How to Make a Class on Google Classroom – EdTech Magazine: Focus on K-12

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Rebecca Torchia is a web editor for EdTech: Focus on K–12. Previously, she has produced podcasts and written for several publications in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and her hometown of Pittsburgh.
Google Classroom is designed to be user friendly, making it a suitable learning management system for K–12 students and educators in school districts across the country. The cloud-based software works on a variety of devices and can be accessed by users at home or in the classroom.
While some educators have become familiar with Classroom, having used it since the start of the pandemic (or even longer), teachers new to the profession or the LMS may still need guidance on how to use all the features of the program.
“Classroom is extremely helpful for teachers because it allows them to easily create and distribute assignments in a matter of minutes. It enables them to provide rich, nuanced feedback to students directly and quickly, and allows them to communicate with students,” says Akshat Sharma, the lead project manager of Classroom at Google. “They can post announcements, facilitate class discussions, and build strong digital community in the classroom.”
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To create a class on Google Classroom, educators should go to classroom.google.com and find the button in the top right with the plus symbol. In the window that pops up, teachers should enter the class name, subject and a description of the class. After that, the class is ready.
Once educators have created their class on Google Classroom, here’s how they can use the many other rich features this application offers:
To add students to a class, or see the students and co-teachers associated with a class, educators can select the “people” tab in Classroom. “Stream” is the discussion board for the class. In this tab, teachers can publish discussion topics, reminders and other materials for students to access. Students can interact with their teachers in Stream through comments on their posts.
There is also a “classwork” tab, where educators can organize all of the work assigned to students, including worksheets, quizzes, projects and more.
“You can also schedule things to happen at a point in the future,” Sharma says. “We know teachers like to prep their content and materials in advance, and then have it pushed out to students at the right time.”
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When it comes to using online LMSs, some educators may not understand why the platforms are needed for in-person learning.
John Sowash, a former educator who works as an educational technology consultant, uses a simple analogy to explain why schools should use Google Classroom.
“There’s a reason we have schools; it’s a safe, well-equipped and organized place to educate our kids,” he says. “You would never tell a random fifth grader, ‘Hey, meet me on the corner of Fifth and Washington. We’ll have class there tomorrow.’”
John Sowash Educational Technology Consultant
“The internet is the same way,” Sowash continues. “It is a massive place, so you can’t just tell a kid, ‘Hey, meet me in this website.’ That would be a disaster. So, Google Classroom is your digital classroom; it’s the safe space you send your students to.”
The application is built for easy organization and collaboration, Sharma says. “Everything is in one place. You can see all your classes, and all of the students have their work in a single place.”
Using Classroom cuts down on the time-consuming and repetitive tasks teachers once did manually. In Classroom, they can create worksheets or Google Docs for every student with the click of a button. Educators don’t need to print and pass out worksheets, templates or papers.
That, along with the ability to access Classroom from any device on any operating system, gives teachers and students more flexibility and mobility in their educational experience.
“With Classroom, I have the ability to check in on every single student’s assignment,” Sowash says. “I can see them working in real time. I can provide them with real-time feedback or guidance.”
The Google product team also built an offline Classroom experience following feedback from users that students without home internet access had trouble using the application, Sharma notes. “Our team reads every piece of feedback that is submitted, and we do our best to prioritize the most common themes and issues,” he says.
Classroom is designed to allow IT teams to deploy and manage the application at scale. Classroom audit logs allow IT administrators to see a list of actions that have taken place in the application, allowing them to identify any mistakes and giving them more visibility into the program overall.
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They can also create Classes at scale. An IT admin can create all the needed classes for all teachers in the district with just a few clicks. This streamlines the teachers’ experience and prevents any challenges or delays.
Overall, Google Classroom aims to make teachers’ workloads lighter while keeping students engaged in learning. Creating the class is the first step in helping educators organize the LMS, and from there they can find many ways to interact with students, share work in real time and save time on tasks. “Our goal has always been to provide tools and technology to empower learning anywhere, anytime,” Sharma says.
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