Google workspace for education, or what you better know as Google Classroom, is one of the most useful online tools that help teachers to conduct online classes easily. The main reason behind its soaring popularity is its ease of use. And this is applicable to students as well as teachers. Moreover, as a teacher, you will have access to a hoard of data to help you track student progress in Google Classroom.
You can give assignments for both classwork and homework in the class and can check and even give grades with personalized feedback for students. You can also keep track of how they are performing in each of them and plan accordingly.
How do you track student progress in Google Classroom assignments and receive them?
The first thing you see when you log in to your teacher’s account in Google Classroom is the dashboard. This dashboard offers teachers a lot of flexibility. For example, you can see class rosters, which include timetables, attendance details, and all sorts of lists and apparatus to track student attendance and progress and allow them to move at a pace of their own pace.
Now imagine that students have to complete at least one project or assignment in every lesson. You, as a teacher, can either enable or disable the students to share their projects with you, or other teachers. After they share their assignments, you can grade them, provide comments, or give modified feedback after the assessment.
The teacher dashboard in Google Classroom has other good features like checkmarks for indicating the lessons that have been completed. There is also a paperclip option that indicates the assignments or projects that students have shared with the teachers.
Each of these lessons, especially for the middle and high school, can also have a lesson plan and a preface which will help the students and the teacher to navigate through it and measure the progress.
Also, you need not follow a particular order for the lesson. Instead, you can choose the lessons to share with them and utilize them in any random order. Even after that, you will be able to see the progress of your students through this dashboard.
The tracking procedure
How do you use the teacher dashboard to see the student's progress? Here we give you a walkthrough of the entire process to track student progress in Google classroom –
Step 1: First of all, log in to the teacher dashboard that you have created
Step 2: Then click on Current classes.
Step 3: You have to click on the Class Name. Subsequently, what will be opened is a new one where you can see the students' general progress for individual lessons you have taught for a particular class.
- In the Progress summary option, you can see the students that have begun to study the lesson and the portion they have been able to complete.
- If you have added videos or recorded your classroom session, then you can click on the Videos watched option. On clicking that, you will be able to see the student roster and track their entire progress on the dashboard. If you see the chart icon, then it means that the student has also completed the revision and summary of the lesson.
- The numbers mean the number of steps of the lesson the student has completed. You can decide the number of steps by segregating the tasks in the lesson. If you see the number 5 on the screen, then it means that the student has completed 5 out of the, say 10 steps of the lesson.
- The paperclip shows the shared work.
Step 4: If you click on the Steps completed option, you will be able to see the entire breakdown of the student's progress in one side panel where you can open and check various things about the students’ assignments, projects, and other data. In other words, the entire student data will be shown in one single place.
What are the things that you will be able to see in the steps completed option?
In the steps completed option, you will be able to see three main options. They have been mentioned below:
- Projects is the first option where you can see the entire Submitted Work of the student. You need to click on it to open the direct URL of the file link that the student has provided you after the completion of the assignment.
- The lesson session Videos that the student has completely watched will have a checkmark beside them. You can see them by clicking on the titles of the videos.
The third option is the Reflection answers, which appear in the shade as selected by the students.
After you have graded the student's work, the grades will also appear alongside them and it will be easier for you to track student progress in Google Classroom.
How do you collect this entire student work data?
The entire student work data has been generated. Now you need a way to collect all this data so that you can submit it to the school database or repository of some sort. But how do you download it?
You can do it by following the procedure given below –
Step 1: First of all, go to the Teacher Dashboard.
Step 2: Then click on any of the assignments. Go inside the project and then you can grade it.
Step 3: If you want, you can also add a comment if you want to.
Step 4: After you have reached the specific assignment directory you have chosen, you click on the settings icon on the top right hand of the page.
Step 5: After clicking on it, you will get a drop-down menu. Search for the Download all grades as CSV option. Click on it.
Step 6: After that, you will be prompted to download a CSV file. You can view it as an Excel file on your local server (PC/Macbook)
Use Safe Doc to assist you in controlling the Google Workspace for education
Apart from tracking all the student data, you must also ensure that the class remains free of unwanted behavior. Safe Doc helps to control the class from disruption by striking off or blocking the regular options of searching the web or explore the option. It has also removed the poop emoji or other obscene emojis from the menu to curb bullying. You can learn more about Safe Doc from the link provided.
Parting Thoughts
Google Workspace for education has been a revelation in this industry. It has given teachers more insight into how a class is progressing and students who are struggling and performing well. A notable upside of this substantial data is that you, as a teacher, can analyze and use it to your advantage and help your students attain the success they are looking for.