Google Classroom Update Adds Enhanced Grading and Feedback Tools
Google Classroom is getting updates to make it easier for instructors to create and grade rubrics and give personalized feedback to students.
Google has announced improvements to both Google Classroom and Course Kit, a suite of tools for integrating G Suite into a school's LMS. Among other new features, instructors will be able to create a rubric and attach it to an assignment while giving students full flexibility into how their work will be evaluated.
On managed Chromebooks, educators will be able to enable a locked mode for quizzes to prevent students from navigating away from their assessments until their answers are submitted. The locked mode will be available to all G Suite users on managed Chromebooks in August. Google is also working with partners such as Texthelp and Don Johnston to aggregate accessibility features for students to be able to use these tools when the quizzes are in locked mode.
Google is also adding a feature to Forms where instructors will be able to import questions that they have previously used in other Forms. This will help them save time so they can spend more time providing specific feedback to their students.
In addition, Gradebook is getting rolled out to all users of Google Classroom over the next few days. Gradebook provides a holistic view of student performance over time, so instructors can determine where students need opportunities to improve. Instructors will also be able to customize how their grades are calculated, set up grade categories for assignments and share the overall classroom grade with students through new class settings.
In a beta version, Google is launching a tool to allow educators to sync grades from Classroom to their school information system of record, which eliminates the need to enter grades in two different locations. The beta program will be available to select schools that use Infinite Campus and Capita SIMS initially.
More information about the Google Classroom platform can be found on the Google site.
About the Author
Sara Friedman is a reporter/producer for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe covering education policy and a wide range of other public-sector IT topics.
Friedman is a graduate of Ithaca College, where she studied journalism, politics and international communications.
Friedman can be contacted at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @SaraEFriedman.
Click here for previous articles by Friedman.