how to reuse multiple assignments in google classroom

Learning & Education

8 Google Classroom tips every teacher should know

Apr 17, 2024

[[read-time]] min read

Google Classroom offers a suite of tools for teachers to tailor lessons, engage students, monitor progress, and provide support.

• General summary

Google Classroom offers a range of features to enhance teaching and learning. Teachers can tailor lessons, encourage feedback with rubrics, and gain insights into student progress using analytics. Practice sets provide real-time feedback and support, while interactive questions for YouTube videos enhance learning. Importing and sharing resources saves time, and flexible assignment options cater to diverse needs. Screencast allows teachers to record lessons with embedded videos and automatic transcripts. These tips empower educators to create personalized and engaging learning experiences for their students.

• Bullet points
• Tailor lessons: Create assignments for specific students or groups.
• Encourage feedback: Use rubrics to set expectations and grade assignments.
• Get early insights: Use analytics to monitor student progress and identify areas for improvement.
• Offer support: Use practice sets to provide students with additional support and resources.
• Help students learn at their own pace: Use interactive questions for YouTube videos to engage students and track their progress.
• Import and share: Share practice sets, video activities, and classes with other teachers.
• Add flexibility: Give students more time to submit assignments or mark assignments as excused.
• Record your screen: Use Screencast to create video lessons and provide students with a personalized learning experience.
• Shakespeare-ish

In Google's realm, a Classroom doth reside, Where teachers thrive, with knowledge as their guide. Eight tips revealed, to aid their noble quest, To teach and guide, with passion and zest.

Tailor lessons, to each student's need, With rubrics clear, their progress shall proceed. Analytics deep, insights they shall bestow, To intervene and help their students grow.

Practice sets, with AI's guiding hand, Support they offer, where students stand. YouTube's videos, with questions interspersed, Engage young minds, their learning is immersed.

Import and share, resources rich and vast, Collaboration blooms, the future unsurpassed. Flexibility in grading, a teacher's grace, Screencast's recordings, a diverse embrace.

With these tips in hand, teachers shall soar, In Google's Classroom, learning evermore.

Explore other styles:

Get the most out of Google Classroom with these top tips and tricks to help teachers and students adapt to new ways of learning — and succeeding — in the classroom.

1. Tailor your lessons for your students

In most classrooms, students have different preferences, levels and abilities when it comes to learning. While an article might work for some, a video could be better for others. Meeting students where they are is essential to helping them learn, but isn’t always easy to scale.

Classroom can help get the right lesson to the right student. Under the “Classwork” tab, click “Create” to create an assignment for your students. Select which students in the class will receive it by unselecting “All students” and choosing the specific students for that lesson. From there, create as many assignments as you need for groups or individuals. In the next few months, we will be making this even easier by enabling educators to create groups of students to organize their class and deliver personalized instruction. Educators can create or update student groups right from the assignment creator so they no longer need to manually find each individual student (available with the Google Workspace for Education Plus edition or Teaching & Learning Upgrade).

2. Encourage a feedback loop with rubrics

When creating an assignment, you can make, reuse or import a rubric so students can understand expectations and their grades. This information makes it easier to have a conversation with students based on their assignments. You can even share rubrics with other educators to save time or weigh certain criteria differently. Simply choose the “Create rubric” option when creating your next assignment. Students will see the rubric before turning in their work, and you’ll be able to grade against the rubric when returning it to them.

3. Get early insights into student learning

With Classroom analytics , you can get a birds-eye view of how your class and students are doing. You can see how students are performing in terms of grades, assignment completion rates, how many missing assignments they have, or how often they’re accessing Classroom on their own. As we add more analytics capabilities to this page, you’ll get more insights about how to support all your students, when you might need to intervene, and how you can differentiate your instruction. To view analytics for your class, click the “Analytics” icon on a class card on the homepage or in the header bar in a class. Available with the Google Workspace for Education Plus edition or Teaching & Learning Upgrade.

