Before we dive into some tips using Google Forms, let's talk about HOW I use Google Forms in my classroom... Some of the main ways I use Google forms in my classroom include:
Parent Survey-- Instead of requiring parents to sign our class disclosure/syllabus, I have them take a parent survey instead. This provides me a way for parents to let me know anything they'd like me to know about their student.
Student Survey-- I love giving out a Student Survey at the beginning of every semester to all of my students. This helps me to get to know them better and have their responses in a place I can easily look back on.
Class Feedback-- At the end of the semester I give all of my students a survey asking for their feedback and suggestions about the class they just took from me. I am always looking for ways to improve my teaching and my classes!
Project Feedback-- Sometimes I will give a survey to my students to get feedback about a specific project that we just completed. This is helpful because it is fresh in their minds and helps me to better individual projects for my future classes.
Alright, so we have no established that Google Forms can be super helpful in your classroom! Now let me give you some tips to make using them easier!
Make a separate form for each class you teach. As a middle school Family & Consumer Sciences teacher, I teach 4 different classes. I create a separate version of my surveys for each class. You can do this easily by making a copy of the form and then making minor edits so that it's ready
for each class. Click on the 3 dots in the top right corner of the form and you'll see the option to make a copy. This allows me to organize the responses I get by class.
Have ONE Spreadsheet for Each Survey's Responses. I have one spreadsheet for each type of survey I give. For example, I have one for all of my student survey responses for the year. To do this you simply choose the option to Select An Existing Spreadsheet when choosing your response destination. This makes it so that you can have a separate tab for each class's responses to the survey.
Bookmark your survey responses spreadsheets. Bookmarking the response spreadsheet helps you be able to find your responses super easy! Note that whatever tab you are on when you bookmark the site is the tab it will open up to when you click on the bookmark later. I like to also create folders for my bookmarks. I create a folder just for Survey Responses and add all of my response spreadsheets to that folder. This means I can have my Student Survey Responses for 2021-2022 saved to that folder. That spreadsheet has all of my student survey responses for this year, organized by class.
Stop accepting responses on previous semester's forms. You can switch "Accepting Responses" off under Responses. This will help because if there's ever a place you forget to update a survey link, you still won't have people giving you responses to an old survey that you're no longer checking responses for. Instead, they will see a message telling them the survey is no longer receiving responses. Hopefully they would then let you know so you could update the link. So every time I make a copy of a previous semester's survey to create a new semester's survey, I switch this off.
Edit your confirmation message. Under Settings you can actually edit the confirmation message that responders will see once they submit the survey. You can make it more specific to the questions you just asked them and make it feel more personal.
Update your default settings.There are lots of settings you can update to be your default including, making questions required, collecting email addresses, etc. This is helpful to update so that when you create a new form it takes less time!
Customize the look of your form. I like to create an image as a header for my forms. You could also choose an image that relates to the type of survey it is. You can also change the colors and the font style if you wish.
If you'd like to see a video showing you how to do all of these things then be sure to watch my Youtube video on Organization Tips for Google Forms below! If you found this post helpful, pin the image below to Pinterest! Thanks for reading!!
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