Making Magical Lesson Plans with Google Form and AutoCrat

Let's get straight into it. (The directions are for those familiar with creating a Google Form).

First you want to create a new Google Form. Change the title/filename to whatever you want. I named mine 6th Grade Math Lesson Plan Template.

Next you want to add questions to the form. I used the questions that my school requires for us to use when creating lesson plans.

• Date

• Content Standards (Dropdown in case I had to choose multiple standards.)

• Intended Outcomes for Unit (Dropdown in case I had to choose outcomes.)

• Updates and Assessments

• Weekly Overview 

• Weekly Activities (Dropdown in case I had to choose multiple activities.)

I included Assessments used. Feel free to use whatever you want. I also did this one as a dropdown in case I had to choose multiple assessments. 

Once your formed is completed, go to Preview to see if everything looks the way you want it to look. I would also suggest that you actually fill it out and submit it to have some data to use for our next steps. 

CHECK MINE SAMPLE: SAMPLE GOOGLE FORM LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE

Next: Go back to the Google Form and click Responses. Click the green spreadsheet button to create a spreadsheet. A window will pop up, choose to create a new spreadsheet. Create a file name.

When the new spreadsheet opens, you will see the responses you created from our previous step. Whenever you do your responses, they will automatically be created in this spreadsheet. 

Now that you have the spreadsheet ready, it is time for us to create the document that will be your Lesson Plan. For this part you will go back to your Google Drive and create a new document. You will design the document the way you want. This is mine.

You will use the << >> format. These are called data tags. This part is important because the data tags will tell the form where to put the data from Google Form. Once your data tags are completed, it times for the magic!!!!!!

Go back to your results spreadsheet and click the “Add-ons” menu. Then click “Get add-ons …”. Search for “autoCrat” and click the blue “+ FREE” button next to it. Make sure to grant it permissions to do see the magic.

When the autoCrat add-on is installed, you have two options (they both do the same thing):

• Click the red “New job” button on the window that pops up.

• Click Add-ons > autoCrat > Open. Then click “New job”.

Go through the step-by-step directions for autoCrat: (Thanks Ditch That Worksheet)

• Step 1: Give it a name … something poetic like “lesson plan template”. Then click “Next.”

• Step 2: Choose that document we created earlier as your template. Click the blue “From Drive” button and go find it. (Search for the file name if you have to.) Then click “Next.”

• Step 3: autoCrat will identify all of your data tags from before. (Isn’t it smart???) Click all of the little drop-down menus next to “maps to column” to choose where it should get its data. (See image.) Then click “Next.”

• Step 4: This is how autoCrat will name all of those lesson plan documents you want it to create. Two options here (see below). When done, click “Next”.

  • Make it the same every time (something like “My lesson plans”). BUT … you’ll have to go back and change them every time or you’ll end up with a million documents called “My lesson plans”. Not good.

  • Use your fancy data tags from your document to personalize each file name. My suggestion: use the data tags for the date and the class. Find the data tags by clicking the tall light-blue arrow bar on the left. It might look something like this: Lesson plans for <<Date>> for <<Class/period>> (Much better idea, right?)

• Step 5: Choose a folder where your sparkly new lesson plan documents will go. Click “+ Choose Folder” and create a folder with a memorable name. “Lesson plans” will work! When you find it, just click it once and click the blue “Select” button. Then click “Next”.

• Step 6 (OPTIONAL): This step is for dropping new lesson plan documents into different folders depending on the condition. If you really want to do this, check out this part of the autoCrat help document. Just click “Next.”

• Step 7 (OPTIONAL): This step is also geekier than I’ll cover in this post. If you want to try it, check out this part of the autoCrat help document. Just click “Next.”

• Step 8 (OPTIONAL): This step lets you share docs automatically as soon as they’re created. If you’d like to do that, click “Yes” and work through the next steps. You’ll determine who to share with by including their email addresses in the email template at the bottom. Whether you choose to do this or not, click “Next” at the bottom to move on.

• Step 9: You’ll want to use this to create a new document every time you submit data through your lesson plan form. Click “Yes” for “Run on form trigger”. It will ask you to enable triggers … just say “Yes.” When you’re done, click “Save.”

• Once you’re done, you can hover over your new job you just created and click the “play” button (triangle) to create documents for any data you’ve already submitted through the Google Form.

Are you ready to see the magic?

Go to your Google Drive and check your Lesson Plan folder. You should see your new lesson plan document in it! 

Pretty magical, right?

Each time you complete your Lesson Plan Google Form, autocrat will create the lesson plan document for you. 

Now, every time you enter lesson plan data into your Google Form, autoCrat will create a document with all that information, sorted and presented neatly in that document you created.