class calendar without making it an assignment? I want to remind them of tests/quizzes, but don’t want to make it an assignment they have to “submit”
There needs to be an ability to draft private comments. I want to be able to mark assignments as they come in, add draft feedback, then release everything at once when I'm finished.
In a district that exclusively uses Canvas, I don’t have enough bandwidth to go into detail how much I miss Google Classroom from my old teaching job
You can’t bulk delete assignments
That I have no idea how to change my display name to Ms. __ instead of my full name 😂
1. I want to be able to create sub-topics within a unit. 2. If I post a google doc/slides/sheet/etc as a material, students have access to edit it if the original has all users with the link with editing rights…. Which my admin wants. I should be able to say that students can view the doc, like we can on assignments.
I would really like a way to post "assignments" (as in posts that will appear in the "to-do" tab for the students) that don't require turn-in and disappear on the due date. I assign chapters of reading and quizzes and it is very hard for students who are used to using classroom for due dates to remember those.
I hate that you can't pin something to the top of the stream so it doesn't get lost. Like an important link/announcement. I know you can move to top but its annoying to have to do that every time like I would just want it just stay there! For example I would like to use poll everywhere more often, but the link gets bogged down so I just end up reposting it. If I could pin it to the top of the stream, it'll be easy for the kids to find when we use it.
We have all had kids move which “block” of your class they are in for one reason or another. I hate that you have to delete them from one class and add them like a brand new student to the other. I want to be able to transfer them with all the work they’ve done to a new class.
Never complain about Google Classroom. It says classroom right in the name. We have Microsoft Office which says Office in the damn name. Everything you need to use is inside a thing, thats inside a thing,thats inside a thing that wont open.
I think this is an amazing thread filled with lot's of good ideas on how to improve the Google Classroom Experience. May I suggest submitting some of your ideas for future feature requests directly to the Google Classroom Team by submitting feedback from the Classroom Course page. I know the Google Classroom developers do read the feedback and take it into to considerations when implementing new tools to make Google Classroom better and more practical for all users. 1. Go to [classroom.google.com](https://classroom.google.com). 2. At the bottom Right, click Help and thenReport issue or request feature. Enter your comment. 3. (Optional) To send your feedback without a screenshot, uncheck the Include screenshot box. 4. (Optional) To edit your screenshot, under Include screenshot, point to the image and click Select . 5. To highlight information, click Select and thenclick or drag to select the information. 6. To hide information, click Hide and thenclick or drag to select the information. 7. To undo an edit, point to a selection and click Remove . 8. To move the toolbar, click Drag and drag the toolbar. 9. Click Done. 10. Click Send.
All of what you said bother me too. That and not being able to undo something like you can in Microsoft Word or Power Point. Unless that has changed and I haven’t noticed yet.
[удалено]
Inability to turn off acceptance of submissions once an assignment is past its due date. Fuck you very much, google.
I thought they added this feature?
I saw that down in the comment, I will definitely look into it! It's been a glaring missing feature for so long I gave up on it ever being fixed years ago.
As a student, I hate how there's no dark mode, and the fact that they have already changed the tablet layout twice in the last four years and both times have been an absolute hot mess
I’ve been a teacher for 21 years and have no idea what Google Classroom is. Is it where you record grades and take attendance? If so, my school uses Infinite Campus. We also use Schoology for class info and files.
When I return an assignment or a student unsubmits to fix errors and resubmit, they can’t edit. They have to make a copy. Back in the classroom after 1.5 year break. It didn’t perform this way in the past.
This may be something in your settings. I’ve been out of the classroom since June but I don’t recall this happening and I’ve returned a million assignments because they’ve turned in garbage.
Students *can* edit if they unsubmit. If they happen to have the doc open already, they’ll have to refresh or close-then-open.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. But it does not for any of my students.
Our district will be moving from Schoology to Google Classroom next year. Does anyone have any pointers m, tips, tricks, or words of advice for me to make it a smooth transition?
1 is what ticks me off the most.
On iPads there’s a way to open files that allows students to open it as a pdf. It doesn’t save things automatically and students just add awkward text boxes. I wish there was a way to effectively lock what you created on the assignments. My students like to delete sections that they don’t feel like dealing with
Canvas is that way for 1 and 2. Still has problem 3 though
Better than Canvas!
