Hey Google Classroom! How about creating one more posting option?

Art Lightstone

Google Classroom currently offers just three posting options: question, assignment, and announcement.

I'm a heavy user of Google Classroom, and I quite enjoy the various posting features offered within the Google Classroom stream. They're all great. But I can tell you from a teacher's perspective, however, that the main thing I actually use Classroom for on a daily basis is issuing lesson plans to my classes. 



​So what's the problem?

​Sadly, Google Classroom doesn't actually offer a "lesson" option. The available posting options currently made available within Google Classroom include questions, announcements, or assignments. 

Thus, for the teacher who wants to post a lesson, one of the three available posting options needs to be adapted to this purpose. Personally, I find the "assignment" option to be the best fit for a lesson because it allows me to give the lesson a title, and it allows me to associate the lesson with a date (which is a must). The main problem, however, is the fact that using the "assignment" option gives the impression that the student has something due for every single class... and this isn't necessarily the case. 

Moreover, when I do issue an actual assignment, it invariably finds itself hiding amongst dozens of previously - and subsequently - posted lessons. As a result, parents and students do not pay nearly as much attention to my assignments as they likely would if my assignments were not hiding amongst so many other similar looking postings.

I hope that Google Classroom enthusiasts everywhere will join me in encouraging Google to create a "lesson" posting option in Classroom. In my view, such an option could be very similar to the current "assignment" option: it could simply be titled "Lesson" as opposed to "Assignment."

I would also point out that the utility of such a lesson posting option could be increased if the "lesson" post could give the teacher the option of associating a submission with the post. I say this because some lessons do indeed require students to submit some work, while other lessons do not require anything to be submitted at all. 

If such a Google Classroom feature were to be made available, then students and parents would be able to clearly delineate between actual assignments and the lessons that teachers such as myself post using the current "assignment" option. In other words, parents would no longer mistake daily lessons as overdue assignments, and overdue assignments would no longer find themselves camouflaged as old lesson plans. 

Google, if you would consider doing this, then I think you would not only increase the utility and usability of Google Classroom, but you would bring Google Classroom one important step closer to serving as a full-fledged course management system.  

---