You can start your car by the click of a button. You can watch, read, or listen to your favorite shows, books, or music in real time by the click of a button.

You can go from having a cold slice of pizza to a piping hot slice of pizza in a minute by the click of a button — and that may even be too long to wait! So why would you spend 3 hours of your time after school, at night, or over the weekend grading your students’ tests? Why can’t you just click a button?

The answer is: you can! Well, you may have to click a few buttons, but once you are all set up, you can sit back and collect data automatically.  Get your nights and weekends back, teachers!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Google Forms; the gem of the Google Workspace. You can create questions for your upcoming test or quiz, distribute it to your students when you’re ready, or set it to release to your students at a specific time. The best part is that Google Forms will grade it for you!  Well, it doesn’t know the answers automatically, as you will have to set the correct answers, but when you do, you will be able to create all types of assessments.  Multiple choice, DBQ’s, true or false, matching, short and long answer response questions, and many more. Putting in the work on the front end by loading your questions is worth the time you will save on the back end having to grade all those papers.  

One of the best parts of using Google Forms is that it allows you to create an unlimited amount of assessment templates for free.  So, if you teach different subjects, grades, or even if you want your tests and quizzes to look different, you have the power to customize how you want it to look.  Google Forms allows you to receive the results from your students’ tests/quizzes immediately by having them emailed to you.  This means you can see how students are doing in real time.  Finally, the data aspect of utilizing Google Forms is incorporated when student test results are compiled into a Google Sheet. You, as the teacher, will be able to quickly analyze questions that students did well on, as well as easily identify problem areas.  It is all made that simple for you!

Ready to get started using Forms? Take a look at these three courses which will put you on the path to assessment success with Forms and Sheets.

1. Google Workspace for Education: Google Forms Plan events, survey parents, create a quick opinion poll for students, create quizzes and informal assessments for a lesson, export data to a Google Sheet to analyze trends, and collect information in a streamlined, easy way. Come join our Curriculum Specialists as they walk you through the process to begin incorporating Google Forms in your classroom!
2. Back to School with Google Forms You know the basics of creating a Google Form but what else can you do to leverage the learning power and student engagement elements of Google Forms?  Let’s go over how to reuse your Google Forms from last year, including why and how to use branching Forms. Join Alice Keeler to start the school year off right by upping your Google Forms game! 
3. Using Google Forms for Assessment In this course, we’ll go over things like collecting data, conducting peer reviews, and creating formative assessments. Join us to explore the variety of ways that Google Forms can be implemented in your classroom to meet your assessment needs.

Grading has finally made its way to the 21st century and if you are not taking advantage of this valuable resource, you are losing out on your time!

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more articles on the Teq Talk blog.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and remote learning support for educators with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology, tools, and strategies that can spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening.