Communication and Collaboration with Google Forms

I do not know why this took me so long to make this connection, but in time all things seem to come together. As a university supervisor with 19 field and student teachers spread across a wide variety of rural, suburban, and metropolitan placements, I am always looking for ways to facilitate communication and collaboration between all stakeholders. 

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But to my point of this post. The forms feature in Google Drive is an excellent way to collect authentic data on my students in the field. I try to visit each student every week and with additional support when needed, but with 19 students currently in the field, it is quite a task. So any opportunity I can gather direct feedback from the cooperating teacher and the student, I am all for it.


Once the form is created on Google Drive, you can embed the form or email it to the intended audience. Once it is completed by  the recipient, the data is driven directly into an editable, malleable, spreadsheet that I can use to support my students. 

I really like the options Google provides in the question format.  Scales, short and long answer responses, checkboxes, multiple choice, and more, the options are duly sufficient to collect the data that you want. 


The ubiquity of the templates are a nice touch too. No longer a boring white and and black form, Google gives you 97 options for jazz up your collection of data. Simply select and apply. 

Now, I created the form first and then Google generated the spreadsheet. You can choose the reverse by creating a spreadsheet with your questions as the fields and then you can generate the form and then edit the style of questions. I found it easier to deal with the form first; however, if I do this, Google recommends to the creator to not change the spreadsheet in any manner because it may, and it did for me, render the form useless

 

Here are a few of the questions I asked. You can see the spreadsheet is very clear. I can track data overtime on a particular student. Notice in column J I ask "Where do you think they need the most immediate work?". This question is really telling and allows me to direct literature, videos, and other target resources immediately to the student. I do this by using an online file sharing program The Box where I share a folder with a community and a folder directly with the student. 

I hope this has been helpful. If you would like to discuss this further please feel free to contact me.