Google Classroom offers a few features you might want, like due dates and completion buttons. However, it was not designed well, and the fact that it's Google and the flaws still exist implies it might never be fixed. We won't discuss all the flaws of Google Classroom here. If you've found this site, you already know they exist. What I am going to do is show you a basic method of creating your own Google classrooms without using Google Classroom. I used this method for a couple of years before Classroom, and from what I can tell, it still might be just as good an alternative.
Step 1
Folders not Files
This takes reverse engineering, especially since Google-trained people in my school told us how to do it all wrong. Have students on day one create a FOLDER for your class and share it with you (the teacher). Once these are all created and shared with you, drag them (in YOUR drive) into a folder with the class name, like Third Hour. The student folders should start with their last names, like Johnson,emily3rdhour.
Why this is good
When students create files in this class folder, it gets shared with the teacher without an email. Teachers can also monitor updates live, which means no more students saying they're working on it only to have nothing done. Alpha order makes grading easier.
Step 2
Make Copies to Edit
Teachers share documents that students cannot edit. This way, teachers can use them again and again. Students then make a copy and save it to their class folders. They can edit the copy. Google Classroom kind of does this part for you and the student, but it does not really work any better.
Step 3
Ordered Links
I used Google Sites, but this can be done in any CMS or even in a Google Document. Put assignment #1 on top and work your way down. If it's a website, keep it more static, and if it's a Document, maybe add dates each semester. Or add the links to Google Calendar each time one is due (another thing Google Classroom does in a basic way).
Why this is good
In five years, ask me why. Or when students miss assignments or join the class late. Or want to study. Or when they say they've finished an assignment and haven't. And about a dozen reasons for simplicity's sake.
Step 4
Tables not Forms
Don't use forms to do anything on Google if you can help it. What a waste of time. The only way to grade multiple choice, after five years, is still Flubaroo...are you kidding? And submitting assignments this way is worse than Google Classroom. Forms has the cool factor when your tech people train with Google, but most of us can see right through them pretty quickly. If you can't find anything better (like Quizstar), forms work for grading multiple choice quizzes. They only work for analysis if you use A -D as answers (as in a scantron sheet), which means full answers on a separate quiz sheet rather than a single quiz document. Life is generally better without Forms.
However, using TABLES in Google Docs IS the way to create assignments. As in, write a question and then add a single table box for the answer. Once students see this as the method, it's easy, and it's easier to grade.
Step 5
Time
Give yourself more time to grade. Google does not help you in any way whatsoever, especially if you are a Language / ELA teacher. Classroom adds time on the frontend and still can't be used as the only gradebook. It also lacks a completion setting that allows you to give a grade for students at least reading an article. So it's not really even as good as decade-old Moodle, I guess. But I'm not saying to get moldy Moodle, either. Really, you'd be better off printing worksheets and using pens than playing around with this stuff if you want to save time (and that's from someone who has done it all).
In the end, using Google or Chromebooks (with protection) should be about students learning more AND teachers saving time, probably both. When it's neither, that's when we have to worry.
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