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| KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR SCHOOL ADMINS |
▪️In modern schools, many teachers face a constant lack of time due to non-education-related challenges, including the negative impact of technology and administrative overload. ▪️We’ve identified ten areas where teachers can recover many working hours using our solutions for teachers. Following our tips reduces their burden and unnecessary stress. ▪️GAT Labs tools for teachers let them save a lot of time when managing, auditing, and securing their classrooms. They allow teachers to automate their daily responsibilities and reduce student distractions in Google Classroom. |
I don’t hate technology; I just want the time it takes to manage digital classrooms back so I can properly teach during class.
Plenty of current teachers could agree with this statement. While Google Classroom is fundamental for many schools, it creates challenges that consume teachers’ time. Instead of refusing classroom management tools, let’s help educators embrace them with automated solutions.
Here’s how to do it with our ten time-saving ideas.
Why is Google Classroom Management So Time-Consuming?
Unfortunately, that is a question teachers often ask throughout the school year.
While all that should matter to them is teaching, they need to worry about technical issues and tech-savvy students who attempt to take control of the digital classrooms.
The most common challenges that consume the teacher’s time and attention are:
- Student Online Distractions:
Students who don’t follow instructions and browse the internet instead can be highly disruptive to the learning flow. While teachers are used to traditional student diversions during offline classes, the digital classroom offers more opportunities both to get distracted and to cut these distractions at the root.
- Technology Management:
Lack of proper training, fear of making mistakes, and stress over losing the little time they have to teach. That’s why teachers are often afraid of using advanced classroom management software. Only with proper onboarding can they appreciate how these tools benefit their classrooms.
- AI-Generated Assignments:
Preparing and reviewing student assignments requires greater attention from teachers than ever. With a real risk of AI involvement in the process, teachers need to know how to recognize content that students themselves haven’t created unless they are provided with an automated AI detector.
- Unsafe Online Content:
Providing students with unrestricted online access affects their focus in class and puts their safety at risk. Unfortunately, inappropriate content can be very alluring to young people. It can significantly impact their mental health, social life, and learning performance.
- Reporting on Classrooms and Students:
With multiple edtech solutions in place, gathering insights creates an additional, complex administrative task. Searching for scattered data on classroom activities, student attendance, and engagement can be error-prone and stressful, particularly when under pressure from school leaders.
How Can Teachers Save Time in Google Classroom?
You, as an admin, know better than anyone in the school which part of classroom management your teachers struggle with daily. Whether they complain most about online distractions or AI abuse in the classroom, we want to support all of you – and make your life easier.
These are ten solutions to ease teacher burden (and stress) in Google Classroom and free up more time for what’s most important.
1. Monitor Student Browsing in the Classroom
Gain real-time oversight of each student’s online activity during a classroom session. Thanks to live monitoring, students can’t hide browsing unrelated to the class anymore. Educators can get an overview of the entire classroom’s activity at a glance and easily check if students are following along.
2. Reduce Student Online Distractions
Monitoring student browsing passively wouldn’t solve the whole problem. That’s why teachers can block specific URLs during class as soon as they see that these pages distract students’ attention. Later, if needed, they can easily review which websites were allowed or blocked during a session.
3. Restrict the Most Visited Non-Educational Sites
➡️ Teacher Assist + GAT Shield
To save time during class, teachers can create a list of websites that should be permanently blocked for students. Based on student browsing insights, they can determine the websites students spend the most time on and request that the admin update the school web filtering policy accordingly.
4. Manage Student Screens in Real Time
Since there are millions of new pages to explore, restricting students’ access to specific websites is sometimes insufficient. That’s why teachers can also decide exactly what students see in the Chrome browser during class. They can, for example, close the current page for the student, or open it for others, or open a new tab for everyone. It’s all about keeping control of the classroom.
5. Automate Plagiarism Detection
➡️ Taskmaster
Since AI-generated assignments have become a plague in schools, teachers are searching for an AI detector to streamline their reviews and grading. Instead of a separate, unproven tool, offer them a tool fully integrated with Google Docs and Google Classroom that automatically checks an assignment’s academic integrity score: the same goal, a safer and faster solution.
