Student Collaboration Tips for Docs & Slides

Google Apps for Education have allowed teachers to expand their classrooms in so many ways. My absolute favorite thing about Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the multiple opportunities that students have to work collaboratively within.

Here are a couple simple tips for organizing Docs and Slides for Collaboration.

  

Tracking Student Work in Google Docs

Many teachers are really enjoying the fact that Google Apps for Education allows their students to work collaboratively. One of the many concerns of students working together has always been, "How can I tell which student has done what work?" Well thanks to the revision history in Google Docs, it is easy to see who has done what work, and when they did that work. This is a great assessment tool and will keep students accountable during collaborative work.

Google Forms for Reading Open Response

I was able to meet with Trish Lopez in her 5th grade class at Elmdale Elementary School in Springdale, AR. We had a conversation about the different ways that Google Forms can be used in the classroom. While we discussed how it could be great for multiple choice type quizzes, we decided to use the Form as a reading open response tool for her guided reading group. 

She formulated a few open response questions for them in her form, and added a picture from the story in the form as well for the students to answer about. She then shared the form with her reading group via Google Classroom, where the students could easily click on the link and complete her form. Once the students completed their questions, their responses were collected on a Google Sheet for Mrs. Lopez to easily read their responses. This proved to be an easy way to integrate technology into her classroom as another simple tool to collect student work.