Since Google has retooled forms, teachers have more functions to aid in accountability with students.
Forms has become an integral part of how student data is collected in my classes and the new features like email notifications and summary of responses directly attached to the form has made tracking the learning easier.
And what teacher wouldn’t appreciate time saving ease?
In the older iteration, there was a summary of responses but the look of it was not always easy to follow for longer responses. It also appeared in a separate menu which brought you to a new tab. The summary no appears on the same page with a clickable button. Although useful for multiple choice or check box questions that show themselves as pie graphs and bar graphs respectively, the short text and paragraph text had to be viewed in the spreadsheet in order for it to be intelligible.
Many of the new functions just look better and create ease of use.
Here’s what I like:
- Once the form is shared with a class (via Google mail group lists), it saves all of the students or emails you sent. You can opt to get notifications every time the form is filled out that will send an email with the specific person who answered. Not only can you then click the link and it takes you directly to their response in the form, but it also captures a list of completed respondents and a list of folks who haven’t yet responded. You can opt to resend to these people as needed.
- The summary appears on the same page with the list of respondents in a much easier to read format
- The settings for building the form are also easier to use and conveniently located in the same place at the top of the form on the right hand side.
- The spreadsheet is easy to get to directly from the form, just by clicking on the spreadsheet icon once it’s set up which can be done automatically in the settings.
- You have the option to unlink the form if you want to in the same place, download the responses into an excel form or print all of the responses as well.
Google Forms is a great way for teachers to gather data about learning or create exit tickets or provide feedback. The possibilities are limitless. Aside from being really easy to create, forms allows us to collect data in an efficient way with the help of the students. We no longer have to walk around with a clipboard all of the time, trying to record what students to tell us. Instead we can put the onus on students to participate in the experience.
As technology continues to improve, so do the tools we have to improve the classroom experience. If you want to give up grades and have a simpler way of maintaining student growth, forms is a great solution.
What do you use forms for? How has it saved time in your classroom? Please share