I teach high school math part-time and code part-time for Schoolytics. If you are a Google Classroom user Schoolytics is a MUST use! Schoolytics is FREE for teachers! Check out 5 ways you can turn your data into action.
1. Student Progress Reports
Progress reports in Google Classroom could be improved. Schoolytics provides me better ones for free. Go to schoolytics.com and login with your Google Account. Click on “Students” on the left hand side.
Locate a student in Schoolytics and click on the student profile icon next to their name.
A progress report button on the student profile will give you the option to download the progress report to a PDF or to a Google Doc. I use the AnyoneCanView Chrome extension to easily change the sharing permissions and copy the link to the progress report to my clipboard.
2. Track Assignment Tags
In your Google Classroom assignments add hashtags to the descriptions. Click on “Assignment Tags” on the left hand side of Schoolytics to see a table of the hashtags you used and how students are performing on those tags.
You can use as many hashtags in the assignment description as you want.
I use a hashtag for each standard. I use a hashtag for the week number. I use a hashtag for the assignment type. I use a hashtag for the DOK level. Think of any way you want to be able to get a report or track information about an assignment.
3. Student Work Submissions
I love using Schoolytics to have ONE place to see, across all of my classes, if students have submitted work. Clicking on “Student Work” on the left hand side I can see if students have completed work in Google Classroom. The default is “All” of my classes. Having one list of student work interactions is very helpful. Notice that you can click on any of the column headers to sort student work a variety of ways.
The assignment links are clickable so I can easily go into an assignment to provide feedback.
4. Create Student Groups
Use the 3 lines menu in the upper left to choose “Student groups.” This allows me to filter any table by a group of students. Personally, I put all of my students into the same Google Classroom class. I can then create a group for 1st period and a group for 2nd period to sort the Google Classroom information by period. If you keep all your students in separate classes, create groups of students who you are keeping a close focus on… even across classes! I can create any grouping of students I want. This helps me a lot to quickly filter and get the information I need to help students be successful.
5. Reuse Assignments
Reusing assignments in Google Classroom can be a challenge because of all the scrolling you have to do to reuse assignments from last year. I use the 3 lines menu in the upper left corner to choose “Content library.” This allows me to see all of the assignments. Unlike Google Classroom, I can see the full description and attachments before I reuse. Selecting “Add to Classroom” let’s me push the assignments to my current classes. I also do not need to scroll again to find the next assignment I want to reuse, this is a huge time saver.
