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Resources
Maneuvering the Middle
Make organization easier for your students by creating a location for all assignment, objectives, announcements, and resources listed all in one place. Maneuvering the Middle does this by creating a Daily Assignment Hub Google Slides document. The assignment hub creates a single document with links to multiple assignments. Students see an overview of the week on the first slide and then there is a slide for each day of the week with an objective, announcement, and assignment details for that day. Each assignment has a link to the resource and directions that correspond with the resource. This Daily Assignment Hub is great for students because they don't have to continually move between multiple assignments. Everything they need is in one place so students can see how their day or week will be laid out. To read the entire blog post, download the free resource, and watch the video tutorial please visit the Maneuvering the Middle website.
EdTech Emma
There may be a lack of organizational features in Google Classroom but with Emma’s tips for creating topics and labeling assignments you’ll be organized in a matter of minutes. The first step in organizing Google Classroom is creating topics. Creating topics in Google Classroom is very important because it helps everyone stay organized. With topics, students are able to quickly go to a specific topic to find the assignment or material to which the assignment was designated. With topics, teachers can easily refer a student to the topic to find material or an assignment. EdTech Emma likes to use a "Week At A Glance" as her first topic and as an overview for the week. Each topic after the first is then labeled to a corresponding week in the quarter or semester. It depends on the structure of your Google Classroom and how often you generate a new class for your students as to how you will label your topics. The way EdTech Emma labels her assignments is by week, day the assignment should be worked on, type of assignment, and the assignment name. To read the entire blog post and see screenshot examples please visit EdTech Emma's website.
Ditch that Textbook
Matt Miller (Ditch that Textbook) provides different ways for you to structure your Google Classroom. He provides examples for structuring topics, assignments, and materials specifically related to a week, unit, subject or file type. However, he also mentions that adding a little personality to assignment and materials by including emojis can be very helpful. Matt says that labeling assignments and materials by chapter, lesson, and name with an abbreviation and/or emoji for each type of assignment can really help students navigate your Classroom and find assignments easily. For a more comprehensive understanding of Matt Miller's Google Classroom structure please visit his website to see examples and read the entire blog post.
Teacher Tech with Alice Keeler
Alice provides two posts for for naming conventions. Here first post talks about naming conventions and maintaining consistency in Google Classroom and Google Drive. By keeping your naming conventions consistent you are also keeping the Google Classroom folders in your Google Drive organized and easy to find with a simple search. Alice recommends using three digit numbers, short codes with quarter, and assignment type for naming so documents and folders stay in order numerically. Her second post mentions using hashtags in your assignment names to organize Classroom and create filters for your Gmail. Alice recommends using hashtags in naming because it helps search faster in Gmail when trying to find student submissions. Also, if you teach students to include hashtags in their private comments you can easily create filters and notifications based on those hashtags. To dive deeper and see screenshots of Alice's naming conventions please visit her website and read her blog post.
Shake Up Learning
Shake Up Learning has a very comprehensive post on how to setup and package your Google Classroom and assignments to make sure you provide clear direction and expectations. Shake Up Learning (Kasey Bell) says there are ten things to include in your assignment. She mentions you should give every assignment a dedicated number similar to what Alice Keeler mentions in her blog post. Make sure you also provide detailed directions in both written and video form to accommodate all your learners. Also, include student-friendly learning goals so students understand why they are doing the assignment. Don't forget to tell students how much time they will have to complete the assignment in and out of class with a clear due date and time. Finally, make sure you provide clear directions on the turn in process, have all of your attachment and links in the assignment, let students know the collaboration guidelines, and what they can work on when they're done. To read a better explanation and see screenshot examples of her directions please visit the Shake Up Learning blog post.
There’s also another link to a blog post that describes how to organize and label your Classroom assignments. Shake Up Learning mentions a lot of similar organizational tips to the above blogs I've mentioned. She mentions organizing by units, modules, week, type of assignment, and subject area. Instead of using the Week At A Glance topic like EdTech Emma mentioned, Shake Up Learning provides an example of a Today topic and Classroom Materials topic to help students find the relevant information quickly. Finally, Layla Gregory, a Shake Up Learning community member, mentions organizing your Google classroom by learning target. This helps students make the connection between the goal and the assignment. To read more about Google Classroom organization and to see screenshots please read the Shake Up Learning blog post.
There’s also another link to a blog post that describes how to organize and label your Classroom assignments. Shake Up Learning mentions a lot of similar organizational tips to the above blogs I've mentioned. She mentions organizing by units, modules, week, type of assignment, and subject area. Instead of using the Week At A Glance topic like EdTech Emma mentioned, Shake Up Learning provides an example of a Today topic and Classroom Materials topic to help students find the relevant information quickly. Finally, Layla Gregory, a Shake Up Learning community member, mentions organizing your Google classroom by learning target. This helps students make the connection between the goal and the assignment. To read more about Google Classroom organization and to see screenshots please read the Shake Up Learning blog post.