From Communication to Grading, this video shares 5 common tips no teacher will want to miss.  Watch the video below.  Scroll past the video for step by step instructions on each tip…

Parent Communication

In order to send messages to parents from within Google Classroom, their emails must be linked to their students before you can communicate with them.

Add Guardian Emails

1. Go to a Google Classroom Course
2. Click People
3. Click Invite Guardian next to a student name in the People menu, in order to add Parent Emails.

Email All Guardians

1. Once parent emails have been linked to students, go to the People Menu
2. Click Email All Guardians
3. A Compose message will open in Gmail, with each parent email added to the Bcc line.
4. Add your own email address to the To: line and compose your message.
5. Click Send

Student Communication

Sometimes it is necessary to send a mass email out to all students in your course.  But it isn’t necessary to create a Contact Group in Gmail or a Google Group.  Teachers can email students from inside Google Classroom.  To do this:

1. Go to a Google Classroom Course
2. Click People
3. Place a check next to students that need to be contacted, or click the box at the top of the column to select all students.
4. Click the dropdown arrow on the Action button.
5. Choose Email
6. A compose message will open in Gmail
7. Add your email address to the To: line and compose your message
8. Click Send.

How Students Can View Grades

To use this option, teachers will first need to set up the Grades feature in Google Classroom.  For more information on this, check out the What’s New With Google Classroom article.  Once Grades has been set up, students can view their scores on assignments easily.  To do this:

1.  From a Student login, click on Classwork
2. At the top left, choose View Your Work
3. Students will enter a window in which they can view grades for each assignment, as well as the overall average (if the teacher has enabled this feature)

Student Posts and Comments

By default, Google Classroom courses are set up so that students can post to the stream and comment on assignments.  There are definite pluses and minuses to this, so you will want to be aware of them.

Students Can Post – means that students can post anything they want to the stream, anytime they want, without moderation from the teacher.

Students Can Comment – means that students can ask questions on assignments and can take part in Question assignments (from the Classwork menu, when teachers click Create, there is an assignment type called Question that can be used for discussion).  If Student Can Comment is disabled, students will be unable to take part in Question discussions.

To enable or disable these features:

1.  Go to any Google Classroom course
2. Click the Gear
3. In the General section, find Stream
4. From the dropdown menu, choose from these options…
   1. Students can post and comment
   2. Students can only comment
   3. Only teachers can post or comment
5. Choose the option most suitable for your class
6. Click Save

Copy A Course

Often, teachers will end the year by archiving old courses so they can prepare for the next year.  But rather than create a new course and reuse old assignments from past courses, teachers may desire to copy an existing course in its entirety.  The benefit to this is that all assignments and settings are copied, without previously existing rosters or grades.  Here’s how…

1. From the Google Classroom dashboard, click on the more menu (three dots) on any course.
2. Click Copy
3. Name your copied course, and enter any additional information needed