Canned Responses in Gmail for Feedback

In education, quick, meaningful feedback is so important. Whether you're a teacher giving feedback to students, admin to teachers, coaches to teachers and or district admin to site admin, automating and expediting the process is a good idea. The quicker someone receives meaningful feedback, the quicker it can be acted upon and work can continue to iterate. As an edtech integration coach the past five years, my feedback tools have varied and evolved. I've used Google Forms with Formmule to send quick emails to teachers during walk-throughs. I also use custom sticky notes (click here for a template) to leave quick written, personalized feedback. When doing longer observations, Canned Responses in Gmail have been my go-to.

Recently, as I began working systematically with entire departments on implementation of EduProtocols. I've developed a cycle of introducing a protocol in their PLC and scheduling in class demos with quick turnarounds for observation and feedback. During the observations, I use Canned Responses in Gmail. Though not completely different using a Google Form with Formmule, it has  advantages. Using a Form is more of one sized fits all approach to providing feedback. When working with different departments on different EduProtocols, creating a canned response for each department or protocol makes the feedback more easily personalized.

Take a look below to see how to create a Canned Response in Gmail.

Start by typing a subject and, in the body, type areas for you to fill in. From there, click the three dots in bottom right corner and select (depending on your domain) Template or Canned Responses. Next, select save draft as template. You can then close the message window. When you want to use the Canned Response, compose a new email, go back to the three dots, click Template or Canned Response and select the name of the template you created.