A Google Forms Tutorial

I’m back with another tutorial on Google Forms! If you’re still learning how to use Google Drive and all it’s Googley goodness, check out this getting started post HERE.

Let’s dig into what a Google Form is and how you can use them in your classroom. Forms are a quick way to create an online survey. The responses are then collected in an online spreadsheet (Google Sheets). Teachers can use Forms in a variety of ways. They can use them to assess student knowledge, give quick quizzes, create exit tickets, and even receive feedback from students and parents! Ready to get started and create your own Google Form?

Let’s start with the basics like, “How do I access a Google Form?” First you have to create a Google account HERE. Techy tip…downloading the Web browser Chrome would be great, since there are tons of extensions and features that work hand in hand with Google Drive.

Once you log on, you’ll see the Drive home page that looks like the image below. It will allow you to pick from a variety of options like creating a new Google Form, accessing your files stored in your Drive, or even viewing files that have been shared with you!

Click on NEW and then MORE to create a Google Form!

Now you’ve started a Google Form! Let’s customize it by creating a title for it.

The next step is to figure out what kind of questions you want to use on it. Are you looking to create a quick exit ticket for your kids? Or are you wanting to create a mini assessment to see how well your students learned a new concept? Let’s start with creating a Form for a sample exit ticket.

Let’s say you taught a lesson on elapsed time and wanted to see if your students really understood the concept. First, you’ll have to type in your question in the “question title” box. Then, you have to pick what type of question type you’d like to create (i.e. multiple choice, open ended answer). I picked an open ended response.

Once you’ve created a question on your Form and have picked an answer type, you need to choose what confirmation your students will see when they complete it. Be sure to click the “required question” option so that an answer must be typed in before students submit their responses.

Before you send out your Form, you can also make last minute changes. You can go back and edit your questions, change the theme, and much more.

When you pick a theme, it’ll give you a preview of what your Form will look like. I picked a sample theme below!

Now you’re ready to share the form with your students. You can share the link or share via email. Unfortunately, there are no “share” buttons on Forms…you have to send a link or email. By clicking “Shorten Url”, you’ll make the link address shorter and more manageable for kids.

This is what your students will see when they click on your live link.

TA-DA! You’ve created a working (or live) Google Form!

The next step would be viewing all the student responses. Simple click on “View Responses” to see them on a Google Sheet. It will generate one for you automatically and save it to your Drive! #GENIUS

This is what will pop up on your screen after clicking the “View Responses” tab. It will show all your students’ answers and let you see who understood the concept, or who still is struggling and will need extra support/reteaching.

And that’s it my friends! You can play around with Forms to create more Forms for various classroom uses. I like to send out questionnaires at BTSN for parents to share their emails/phone numbers/etc and make it easy for me to have them all in one place without having to transfer their data from a paper sign up sheet. I’m trying really hard to have a paperless classroom. :) You can also use Google Forms to give quizzes and have all their data in one spreadsheet for easy grading. The classroom uses are endless! I’ll be back soon with another tutorial on how I use Google Sheets to create rubrics AND grade writing assignments.

If you are new to my Google tutorials or want to learn all about Google Drive or Google Classroom, just click on the image below to read those posts.