Google Forms: Anecdotal Student Notes

I have tried all kinds of ways to take anecdotal notes.  Spiral notebooks, 3x5 cards, Evernote, Google Docs with a table of contents, you name it, I’ve tried it.  Nothing was just what I was looking for.  I wanted something easily accessible, private while I’m taking notes, organized, and not something that someone can find lying around my desk.  Then it dawned on me - Google Forms!

I made a form that I use over and over again to take notes on students and it puts all the information into a sortable, searchable spreadsheet in my Drive.  I can sort by date, subject, or student.  Perfect!

I always mark the option to provide a link to submit another response, so after I submit, I’m ready for the next student.

What to ask?

• Student Name - you can always enter your students in ahead of time so you just pick them from a dropdown menu.  Saves time!
• Date
• Subject
• Leave a field for comments

If you want to get fancy - you can use an add-on for Google Sheets called rowCall to make a separate tab in your spreadsheet for each child.  This means you will have every note for Tommy in one tab, every note for Suzie in another tab, etc.  Try it - it's amazing!  If you do this, I recommend using a dropdown for student names instead of typing them in each time to make sure you always put their names in the same way.  This will allow rowCall to do its magic correctly each time.

Here is what my form looks like:

If you'd like a copy of this form so you can make it your own - click here.