4. Use practice sets to offer support where students need it, at scale

Practice sets help teachers provide students with a way to engage more deeply with a subject when they need a little extra support. Unlike the experience of a static worksheet or PDF, students can see in real time whether they got an answer correct. Teachers can also provide a bank of resources specific to each problem for when students get stuck, like a text hint (“Remember to isolate the variable”) or a YouTube video that reviews the underlying concepts to the problem. Students can show their work using the keyboard or stylus, with teachers receiving snapshots of that work each time a student attempts a problem.

It’s easy to get started with practice sets. First, import an existing Google Form or PDF to instantly transform it into an interactive practice set, or start fresh by creating your first problem. Add a problem question (multiple choice, or short answer, or something else) and tag each problem with a learning skill. AI will suggest learning skills and additional resources as you build your practice sets. An insights dashboard shows how students performed on every practice set assignment, with helpful details and insights like how many tries it took for each student to arrive at the correct answer, or how many students struggled with a particular question. Available with the Google Workspace for Education Plus edition or Teaching & Learning Upgrade.

5. Help students learn at their own pace with interactive questions for YouTube videos

YouTube is a common learning tool in Classroom today and with interactive questions for YouTube videos , it’s never been easier to use. Add questions at any timestamp and the video will pause and prompt students to answer. They’ll receive real-time feedback and can go back and rewatch segments to help them arrive at the right solutions. Like with practice sets, you’ll get an insights dashboard with details about how students engaged with the video. Soon, educators will be able to test out AI-suggested questions, making interactive videos a snap. Available with the Google Workspace for Education Plus edition or Teaching & Learning Upgrade

6. Don’t start from scratch — import and share

Want to share practice sets, video activities and classes with a fellow teacher or use something you loved from a previous year? No problem. Enable link sharing for your practice set, video activity or an entire classwork page to share directly with other teachers in your organization. From there, they can import classwork or make a copy of your practice sets or video activities to use for their students. Available with the Google Workspace for Education Plus edition or Teaching & Learning Upgrade.

7. Add flexibility to your assignments and grading

Give students one last shot to get in any missing assignments, or disable submissions after the due date. On your dashboard, go into “Assignments” and uncheck “Close submissions after the due date.” You can always go in and add a final due date to close out the assignment for good when you’re ready.

There might be times when you want to have more control over what counts toward a student’s final grade. By marking an assignment as “excused,” you can prevent it from counting toward the average in times when you don’t want it to. Under the “Grades” tab, click the three dots and select “Excused.”

8. Record your screen with Screencast to meet your class’s diverse needs

If you’re using Classroom on a Chromebook, take advantage of the Screencast app. Screencast allows you to record your screen with your own video embedded, so your students can see you and your screen. Screencast provides an automatic transcript and AI-enabled editing tools. Don’t love how a specific 14 seconds came out? Simply trim it away by deleting the transcript text.

Once you have that video lesson recorded there are endless possibilities to provide students with an effective and personalized experience. For example, upload your recording as an unlisted YouTube video and assign it as an interactive questions video in Classroom. Pause after key moments of the lesson to prompt your students with questions and get insights about their performance and engagement, all while helping them learn at their own pace.

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Paperless Is Not a Pedagogy

Alice keeler, google classroom: a guide to reusing old assignments.

How to Convert Markdown in Google Docs

Array of Sunshine for Your Google Sheets

Stop clicking, start Apps Scripting

Create a List of Your Assignments in Google Classroom

Every year is a new opportunity to be better than you were last year. This is one of the advantages to teaching, unlike any other profession we get a fresh start every year. The kids from last year are not the same as the kids from this year. The technology possibilities are different. New research has emerged to help us to teach students better. We’ve interacted with other educators and stolen new ideas. We’ve reflected on our own practices and have new ideas. Do not just reuse a class, REVISE!

I’ve created an Add-on script to allow you to review all of your assignments from a class in a single list. This is super handy for helping you plan for next year. What do you want to keep? What do you want to redo? Update? Ditch? Do you want to teach it in a different order? See below for directions on the Add-on. Note: I have a newer template version alicekeeler.com/reusegc that you might like better.

Do Not Be Filing Cabinet Guy

My teacher credential program warned us not to be “filing cabinet guy” who has all their work photocopied and ready to go before the kids even walk in the door. Are we distributing information or teaching and interacting with kids? The new group of kids we will see in the Fall SHOULD influence changes in our lesson plans.

