Using Google Apps with Planbook Plus: Google Forms

Special education teachers and regular education teachers alike require a number of student data to inform instructional decisions. Whether formative assessment, progress monitoring, or summative assessment, data is key to making effective instructional decisions. However, this task becomes increasingly difficult as class sizes increase and student needs vary. Google offers a variety of apps to include during your planning and use of Planbook Plus. When collecting data, Google forms will be particularly helpful.

Google forms allows educators to customize their data toolkit in whichever way makes most sense to them. From there, it can be easily included in an element as a link within Planbook Plus. Consider the Social Studies teacher planning out their lesson on the Cold War when they receive a request from a special education teacher in their inbox for progress monitoring data. Where is the time to add this to the paperwork? The special education teacher and social studies teacher can collaborate together by sharing a google forms link in addition to the Social Studies teacher’s lesson plan. This way, ,the social studies teacher can easily collect the data while the special education teacher will have a context.

Additionally, co-teachers can use Google Forms in conjunction with Planbook Plus to collect formative assessment data in addition to progress monitoring. As one teacher goes over the “we do” example on the board with students, the other can circulate and collect formative assessment data by simply clicking the appropriate customized choices on the google form. Later, the results are easily exported to a google sheets for a dialogue between both teachers.

Whether you want to include the link in your plans as a reminder, share it with your co-teacher or share it with a special education teacher, Planbook Plus offers options. If you are simply looking to include a link to google forms as a reminder to collect data, you can either include it in a customized element or add it as a resource (as a link). When seeking to share it with your co-teacher, you can simply add a resource as a link, or you can add a note with the link explaining how to use it. Finally, you can share it with a special education teacher as a note.

Regardless of how you utilize the google app, it is important to plan on how you will be effective incorporating it with the other necessary tools available to you like Planbook Plus.