Google Slides through Lockdown and Beyond

TAMARA HIGHAM

Teacher of English & Performing Arts

Google Slides Through Lockdown and Beyond

Using Google Slides as a significant part of my remote teaching has certainly got my cogs turning when it comes to thinking about how I can employ it as a strategy going forward in my daily classroom practice. I’m just not ready to give up the ease and accessibility of it yet!

As great as Google Classroom is as a platform for learning remotely, it also comes with its cons in terms of tracking student engagement and having to trawl through individual student submission pages in order to gauge the quality of work. I eventually turned to Google Slides after a colleague recommended it for guiding extending writing. I tried it out once and realised what a gamechanger it could be.

When I refer to ‘Google Slides’, I am specifically speaking of creating a slides document on Google Drive. I assign one slide to each pupil (putting their names on the slide for ease) and then post it as an assignment on Google Classroom. When setting the assignment, it is vital that the option of ‘Students can edit document’ is selected as this means that all users can complete work on it simultaneously.

After a week or so of trialling it with various classes, I attended a CPD event with Tom Sherrington. Tom highlighted his own ways of using the Google Slides programme and it gave me even more ideas and genuine excitement around the prospect of using it across both English and Performing Arts. I want to share with you some ways that Google Slides can be used remotely but also in our standard day to day practice going forward.

Coursework Submission

As a teacher of BTEC Performing Arts, I am often guilty of chasing coursework that students have printed out themselves or collecting things they have written on random bits of paper. Since using Google Slides for students to complete pieces of coursework on, I have found the process has been completely streamlined. It means I can store all written work centrally and easily print all students work from one file, and store physical copies away. It also means that if I am faced with student absences, then I can easily track who has missed a certain piece of work as there will be a blank slide with their name on, ready to be completed at a later date. The use of Google Slides for coursework submission is something I will definitely be using going forward in class once we have turned our back on remote learning.

Peer Assessment 

​When we switched to remote learning, we didn't have the luxury of facilitating peer assessment and feedback like we do in the classroom. There was no swapping of books and no green pens in sight. A colleague in the English department found Google Slides a great way of allowing that communication and collaboration between students to still take place. Instead of swapping books, they could now 'swap slides' and provide each other with WWW & EBI targets. Not only does this mean that students can learn from one another's work, but it also meant that during a period of isolation, students were still able to have that social interaction element of learning that they had been missing out on. This is particularly beneficial for those 'zoom-shy' pupils who attend live lessons with a black screen and no mic turned on. As we return to the classroom, the use of Google Slides could certainly be used to take the 'faff' out of swapping books and bits of paper in class for peer assessment purposes. 

Instant Feedback and Amendments

​Another great use of Google Slides for teachers is the ability to give instant feedback to students which allows them to improve their work has they are completing it. Instead of waiting for all students to submit their work and then have to wait until their next lesson to have misconceptions addressed, they can fix mistakes instantly.  Being able to see all students typing live is revolutionary as you can clearly spot those who are struggling and offer guidance before they become defeatist and resin themselves to failure. I have found this a lot more effective than teaching in a pre-social-distancing world whereby you would walk around the classroom and try to peer over the shoulders of those students who are trying their very hardest to hide their work (or lack of work!) with their arm.  

The beauty of using Google Slides documents is that they automatically save in to my drive without students having to ‘turn it in’. This means that I can access all students work in one place and quickly gauge the quality of work as well as engagement levels without searching through 30 individual web pages one after the other. Not only have I genuinely enjoyed using it as a teacher, but feedback from my pupils suggests that they love getting instant feedback and having the ‘faff’ of submission taken away from them. On the whole, it has completely changed my way of working for the better and I don’t think I will ever go back to relying on students to print off their own work and handing me a physical copy.