50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom

13. Give Feedback Before Students Submit

Providing students feedback while they are working on an assignment increases student motivation and is more instructive than providing feedback after the assignment is completed. It shifts the focus from the product to the learning process. In Google Classroom, the teacher can provide feedback by inserting comments into a student’s Google Document before the due date. The teacher shifts from being an evaluator to being a coach or facilitator of learning.

In the teacher’s view, Google Classroom creates an assignment-specific folder that contains each student’s document. The assignment folder can be accessed from Google Classroom through the “Folder” button that links the teacher to the assignment folder. The folder can also be accessed directly from Google Drive. While students are creating and editing the assignment, the teacher can open the assignment folder and insert comments. Feedback can be provided simultaneously as the students are working on the documents.

There are multiple ways to insert comments into a Google Document. The teacher can place the cursor at the point in the student’s document where they wish to make a comment, or the teacher can highlight a section of text and right-click to choose “Comment” from the menu options. Teachers can speed up this process by learning the keyboard shortcuts for inserting comments. Control + Alt + M on a PC or Command + Option + M on a Mac will insert a comment. On a PC, holding down the Control key and pressing the Enter key will close the comment. Mac users use Command + Enter to close the comment.