As the new school year approached, Google rolled out new features to their learning management platform, Google Classroom. One of the exciting new additions was Questions, which allows you to ask, manage, and grade discussions within Classroom.

These online discussions are great for homework or extension activities based on topics learned in class. Teachers can post questions for homework so students begin their discussions outside of class, giving them time to formulate their answers, find quality evidence, and craft comprehensive, well-supported responses. Before class begins, you are able to view student responses and provide feedback via comments and grades. Continue the discussion in class or use the responses in other application activities. Similar to “Think, Pair, Share,” students have the time to do the critical thinking so further discussions or applications of knowledge will be richer and that much more informed.

A discussion will act similar to an assignment in that you can add a due date, assign it to multiple classes, and add links, files, videos, or drive files. You can also choose from advanced settings to allow students to edit their answers or restrict if students can see and reply to each other’s answers. Once assigned students can respond but will not see their classmates answers until they have submitted their response (unless you’ve restricted this feature). At any time you can post additional comments to the Question or respond to students to help them dig deeper into the topic and engage their critical thinking skills. Students too can interact with each other by replying to their classmates or to your posts!

Join us for our sessions on Google Classroom (Intro to Google Classroom and Going Further with Google Classroom) to see Questions in action and learn more about the other exciting features available!