[tweet]Don’t be filing cabinet guy[/tweet]

Dr. Fred Nelson at California State University Fresno teaches in Kremen School of Education. One thing he emphasizes is the importance of getting to know your students first thing so you can use that information to design and guide your lessons for the year.

Avoid “Copy Class”

[tweet]WARNING: Copying classes in Google Classroom will make a giant mess of your Google Drive and turn you into Filing Cabinet Guy![/tweet]

On the class tiles page of Google Classroom is the ability to click on the 3 dots of a class and choose “Copy.” What it does not come with is a warning that it will not only copy all of your assignments, it will copy all of the “attachments.”

“Attachments” are links from Google Drive. Copying “attachments” will copy your screenshots, copy your directions documents, copy your videos, copy your collaborative documents that are typed on by last years students, copy your templates…. YIKES!

Copies kill collaboration!

When you search Google Drive for a file from last year, how many copies of the directions document do you want? NONE! You only want the original. If you make edits to the document from 1st period you want 2nd, 3rd, 4th periods to also get the edits. This is the beauty of Google Apps! ONE VERSION, everyone on the same page.

Instead, Reuse Post

While it can seem tedious to reuse your assignments from last year one at a time, it makes you a better teacher. In the new class, on the Classwork page, click on “Create” and choose “Reuse post.”

Select an assignment from last year’s class, even if it’s archived, and remember NO COPIES!

When the reused post comes up you it opens up in edit mode! THIS IS AMAZING! With other online platforms I always had the intention of updating the assignments but push comes to shove I often did not. With Google Classroom I have to at least for a moment consider… is this assignment designed for THIS year’s students? Could it be better? (Trick question, the answer to that is DUH. No matter how awesome it was it can always be better.)

• Assign to multiple classes if you have more than one section of the same class.
• Renumber the assignment. My best Google Classroom tip is to number your assignments with a hashtag. It is possible that the reused post is no longer the same number as last year. Edit the title and change the number.
• In my reused post my first “attachment” is a collaborative spreadsheet from last year. Students can edit file. It has student responses all over it! Click on the title to EDIT the collaborative spreadsheet. It will open in a new tab. Use the File menu and choose “Version history” to reset the collaborative document to what it looked like before students collaborated on the document. You will also want to rename the title of the document to reflect the new assignment number.
• Notice one of my “attachments” from last year is a video. Videos should not be copied!
• My 3rd “Attachment” is a Google Doc in VIEW mode. This is a directions document. You only need ONE directions document in your Google Drive for an assignment. Click on the title to launch the directions document and edit for any updates for this year.
• Not shown is an “attachment” to make a copy for each student. You don’t want copies of that template either. If you click on the title of the “attachment” you can modify the template before it is copied for students.

Template for List Classes

alicekeeler.com/listclasses

When planning for the new class it can be helpful to reflect on what you assigned last time. Think through how you want to reorder and what you want to change. Of course you would want a spreadsheet for this! The Add-on script will allow you to create a list of all the assignments from last years class and you can add a column to make notes. Review the assignment. Think through the redesign.

Create a copy of the spreadsheet template. Wait for the “List Classes” menu to load. This can take up to a minute depending on internet speed.

Choose “List” from the drop down menu. You will need to authorize the Add-on to give YOURSELF permission to access your Classroom classes and Google Drive documents. It is possible you will see a screen of doom asking you to return to safety. Google is covering their behind to let you know that zero people from Google have reviewed my code. Instead, click on the tiny words “Advanced” and below that click on “Unsafe” (it’s safe, I coded it myself.)

This will create a list of all your current and archived Google Classroom classes.

I initially wrote this Add-on script to allow me to delete classes I no longer use and do not need to reuse posts from. To make it challenging to accidentally delete a class I force you to single click on the Course ID of the class you want to select.

List Assignments

Use the “List Classes” menu to “List Assignments.” This will create a new tab for the class whose Course ID you selected. All of your published assignments will be visible. A live link to the assignment is in column A to allow you to review the entire assignment.

Multiple Classes – Same Spreadsheet

You can reuse this same spreadsheet indefinitely. Find the tab with the list of classes and single click on the Course ID. Go to the “List Classes” menu and choose “List Assignments” again. A NEW tab will be created with the assignments for that class.

