Designing a Google Classroom for Elementary Students with a Human Centered Approach

When designing a Google Classroom for elementary students I began to create one classroom with various topics.

 

 

As the topic list grew, I began to wonder if students would want one Google classroom for a 5^th grade class or would they prefer separate classrooms by subject with a secret agent hub (homeroom for things not content related). I reached out to two MassCUE peers, who both had differing opinions with great reasons. One friend said to create one classroom for consistency, ease of use, and less notifications to families. A second friend suggested multiple classrooms to be used as pods with a homeroom classroom. She also gave the idea of color coding each individual classroom created. After listening and thinking I decided the best way to decide was to ask former 5^th grade students.

 

I met with a small focus group of former students and showed them what I had created. They saw the classroom set up and most of them immediately said I should do one classroom. When I asked them why they felt having one place to go to with a Google Meet link would be helpful. They would have less email notifications for them and parents, and fewer classes to manage. They liked the idea of everything in once place. One student offered that I should create multiple classrooms to able to add more for the content areas than what he was seeing. When I politely explained I would add more as the year went on in one classroom and that what he was seeing was just the start of the year he quickly changed his thinking.

 

I was excited to build an online community for our future agents. The first thing I did was remove notifications from the stream.

 

 

 

This helps keep the stream less cluttered. I designed a classroom banner in Google Draw to add some personal flair to our online home.  I challenged myself to think about best practices and decided to include emojis and fonts to support visual learners. Thanks to Holly Clark's suggestion, I created an emoji guide for students too, so they would know what the images meant. I learned how to do this through a YouTube video posted below.

 

 

I thought about a human centered approach, focusing first on relationship building activities. I know the content pieces will come, but I was easily able to start adapting activities done in a physical space for an online space. I strongly recommend educators start with the good work they are already doing when contemplating where to start in building a Google Classroom for remote and hybrid learning.

 

Helpful Links:

 

EmojiCopy

Emojipedia

Fancy Text Guru

Fancy Text Pro

Lessons Learned in #Remotelearning This Summer

 Our classroom is student driven, so students often make some big decisions! I asked students in June if any of them wanted to continue with remote learning over the summer, and many said yes. Students designed the schedule, suggesting we meet twice a week for an hour each session. They asked me to prepare engaging leaning experiences that included the read aloud book I started before school closed. After reflecting back on our experiences this summer, I realized there was so much good that came out of continuing to build our classroom community remotely for our students. They were faced with having a summer like no other, so I was pleased I could support them in activities to keep their minds engaged and their hearts connected to their classroom community. Here are some lessons I learned and activities you might want to try adapting for your own learners!

 

1.     Give students a plan for the meeting so they know what to expect. Always send an agenda, so students know what to except. It is ok to be flexible and amend the agenda with students, but they appreciate knowing what the plan is ahead of time. Thanks to Laura Cahill for creating this template. It really worked well to help us all stay on track.

 

2.     Engage students in real world discussions. I created a current events activity for students. They loved being able to share their perspectives around the protests, Juneteenth, and the Black Lives Matter movement. These topics were not part of the current standards in our 5^th grade curriculum. These led to conversations about media literacy and source checking, forming an opinion from a news story, and accepting when other’s think differently then you. These are real like skills for students to explore!

 

 

3.     Provide opportunities for building relationships. Students loved connecting with each other over games, whether it was a group math game or board games that can be played in a virtual setting. Game play also allowed me to focus on student’s social and emotional wellbeing. We laughed a lot and were challenged to think critically and creatively.

4.     Create some learning experiences that offer choice. Students could work on a choice board in between our meets. The choice board consisted of activities in different subject areas. One of the activities was creating a Wonderopolis Google Site, which embedded technology literacy into the lesson. Thanks to Tracy Leighton for her shared materials that inspired this Choice Board!

 

5.     Support students where they are. Students had an optional summer reading program, and to support that initiative I asked students to make a Netflix Book Trailer for their summer reading book. Thanks to Nick LaFave for the template and Zachary Mcdermott for the inspiration!

 

 

6.     Expand their knowledge through experts. I always seek ways to bring other voices into our student’s lives. Jason Reynolds created a dynamic writing hub for students called Write. Right. Rite. His videos were short, entertaining, and draw listeners in! He provided students with a task that can be created using paper, pencil, or digital tools. Our learning was enriched through our discussions of work created.

 

7.     Connect work to previous learning activities. Our students were lucky enough to be paired with Chris Tebbetts, author of the Stranded and co-author of the Middle School Series, through #Kidsneedmentors. He had come to visit us physically and virtually during the school year to support our young authors! Over the summer students were invited to imagine they were stranded in the middle school. I was able to secure a map of the middle school for our students to familiarize themselves with. Students were challenged to write their own versions of Stranded. We had some very colorful tales written!

 

 

8.     Challenge students to explain their thinking. Students had the opportunity to explain their thinking in an activity called Which One Are You? I got the idea from Andre Daughty. I simply created a Google Slide to share with four related imaged and asked students which one they prefer. Listening to students explain why they chose the image they chose taught us a lot about them! Some students even wanted to change their minds after hearing the rational of classmate’s choices.

 

As the school year approaches I plan to take these lessons with me as I begin to envision how to build a community remotely. It is possible to take best practices into the remote world!