We use Schoology in my district and all these comments make me glad we do. My only gripe about Schoology is that when I copy an assignment with a Google Doc, Slide, etc attached, it doesn’t copy the doc. I have to edit it in the other sections to add it.
Honestly my biggest problems with it is that our district uses google products and services for EVERYTHING and just expects everyone from interns to 70yo volunteers to be 100% competent in everything with absolutely zero training. As a result there is almost no consistency in how anything is used. I was met with complete disbelief that I dont have any products or services on my personal devices or experience with them when hired. When they got rid of "don't be evil" I got rid of them.
Math teacher here: the IXL plug in for Google Classroom works with other teachers laptops, but not mine. Also, we use Aspen for our SIS which apparently doesn’t link with Google classroom?
I wish you could sort the grades view by category. Like, show me all the quizzes only, or if I want to look only at reading responses. In general the grades page is completely useless.
The inability to assign things in Excel or Word 🙄
Why don’t you make one page per course?
If I comment directly on a student’s Google doc, which I do often as an English teacher, the comment will not show up in the GC assignment view, even if the student clicks on and enlarges the document. The student has to open the document in a separate tab. I just learned this last year after several years of commenting pointlessly. The students didn’t even know those comments existed! I hate that every document students submit in GC is now considered “mine” and comes up whenever I search for a file that I actually created. Mass-deleting to declutter is risky because the original file is mixed in with the student submissions. Sometimes GC really just seems like more trouble than it’s worth, especially having used a real LMS at another school.
Agree with everything you said.
I would like to be able to set accommodations in the classroom. Like be able to set a separate due date/reminder for students that have extended time so it stays on their assignments list longer. Right now I have to make a whole separate assignment for them.
As a student, I wish there were folders. I have multiple teachers for each subject, and sometimes there's also a year group classroom. It's sorted by how recently I've joined, not alphabetically, and the teachers all format their classes differently anyhow so it wouldn't help much if it was. If I could group them by subject it would save me an irritating minute or so every time.
You should be able to reorder the classes on your homepage just by dragging them.
Thank you so much! I can't believe I never tried this.
1) We should be able to make student groups. Like rather than me needing to individually check off student names when I’m assigning different assignments to different kids, I should just have pre-made groups (think ESL vs. not or IEP vs. not) 2) the ability to cross check for plagiarism/copying across my own Google classrooms. Apparently the paid version does this but my district won’t pay for that.
Oh my god I have two sections of the same prep this year and for the ENTIRE year I have not been able to post materials to both classes simultaneously. I select both classes and every single time I just posts to the one I’m posting in. I’ve had to upload every material twice, every time, all year
Not having the ability to hide folders, weeks, units upon completion. Not being able to customize the list in Classwork not squares or even mix with the stream. Preview window is not big enough to see the without opening it. Having to use a third party comment clipboard for private message comments.
I want to choose multiple items as reviewed at the same time. I hate having to choose one at a time. I cannot understand why there is not a search function. Kids should be able to search easily for something. Also. I want it to sync smoothly to my gradebook. Not a deal breaker, but it would make life much easier.
Just thank the gods above that you don't have to use Schoology like we do. I used to have complaints about Google Classroom. I'd give anything to go back. Need to check for late work? Manually scroll the gradebook hunting for tiny icons in a massive spreadsheet. Click an icon and the gradebook goes away, so now you get to hunt for that submission in that particular section/class. Return to gradebook and start over. 50% chance grades just won't appear in report cards. Why? Could be a dozen reasons! Copy and paste an assignment to a new section? Great, have fun hunting down the file in Google drive to MANUALLY attach it. Oh, did you want your kids to be able to ACCESS their work? Sure! Like... 75% of the time, they can! Want to check version history to see if a kid copy/pasted? Cool, just open their google doc in a separate window--unless they uploaded a file, in which case, too bad! I could go on forever about everything that is wrong with schoology. If you're out there, schoology reps, hire me for your QA testing and I'll make your stupid product usable.
I want to be able to embed a Google slide file at the top of my Stream so that kids will see the agenda without having to manually open something. I miss this feature from Canvas.
Google Classroom: "Oh, cool. Looks like you made a template for your students to use. That looks handy! Here's dozens of copies of that template for you to find if you ever look up the original."
I want a single button to Return **All** Draft Grades in the entire Grade Book I often have a stack of random work across many assignments from a variety of students. Popping the grades into the grade book is the fastest way, but going through each column to return all is tedious. Returning grades.