Since every year is a different set of students and I do different things I find it helpful to find multiple years of the same class and list out the assignments. Sometimes I did not do something last year that I did 2 years ago but want to revisit. It’s just nice to see the evolution of the class in lists.

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5 thoughts on “ google classroom: a guide to reusing old assignments ”.

I like the idea of making a spreadsheet that lists all of the assignments from my Google Classroom. Thanks for the Add-on script.

Can it go the other way, too? From spreadsheet to Classroom? That’d be a great option! Make a spreadsheet, then send information to GC.

Thanks for all you do.

Not unless you code it.

The coding doesn’t seem to be working the way it should and there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to leave screenshots. I’ve gotten one class to show up with all the assignments in a new tab but when I click on any of the other course ids in my second tab (which has all the classes listed), i get these error messages: “TypeError: Cannot call method “getDataRange” of null. Details. Dismiss.” When I click on “details”: “Message details, TypeError: Cannot call method “getDataRange” of null” OK”

Suggestions for retrieving the rest of my classes?

Also, I’m trying to figure out what some of the other columns are: “topic id” vs “ids” and the attachments section just looks really messy and I’m tying to determine how to use it better. I read in one of your blogs that you can edit the attachments or find the original or something along those lines but not really seeing the connection here.

Your notes section states: This spreadsheet is REUSABLE! Pin it in your browser to interact with Google Classroom all year long! Make one per class you teach. NOTE: Alice Keeler keeps making updates to this code. Every so often make a new alicekeeler.com/listclasses to take advantage of new features.

How do you suggest “interacting with GC all year”? You say to make one for each class but later you said you could have one spreadsheet for all your classes (which I personally like, if I can get all the tabs to get set up properly, of course). When you say “every so often make a new [one]”, how often and how would that affect the old one? We can’t simply update the coding from the original doc? What types of new things are you doing and where will we find the info?

I love the things you’re been teaching me but sometimes there are a few gaps in my brain so thank you for taking the time to answer questions on top of your other workload.

I am getting an error that I don’t know how to troubleshoot. Any suggestions? Thank you. API call to classroom.courses.courseWork.list failed with error: courseld: Course ID is required I don’t see the Course ID heading on the GSheet. I do have an empty column.

You have to first set the class. It makes the stripe (row) green

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Writing and Differentiated Instruction: Everything You Need to Know

Improving language proficiency and scientific literacy in learners, how to teach spelling: everything you need to know, product review of ticktalk 5, product review of the grid duffle backpack, product review of naturopathica’s active body bundle, the benefits of differentiated instruction: everything you need to know, teaching children inferential thinking: everything you need to know, why choose sharepoint learning management system, good readers and reading strategies: everything you need to know, google classroom tip #43: 48 ways to manage student assignments.

Along with instruction and assessment, assignments form the foundation of the teaching and learning process. They provide opportunities for students to practice the skills and apply the knowledge that they have been taught in a supportive environment. It also helps the teacher gauge how well students are learning the material and how close they are to mastery.

Because of the nature of assignments, managing them can get hectic. That’s why its best to use a platform like Google Classroom to help you manage assignments digitally. In today’s tip, we will discuss 48 ways that you can use Classroom to manage student assignments.

