How teachers and students helped bring Google Classroom to life

In recent years, Classroom has evolved even further with AI-powered features for more personalized learning and impactful teaching. In 2022, the team introduced practice sets, a tool that enables teachers to create interactive assignments from existing content or from scratch, and provides real-time guidance and suggested resources as students work through their questions. "The kids were calling it 'Google magic' because of the hints, pop-ups and instant feedback they received," a teacher piloting the feature said.

Last November, the team piloted a feature that provides AI-suggested questions for certain science-related YouTube videos, reducing the time it takes to create interactive video activities. And in August, they announced student groups, allowing teachers to build tailored content for clusters of students within their classes.

"In the beginning, our mantra was 'more teaching, less tech-ing,' which is still true but in a very different sense," says Classroom Group Product Manager Brit Mennuti. "Back then, it was really about automating administrative tasks so that teachers can get back to the things a human teacher can do, like developing relationships with students and intervening when they need support. We're now at the point with generative AI where we're not just saving teachers time, but amplifying the impact they can have."

The Classroom team continues to experiment with ways AI can help increase that impact. They recently invited schools to sign up to pilot new capabilities informed by LearnLM, a family of models fine-tuned for learning, based on Gemini, and grounded in educational research.

"We're in yet another paradigm shift in education," Jennifer says. "With these AI features, I'm excited to see how teachers and students will push the boundaries of what's possible with Classroom, just like those students in Brooklyn a decade ago redefined learning in Classroom with their mobile phones."