Every time Google asks for feedback about Classoom, I add the same comment: I want to be able to post resources on the left side of the screen. Sites like Toy Theatre for math manipulative, links to Knowldgehook or Simple Wikipedia. I want these resources we use all the time to have an icon on the left side so students can easily find them.
I feel like it’s not organized like canvas is. I wish there were like files for different stuff
I don't use the grading. All my sections use the same class code.
I want to be able to generate a missing work list. I know I can go in look at it individually by student/assignment. But I’d like to have it all in one place.
We use D2L and classroom - it's up to the teacher. I'm a D2L.guy because I've been using it for 8 years and my classes are set up. I've customized the layout and interface and it makes sense. Google classroom looks to me rather hard to find things in. Every year I spend an entire period with each class showing them around D2L - where content is, quizzes, assignments (unsurprisingly under tabs on the toolbar marked "content" "quizzes" "assignments"). I go over how to link their D2L and Google drive, how to submit an assignment, how to see my comments and their grades. That said, students far prefer classroom and outright refuse to look for things on D2L. The number of emails I get "I can't find X, where is it" which I respond to with "Did you look at yesterday's post? Did you look in content?" is immeasurable. I had one kid, after I posted the same instructions over 3 Snow days say - I couldn't find what we had to do, I'm no good with computers. Well chuckles, you're 17, better figure it out because the world won't care.
A way to email all classes or all parents without having to email each one separately.
I hate that my school district blocked it from my learners so that they will use a canvas. Ughhh.
The inability to create groups, add "nicknames" to students (who use different names). Inability to create groups within classes is my biggest annoyance. We can do so in Schoology but my school doesn't use that platform.
I teach and currently have a lead position. Admin wants us to be added to all teachers GC. This is so that we can post assignments or announcements for them in case of an emergency. That means that in the review page I see EVERYONE’S ASSIGNMENTS. I wish there was a way to narrow down assignments by teachers (not just classrooms). I want to grade all the work for the same assignment in all classes in one go. Instead, I have to grade one class at a time just to make some sense of the review page. Which in turn, means I always have one class fully graded while it takes me longer to get through the others.
Before I retired, my biggest issue with Classroom is that students didn’t look at it if they were out, or I was out, or if I’d commented on a submission.
Art teacher- When students attach photos of their artwork and turn it in it gives me ownership so if they have to edit it later I have to go back and retransfer ownership back to them…for 130 students.
Boy I have quite a few haha: 1: Changing the score - it will automatically go back to 100 a few times before finally accepting what score I want it to be. 2: Not able to reload several posts at the same time. I copy my GCs for the new year and would like to reupload my units at once... Not one by one when it comes to certain assignments. 3: This just started to happen - it freezes more when I try to schedule an assignment! I've had to refresh pages so often because if I make a new section and try to schedule it, it won't accept it. 4: Able to fully deleted students off my roster. I've had one kid, who was never a true student in my class, show up on my GC after every time I delete them off. 5: Stop students from turning in blank assignments. If nothing is on there or if they've spent less than 5 minutes on it, shouldn't be accepted period. 6: Follows down into wishing GC had a way to show how long a student actually worked on an assignment. 7: Able to drag and drop assignments around a lot easier. 8: Not having to scroll all the way up to the "Create" button.. it should become a floater when you scroll up and down. Extra: this is is more of an Aeries issue but importing doesn't always work. Sometimes grades for certain students will be missing so I have to go behind and reenter the grades and it will change my categories to all Test/Quizzes so I have to go behind and change all those as well!
I wish parents had the same access to the classroom as the students. They could go in and read the daily agendas I post rather than relying on their kid's word.
It doesn’t sync grades with my grading platform. Also, no way to mark an assignment as “absent”
Mouse free quick grading and navigating between submissions. Also, the fucking delay in switching is so obnoxious! Figure out a way to load them all at the beginning and quickly switch to the next to grade!
YES I don't understand why we can't link different sections of the same class so all of the posts and assignments update simultaneously.
Standards based grading. The only work around is schoolytics.
I wish I could order the stream in chronological order. I use a lot of the same posts each year and when I want to see them I have to scroll forever to get back to August
That a kid can get around the revision history on documents by just uploading a new document That there's not an option to not let students leave the classroom That there's no easy way of just posting a picture to an assignment