Working in teams is as essential and as old as humanity and society itself. Group assignments are so common in school. However, there is no simple way to submit group assignments through Google Classroom.
I found out on Classroom Help that many teachers and students are complaining and asking for the group assignment feature. Especially when the pandemic hits, schools are transforming to online.
I was inspired to design a solution that teachers can create group assignments and student can have an easy way to submit their group assignments.
It all starts with one simple question when you form a group
Who’s in my group?
Google Classroom is primarily utilized by 2 types of users, the student, and the teacher. The student is the one who will turn in the assignment, and the teacher is the one who initially creates the assignment. I decided to focus on both perspectives, but students are easier for me to talk to when I am doing user research.
My research has told me
So what can we learn from assigning & turning in group assignments in the actual classroom?
There are two ways to assign group work. Teacher-Assigned groups and Student-Chosen groups. Normally for group assignments, only one group member needs to submit the assignment on behalf of the group.
Capturing the look and feel
It‘s critical to maintain the look and feel that Google Classroom currently has. I consistently referenced Material Design as I created the style guide. I made sure to add in the new features in a seamless manner that would make the most sense.
Design Solutions: Creating Group Assignments
To begin with, how might we enable teachers to effortlessly create group assignments so that students can work in teams. According to my research, teachers can either divide students into groups of students can form their own groups. I would like to give out these options in Google Classroom when doing group assignments to provide flexibility.
Design Option 1: Add a Group Assignment tab
Teachers can manually assign students to different groups in this tab.
Pro: teachers are able to find the group assignment easily. Con: time-consuming for teachers to create groups.
Design Option 2: Add group assignment option under the Assignment tab
Teachers are capable to switch between individual assignments and group assignments in this original assignment tab.
Pro: easy to switch to group assignment. Con: only applies to student-chosen groups situations.
Design Option 3: Create Group Structure
Teachers can select group structure by choosing the number of groups and group forming options.
Although I am the only designer on this project which I don't have a team to do the design tradeoffs with me, I have to figure out things by myself. From Material Design's website, I don't find the pattern of the radio button with a text field. And also from my own experience with G-suite and other Google products, I don't see that is a common pattern.
Final Iteration on creating group assignments
This is the final iteration of creating group assignments. After I decided to go with Option3, I kept the essential information to support the functionality.
Apply to different use cases
When a student is trying to turn in a teacher-assigned group assignment
Students are able to preview group members, project details on the turn-in page. They can also add comments to teachers or other group members.
When a student is trying to turn in a student-chosen group assignment
If teachers choose "allow self sign-up", students will write down everyone's name on the document just like when they are in the actual classroom.
When one of your group member turned in the assignment
Reflection
Since beginning this project, Google Classroom has been making frequent updates to improve their service. It's great to see that they are trying to better understand their users to improve their experiences. I'd love to see a group assignment feature one day as my research showed that it would be extremely beneficial to teachers.