The Secret to Google Forms Spreadsheet Grading

Let’s say that you’re a rockstar teacher and have created a Google Form to quiz your students or create a meaningful assessment. How can you use a Google Forms Spreadsheet to grade smarter, not harder.

Does the spreadsheet generated for student responses have you scratching your head in frustration or going cross-eyed as you scroll through all of those little boxes on the computer screen?

I recently discovered an “add on” for Google Sheets that makes the grading/reading of your students’ responses so much easier.

Here’s what you do.

Google Forms Spreadsheet Add-On: “Save As Doc”

Go to the “Add-ons” tab in the Google Sheets toolbar.
Select “Get add-ons.”
Become distracted with all of the great options for customizing your experience.
Search for “Save As Doc.”
Click on the blue “+ Free” button to install and “Allow” it access to your data. As the description says, you will soon be able to save your students’ responses as a Google Document to make the reading of lengthy entries a lot easier.
Before you run the Add-on, hide any columns that you don’t want to appear on the Google Document (i.e. questions that you don’t want to see). Next, alphabetize the rows according to student name. Choose the down arrow on the column you want to alphabetize and select “sort sheet A-Z.” This will help you tremendously when you generate your Google Doc because you will not be searching randomly for student responses. On that note, I always include instructions on my Google Form name response question that students should put last name first so that when I alphabetize they are in the same order as my grade book – saves time later.
You will now see Save As Doc installed in your Add-ons dropdown menu. Click “start” and type a memorable title in “Save Doc As” field.
If you want the headings from each column to appear (i.e. the questions from your Google Form) click “Include Headings.”
I prefer to select “Add a pagebreak after each row.” Pagebreaks ensures that the Google Document will start a new page after each student’s responses have been recorded.
“Select all data” and click the “Save As Doc” button. Now, your Google Document will appear in your Google Drive. You can save it where you will be sure to find it later. Then, scroll through and grade/read with ease!

Use Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting in a Google Forms spreadsheet can help you to sort student responses. This can be helpful if you’re looking for a specific answer to a question.

Go to the format tab and choose “conditional formatting.”
Select the cell range you wish to format. To do this, click on the row number or column number.
For “format rules,” there are several options. I usually use “text contains” or “text is exactly.” Type in the word you want the answer to contain if you’ve chosen “text contains” or the specific answer if you’ve chosen “text is exactly.”
Choose a color. This will turn different cells different colors, depending on the conditions you’ve set-up. I use this to quickly sort students into high/medium/low for differentiation purposes!

I hope these tips have been helpful to you. Have you found any other add-ons that have been helpful? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Hey, if you loved this post, I want to be sure you’ve had the chance to grab a FREE copy of my guide to streamlined grading. I know how hard it is to do all the things as an English teacher, so I’m over the moon to be able to share with you some of my best strategies for reducing the grading overwhelm.

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