• Assignment Status – Easily check how many students turned in an assignment as well as how many assignments have been graded by going to the Classwork tab and clicking on the title of the assignment.
• Assign to Multiple Classes – Post an assignment to multiple classes by using the “for” drop-down menu when creating an assignment.
• Brainstorm – Use Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, or Drawings to brainstorm for class assignments.
• Calendar of Due Dates – Link a Google Calendar with due dates for assignments, tests, and other important dates into Classroom.
• Check Homework – Classroom makes checking homework easy with a quick glance at the assignment page. If more detailed grading is needed, just access the grading interface for the assignment.
• Choice Boards – Give students a choice in how they demonstrate what they know by creating a choice board and uploading it as an assignment. Choice boards allow students to choose between several assignments and can be created directly in Classroom, using Google Docs, or with third-party apps.
• Co-Teach Classes – Invite others to co-teach in your Classroom. Each teacher is able to create assignments and post announcements for students.
• Create Questions Before a Socratic Seminar – Create an assignment for students to develop questions before a Socratic seminar. During the collaborative process, students can eliminate duplicate questions.
• Detention Assignment Sheet – Create a detention assignment sheet using Google Docs. The assignment sheet can then be shared with the detention teacher and individual students privately through Classroom.
• Differentiate Assignments – Assign work to individual students or groups of students in Classroom.
• Differentiate by Product – Differentiate by product in Classroom by providing a challenge, variety, or choice or by using a continuum with assignments.
• Digital Portfolios – Students can create digital portfolios of their work by uploading documents, pictures, artifacts, etc. to Classroom assignments.
• Directions Document – Use Google Docs to create instruction documents for assignments in Classroom.
• Distribute Student Work/Homework – Use Classroom to distribute student assignments or homework to all students, groups of students, or individual students.
• Diversify Student Submissions – Create alternative submission options for students through the assignment tool. For example, one group of students may be required to submit a Google Doc while another group is required to submit a Slides presentation.
• Do-Now Activities – Use Classroom to post Do-Now Activities.
• Draft Assignments – Save posts as drafts until they are ready for publishing.
• Feedback Before Student Submits – Provide feedback to students while their assignment is still a work in progress instead of waiting until submission. This will help the student better understand assignment expectations.
• Get Notified of Late Assignments – Select notification settings to get notified each time an assignment is turned in late.
• Global Classroom – Partner with international teachers to create a co-teaching classroom without borders where students can work on collaborative assignments.
• Graphic Organizers – Upload graphic organizers for students to collaborate on assignments and projects.
• Group Collaboration – Assign multiple students to an assignment to create a collaborative group. Give students editing rights to allow them access to the same document.
• HyperDocs – Create and upload a hyperdoc as an assignment.
• Link to Assignments – Create links to assignments not created in Classroom.
• Link to Class Blog – Provide the link to a class blog in Classroom.
• Link to Next Activity – Provide a link to the next activity students must complete after finishing an assignment.
• Make a Copy for Each Student – Chose “make a copy for each student” when uploading assignment documents to avoid students having to share one copy of the document. When a copy for each student is made, Classroom automatically adds each student’s name to the document and saves it to the Classroom folder in Google Drive.
• Move to Top/Bottom – Move recent assignments to the top of the Classwork feed so students can find new tasks more quickly.
• Multiple File Upload – Upload multiple files for an assignment in one post.
• Naming Conventions for Assignments – Create a unique naming system for assignments so they can be easily found in the Classroom folder in Google Drive.
• Offline Mode – Change settings to allow students to work in offline mode if internet connections are weak. Once an internet connection is established, students can upload assignments to Classroom.
• One Student One Sheet – In Google Sheets, assign one tab (sheet) per student for the student to complete the assignment.
• One Student One Slide – In Google Slides, assign one slide to each student to present findings on a topic or to complete an assignment.
• Organize Student Work – Google Classroom automatically creates calendars and folders in Drive to keep assignments organized.
• Peer Tutors – Assign peer tutors to help struggling students with assignments.
• Protect Privacy – Google Classroom only allows class members to access assignments. Also, it eliminates the need to use email, which may be less private than Classroom.
• Provide Accommodations – Provide accommodations to students with disabilities in Google Classroom by allowing extra time to turn in assignments, using text to speech functions, and third-party extensions for colored overlays.
• Reorder Assignments by Status – Instead of organizing assignments by student first or last name, organize them by status to see which students have or have not turned in work.
• Reuse Posts – Reuse post from prior assignments or from other Classrooms.
• See the Process – Students don’t have to submit their assignments for you to see their work. When you chose “make a copy for each student” for assignments, each student’s work can be seen in the grading tool, even if it’s not submitted. Teachers can make comments and suggestions along the way.
• Share Materials – Upload required materials such as the class syllabus, rules, procedures, etc. to a Class Resources Module, or upload assignment materials within the assignment.
• Share Resources – Create a resource list or a resource module for students.
• Share Solutions to an Assignment – Share solutions to an assignment with a collaborator or students after all assignments have been turned in.
• Stop Repeating Directions – By posting a directions document to assignments, the need to continually repeat directions is lessened, if not eliminated altogether. Keep in mind that some students will still need directions to read orally or clarified.
• Student Work Collection – Use Classroom to collect student work from assignments.
• Summer Assignments – Create summer assignments for students through Classroom.
• Templates – Create templates for projects, essays, and other student assignments.
• Track Assignments Turned In – Keep track of which students turned in assignments by going to the grading tool.

