5 Google Search Tips for Teachers
Everyone knows how to use Google, right? Yes, but (ooh, these two words set side by side), we’ve got some Google search tips to help make your lesson and unit planning easier.
We live in a world where keyword and SEO (search engine optimization) have been added to the dictionary as official parts of our language. If we were to go back to our teacher credential programs, we would say the most useful, okay one of the most useful, things they could do to help prepare new teachers is to enlighten us with all Google search tips and tricks that will allow us to effectively search for lesson and unit plan ideas. Far more helpful than the long-form lesson plan, right?
Anyone who has ever tried to supplement their curriculum’s offerings [read: that would be all of us] knows the frustration of searching desperately for what we need and pulling up nothing. Or, as is one of our pet peeves, pulling up nothing but student-made Quizlets and Prezis of dubious quality. Oh, Prezi, what did you do to rank so high in our search results for so long?
While we, of course, wish there was a magic strategy to make Google (or, more conveniently, Siri or Alexa) read our minds and display the perfect lesson with only a couple of keystrokes, in our years of evolving with the Internet, we have developed a few Google search tips and tricks to help make our search results look a little more promising.
Google Search Tips
Be specific in your search terms.
In our experience, if you’re not getting what you want, be more specific in your search terms. Instead of searching for Pride and Prejudice lesson plan or The Hate U Give unit plan, tack on “discussion questions,” “character development,” “graphic organizer,” or “culminating project.” The more specific you are about what you want to find, the more Google will help you sift through everything out there.
We realize this does mean you need to have a vague idea of what you might be looking for; if you don’t, not to worry, start with the broad X lesson plan or Y unit plan, take a look at the first few results and see what catches your interest. Once you start to see a few things you like, then you can start narrowing your search terms.
Try variations on a term.
We’re often looking for what we call “Guided Reading Questions,” and sometimes we get lucky and the search for Romeo and Juliet guided reading questions produces a result we like, but that’s pretty rarely the case. We call them “guided reading questions,” but that’s not a standard term; they also go by reading questions, comprehension questions, progress monitoring questions. Probably as many teachers there are, is the number of variations on these assignment names. So don’t forget to try out some variations. We find “discussion questions,” “study guide,” “study questions,” or “reading comprehension questions” often help us get what we need.
If you’re looking for a skills-based activity or an independent reading project and pulling up a lot of elementary-level results, try adding in “secondary” or “high school.” This can help filter out some of the results you don’t want and makes it easier to find materials that are more age-appropriate.
Check out Pinterest search results.
Teachers looking for resources must frequently head to Pinterest, so Google produces lots of Pinterest-based hits. Don’t ignore them! Because Pinterest is a visual search engine that draws people looking for a specific project or product (as opposed to the broader and sometimes more seemingly random Google), it’s a valuable tool for teachers. The results tend to be more practical, and you’ll screen out a lot of the more meant-for-students study tools and resources.
Learn resources you like and head directly to them.
We’ve had great success with Crash Course and TedED videos, so sometimes we’ll just go directly to those websites and see what they have. We know we’ll be happy with the quality and the content is school appropriate, so if they’ve got us covered, we can cut down our search time. Finding your favorite source does take a little practice, but when you find something that seems like a goldmine or you see a reference to something you may need in the future, do yourself a favor and bookmark it.
A warning about initial results.
Keep in mind that if you find something on the first page or two of your search results for “Pride and Prejudice lesson plans,” the chances are that your students can (and will) find it, too. The broader the search term, the more this is true. We’ve watched students try to solve a crossword puzzle we made ourselves by Googling “Julius Caesar crossword,” which, let’s be real, is probably where we started (but not where we ended . . . Mwahahaha)! This may not matter to you, but if you don’t want students to Google answers or tell you they “read that on Shmoop too,” you may want to proceed with caution.
This might be making you feel panicked. You really liked the 11th search result! If it’s a good resource, editing the questions can be a helpful workaround. In our experience, students are looking for the exact phrasing of your question (if only they used their powers for good).
Another Helpful Tip: When you find something you like, be sure to double-check the source. Sometimes what seems like an insightful commentary can become unusable when you discover the source is a website where students can purchase essays or a student project that was made publicly available.
We’re confident there are other Google search tips and tricks out there we haven’t thought of. Email us or find us on Instagram to tell us what we missed! Interested in learning more about using the Internet as a lesson planning tool? Be sure to check out the “How to Improve What You Find on the Internet” podcast and our YouTube video, “Lesson Planning When Google Turns Up Nothing.”
