How Google Workspace Kept My Head Above Water

This past academic year, I jumped into new waters by teaching internationally. Having only limited experience and no knowledge of teaching internationally, I knew I was in for a challenge. What I didn’t know, however, was how great this challenge would be. Like all things that push us, my comfort zone was challenged in multiple ways, every day for at least the past six months.

As this challenge arrived in my life very abruptly, I was forced outside of my comfort zone and decided to do some things which had never been done at my school and within my PE department.

I strategically utilized G-suite to organize my classes, assessments, planning, documentation, and communication. It completely streamlined my life which allowed me to focus on the other learning curves which presented themselves as well as focusing on my pedagogy (how I teach).

As a young teacher, I knew that focusing on my pedagogy would impact the trajectory of the rest of my teaching career. So, I worked like a horse on Kentucky Derby weekend to ensure that G-suite applications would streamline my life so I could prioritize other areas of my teaching such as using a Comprehensive School Health (CSH) framework for student success.

As you are currently reading this, I am in North Carolina at the National PE & Sport Institute presenting a workshop to teachers and school leaders from across the world about how G-suite kept my head above water. So, I want to bring some of those insights to you.

Whether you are a teacher, administrator, camp director, team leader or someone who touches any Gsuite application in the Google knapsack, this information could benefit you, your work efficiency and your overall organization. Here are some ways I used Google tools to streamline my work.

Planning

Failing to plan is planning for failure. Cliché I know! However, being able to use Google Docs with my team to all work on our PE year plan made for fast and efficient work across the team. In planning, I also used Google calendar to communicate all field trips, major assessments and changes to the schedule throughout the term in real time. This saved me instructional time, phone calls to parents, and it allowed students to get excited about upcoming field trips (as an example)

Assessments

Using Google Classroom, I brought our PE department courses online for the first time in the schools’ history. This took a budget load of work at the beginning of the year but it was absolutely essential to have for both semesters and for all high school courses of PE. In ‘Gclass’, I posted all my assessments and rubrics to those assessments so that students and parents knew expectations from day one. All assessments were handed in online which saved on filing, losing paper documents and allowing students to work at their own pace on assignments which were due throughout the term.

Expectations

Setting procedures and expectations in any line of work are vital to success. Teaching is no different. These teens are virtually adults and setting clear expectations with them via Google Classroom allowed there to be no ‘grey areas’. All students adhered to the same expectations as did all parents and all co-teachers involved in co-teaching the term.

Evaluation

Using Google Forms, I spent time designing student surveys that would highlight their learnings, feelings around PE and overall performance in the course. I was able to garner feedback from them in a safe, anonymous way, while simultaneously giving them a voice to steer the course for the future.

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Regardless of your profession, I encourage you to dive into the G-suite tools available to streamline your life. It is incredible how well we can stay organized and effective with the tools we have.

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I wish for you to ‘go deep’ in your own life. For additional strategies on how to become more confident, organized, productive and successful in your life and vocation, I encourage you to pick up my latest book on Amazon: Thought Leadership.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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