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Copied content in Classroom

Teachers have the ability to copy assignments in Classroom. Doing so also copies the add-on attachments that are contained within the assignments. This saves teachers a lot of time when creating assignments for multiple sections or for new sections each school year.

When teachers copy an assignment in Classroom, the copied assignment has different courseId , itemId , and attachmentId query parameters compared to the original assignment.

How to copy content

The following sections describe how teachers can copy assignments in Classroom.

Copy a course

When copying a course, all of the assignments in the course are copied to the new course as drafts. The teacher may then publish the assignments to students enrolled in the new course. A student may be enrolled in the original course and the copied course. This can happen if a student is held back or retaking a class.

Figure 1. Teachers can copy courses by navigating to the vertical dotted menu in Classroom and clicking Copy . Then, the teacher can specify details about the course in the pop-up and copy it.

Publish an assignment to multiple courses

A teacher can publish an assignment to more than one course through the assignment creation page. it's possible that a student is enrolled in both courses.

Figure 2. Teachers can publish an assignment to more than one course by clicking the drop-down in the sidebar on the assignment creation page and selecting multiple course(s).

Reuse a post

A teacher can reuse a post by navigating to the Classwork tab and clicking Create . From the drop-down, they can click Reuse post to select a class and then select the assignment to reuse.

Figure 3. Teachers can begin the flow of reusing a post from the Classwork tab and click Reuse post .

Figure 4. After clicking Reuse post , teachers can select a class and the assignment they want to reuse.

Expected behavior

When a course or assignment is copied, the same student may be assigned the same add-on attachment across different courses. The recommended behavior for add-ons in the copied assignment should be to:

• Ensure that teachers can still preview the attachment in the teacherViewUri . If your add-on requires licensing and the teacher has not appropriately set up a copied course, display a user-friendly message informing the teacher what the appropriate course of action is. At the very least, teachers must not see an error page in the iframe.
• Ensure that students see a new add-on attachment in the studentViewUri . For activity-type attachments , this means that the attachment is incomplete and the student shouldn't be able to see any of their responses from another course. If your add-on doesn't allow the same student to complete an attachment twice, display a user-friendly message describing the scenario or a path to resolve the issue. For content-type attachments , this means displaying the content for the student to see in the studentViewUri . At the very least, students must not see an error page in the iframe.
• Ensure that teachers see the student submission from the copied assignment in the studentWorkReviewUri . The teacher shouldn't be able to see a student's submission for the attachment from another course. At the very least, teachers must not see an error page in the iframe.

Teacher View iframe

When a teacher launches the teacherViewUri , the attachmentId is sent as a query parameter in addition to courseId , itemId , itemType , and login_hint (if the user has already authorized your app). The attachmentId can be used to display the correct attachment in the iframe.

If you don't have a record of the query parameters on the teacherViewUri , you can use the CopyHistory object in the AddOnAttachment resource to identify the original assignment. Then, you can display the correct attachment in the teacherViewUri .

Student View iframe

When a student launches the studentViewUri , the attachmentId is sent as a query parameter in addition to courseId , itemId , itemType , and login_hint (if the user has already authorized your app). In order to render the studentViewUri when an assignment or course is copied, use two parameters:

• attachmentId , which can be retrieved from the request URL.
• submissionId , which can be retrieved by calling the appropriate courseWork.getAddOnContext , courseWorkMaterials.getAddOnContext or announcements.getAddOnContext method based on the itemType and reading the StudentContext object.

The attachmentId is a unique identifier for the attachment. The submissionId , however, is not guaranteed to be unique. Therefore, a copied or reused assignment has a different attachmentId , but the submissionId may remain the same. When the student launches the studentViewUri , you can display the attachment by identifying the student work based on a composite key of the attachmentId and submissionId .