6. Lock Student Screens during an Exam
This is another way to avoid cheating, so teachers can save the extra effort of checking students during exams in Google Classroom. Simply locking their screens will force them to focus on the exam instead of searching for help online or from another student. Teachers can lock the screens of an individual student or the entire group.
7. Save Classroom Resources Before the Class
During a class, every minute counts. To start teaching without unnecessary delays, teachers can prepare learning materials for students in advance. For online resources, they can create collections of websites to share or import them from other teachers or classrooms. Additionally, they can save educational files in a dedicated classroom folder in the Shared Drive, which every student can access.
8. Automate Classroom Reporting
Creating detailed reports without automated data collection can be challenging. Classroom Insights provides teachers with all key details on each classroom: people involved, classwork submission summary, student grades, and browsing activity, including websites visited by students and those blocked or allowed by teachers.
9. Note Student Absence in One Place
Another time-saver to avoid getting lost in data. When a student is absent, teachers can note it directly in the classroom session dashboard. After class, they can check which students were absent and why for each session. It’s a handy way to keep track of absences and generate classroom reports quickly.
10. Track assignment progress in Google Docs
➡️ Taskmaster
All teachers have been there: students miss homework deadlines or “lose” their digital assignment files. Teachers used to follow up with students to remind them of pending tasks. However, sometimes it’s just faster to review their progress directly in Google Docs. When all assignments are created in the Google Workspace environment, teachers can easily track every student’s file in real time.
Bonus: Control class time with a customizable timer.
Time is the most valuable resource. Don’t let it slip away. TIM, our free tool, helps teachers and students manage time during class and exams without constantly checking the clock.
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We’ve seen improvements in focus, task completion, and fewer distractions. Teacher Assist has truly empowered our teachers and helped us provide a safer, more effective learning environment for our students.
Olger Diekstra,
ICT Manager at Tamborine Mountain College
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Lean and Mean Google Classroom Management with GAT Labs
When it comes to classroom management, simplicity, integration, and quick actions are values every teacher looks for.
At GAT Labs, we’ve designed a set of solutions that consider those priorities while minimizing non-teaching-related tasks for teachers. Teacher Assist, GAT Shield, and Taskmaster enable them:
- Automate Administrative Work: Cover reporting on classrooms, student engagement, grades, and online activity. Instead of spending hours processing data, generate summaries automatically in a few seconds.
- Keep Students Focused on the Class: Monitor student screens and browsing in real time and manage what they can and can’t see during the classroom session. Restrict their access to harmful online content and identify patterns of distraction.
- Protect Academic Integrity: Track student assignment progress and detect whether AI or another user has been involved in the process. Save time and safeguard student data while staying within the Google Workspace environment.
Your Next Steps
Interested in learning more about GAT Labs solutions for teachers?
Direct your teachers to our educator page, where we explain how GAT Labs tools work in their classrooms.
If you’re looking for a technical demo, schedule a free call with our Support Team or request a 15-day trial.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): Google Classroom Management
- How can my teachers save time when teaching in Google Classroom?
Classroom management tools integrated with Google Workspace optimize teacher time rather than creating additional technical responsibilities. Teacher Assist and other interconnected GAT Labs solutions support teachers and admins by automating classroom reports, student screen monitoring, and AI content detection.
- Wouldn’t using GAT Labs solutions for teachers add to their admin workload?
Quite the opposite; after implementing and learning the new tools, they will reduce teachers’ daily overhead. GAT Labs’ educational customers confirm that deploying our solutions has significantly improved classroom management and student engagement in Google Classroom.
- How does routine task automation help schools to reduce teacher burnout?
Teachers are usually frustrated by excessive administrative work and students’ online distractions in the classroom. GAT Labs automates student live activity management, assignment reviews, and classroom reporting, easing the most draining tasks for teachers.
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