If the studentViewUri is rendered based on the submissionId alone, you risk showing the student their submission from another course because the submissionId is not guaranteed to be unique.

As mentioned earlier, if you can't identify the attachmentId , you can use the CopyHistory object in the AddOnAttachment resource to identify the original assignment and its query parameters.

Student Work Review iframe

When the teacher launches the studentWorkReviewUri , the attachmentId and the submissionId are sent as query parameters in addition to the courseId and itemId and itemType . You can use these query parameters to retrieve the AddOnAttachment resource or CopyHistory resource if you can't identify the attachmentId provided. This lets you to search for the student work using a composite key of the attachmentId and submissionId .

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License , and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License . For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies . Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Last updated 2024-06-25 UTC.

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Google Classroom: When to Use the Different Assignments & How to Assign Work

Samuel J Tan Classroom Technology , Learning , Popular , Technology , Tutorials , VLEs 0

Here is a guide to set the different assignments under the Classwork tab in Google Classroom. This brief tutorial shows the different options; assignment, quiz assignment, question and material, when and how to assign them.

Table of Contents

The object of this tutorial is to give you an overview of what you can achieve with the different assignments supported on Google Classroom. You will need to first head over to the Classwork tab, second after Stream on the top once you are inside your classroom. This tutorial assumes that you have created your first classroom. You can see how to start your own virtual classroom in under 2 minutes for help. We will cover the following:

• create assignments and questions
• use topics to organise classworks into modules or units
• order work by dragging them up or down in Classwork page

Types of Assignment

There are four types of assignments you can create on Google Classroom. They are as follows:

• Assignment (points awarded, good for final assignment with manual marking and use of Rubric)
• Quiz assignment (points awarded, good for automatic marking and grading)
• Question (no points awarded, good for single question quick survey, short answer, multiple choice)
• Material (no points awarded, good for reading assignment or lesson preparations)

Apart from the above, you have the ability to reuse existing post and create topic header. The former lets you reuse posts you have published on Stream in this or other Classes. The latter is topic header you can add to organise the classwork by modules or units. Let’s start looking at each of these different classwork, when to use them and how to create them.

A. Assignment

Probably the most commonly used classwork is the assignment. Here you can pick one of the following top options when creating an assignment. Beyond filling in the title and instruction, choose to:

• Add an existing resource: Google Drive , Link , File or YouTube
• Create a new document: create a new Google Docs , Slides , Sheets , Drawings or Forms

The first option allows you to add a Google Drive, Link to web resources, upload or choose an online file to add to Classroom’s Google Drive. You can use this to assign work like “access the work files or resources in Google Drive”, “revise or research using this link”, “download, open and read the document attached” and “watch this video tutorial or recorded seminar”.

The second option lets you create online documents. This can be a word document, slide presentation file, spreadsheet, drawing or forms. There is no need to upload a document. Here is where your assignment is created and marked totally online. Use the option to assigning a copy to each student and marking them separately with in-line feedback, grade and comments.

As you can see Assignment covers a lot of grounds in terms of resources and online document format supported.

Step by Step Guide on How to Create an Assignment using Google Docs

Here is how to create an online assignment using Google Docs. [number correspond to image in gallery below]

• Open your class
• Click on the second tab, Classwork
• Click “ + Create ” button and choose Assignment
• In the pop up window, add Title and Instructions
• Click “ + Create ” button and choose Docs [4]
• A new tab will open to show the new Google Docs [5]
• Change the title of the document by clicking on Untitled document (top left corner)
• Enter the instruction for assignment into the body, look for  All changes saved in Drive  status in top bar then close tab and return to previous Assignment tab [5]
• Don’t worry if the document still says Untitled document, next to this click drop down menu and choose Make a copy for each student . [6]
• Complete the options in the right side bar (for course, all or select students, grade points, due date, topic and marking rubric (optional) then click Assign button. [7]

NOTE: You can also choose to Schedule the assignment, save or discard draft by clicking on the drop down arrow next to the Assign button.

You will then be returned to the Classwork page where you can see the assignment you have just created, click on it to open a summary card. [8]

B. Quiz Assignment

Based on Google Forms, the quiz is the other assignment you can create as classwork. This is great to gauge the students understanding of the subject. Like any questionnaire or form, you can use different field types when designing your form.

Step by Step Guide on How to Create an Quiz Assignment

• Click “ + Create ” button and choose Quiz Assignment
• A new pop-up window will appear, enter the Title and Instructions for this quiz
• Click on the Blank Quiz link to open the Google Forms file. Click on the title Blank Quiz to change this and start editing the quiz by completing and adding more questions including answers and points for automatic marking.
• Once you have completed your editing, look for All changes saved in Drive , close the tab and return to previous Assignment tab.
• Complete the options in the right side bar (for course, all or select students, grade points, due date, topic and marking rubric (optional) then click Assign button.

You will then be returned to the Classwork page where you can see the assignment you have just created, click on it to open a summary card.

C. Question

The third type of assignment is Question. This is more of a simple single question survey with option to choose between a short answer or multiple choice answer. Nothing more beyond that. It is probably the quickest to set up and least complicated. This is useful to get quick answers from the group. Students can be allowed to see everyones answers and change their answer. No points can be awarded for this assignment.

Step by Step Guide on How to Create Question as Assignment

• Click “ + Create ” button and choose Question
• A new pop-up window will appear, enter the Question and Instructions for this question
• Choose from drop down menu to select Short answer or Multiple choice .
• Here you can also add resources or create online files in Google Drive.
• Complete the options in the right side bar; class(es) the Question is for, assign to All or specific students, Points, Due date and Topic. Also choose if other students can reply to each other and edit their answer if Short answer is chosen. Or, choose if students can see class summary if Multiple choice is chosen.
• Click the Ask button when ready.

D. Material

The last and final assignment is the Material. Here you can assign learning materials for students to study and prepare. As before, you can upload a resource or create online file as material. Like Questions assignment type, no points can be awarded for Material assignment type.

Step by Step Guide on How to Create Material as Assignment

• Click “ + Create ” button and choose Material
• In the pop-up window, complete Title and Description field
• Choose to add a resource or + create online document
• Then configure the assignment using right sidebar, pick to assign to All students or select individuals and pick the Topic this comes under.
• When ready click the Post button.

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Create interactive YouTube assignments in Google Classroom more quickly and efficiently, with the help of AI

What’s changing, who’s impacted , why you’d use it , additional details , getting started .

• Admins: In order to enable the interactive questions feature, YouTube must be turned ON by administrators as an additional service for educators. This setting can be managed in the Admin console. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning YouTube on or off for users. 
• End users:  
• If enabled by your admin, you can create or delete interactive questions for YouTube videos and grade & track interactive questions for YouTube videos.
• Suggested questions are available when you find a spark icon below the video title in the video search results. 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom. 
• Students: Students can complete a video activity regardless of whether YouTube is turned ON or OFF as an additional service. Please note that the video activity must have been created by an educator with YouTube turned ON. 

Rollout pace 

• This feature is available now. 

Availability 

• Education Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

• Google Workspace Admin Help: Turn YouTube on or off for users 
• Google Help: Learn about interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom 
• Google Help: Create or delete interactive questions for YouTube videos 
• Google Help: Grade and track interactive questions for YouTube videos

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Multiple assignment reuse for GitHub Classroom

Teachers we have heard your feedback! The GitHub Classroom team is excited to announce that now in addition to reusing a single assignment you can reuse multiple assignments across Classrooms and/or from semester-to-semester. You no longer have to manually and repeatedly create new assignments using the same template repo.

Using 'Reuse assignment' on the Classroom level you can copy single / multiple assignments and associated template repo across Classrooms and organizations. The copied assignment will include the Assignment details such as name, source repository, autograding and preferred editor.

These changes will be gradually rolling out over the next week. For more information on how to use this new experience, check out our documentation . Your feedback is welcome at our Education Community Forum .

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GitHub Actions: macOS 12 for GitHub-hosted runners is now generally available

The macOS 12 Actions runner image is now generally available. Start using GitHub Actions to build and publish apps for the Apple ecosystem with the latest version of Xcode by updating your jobs to include runs-on: macos-12

The macOS 12 Actions runner image has different tools and tool versions than macOS 11. See the full list of changed software.

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