Streamlining Specials in Schoology

One way classroom teachers can help students and parents navigate Schoology more easily is by including a folder of links to special area teachers’ courses within their own course. If done properly, students will never have to leave the classroom teacher’s Schoology course to visit another teacher’s course. Henry Ford Elementary streamlined the process for students to access special area courses and it seems to be working out quite well!

The steps taken by Henry Ford’s staff were pretty simple. First, administrators sent out a Google sheet to all classroom and special area teachers. (This will work for support staff, as well.) Down the first column is a list of classroom teachers and across the top are the specials classes. The specials teachers copied the appropriate link to their Schoology course and pasted it in the appropriate place on the spreadsheet. For your convenience, I have provided a link to the spreadsheet template below (special thanks to Mary Timpf for sharing!).

Next, classroom teachers added a folder into their Schoology course called Specials. Inside that folder, they added a link for each specials teacher (copied and pasted from the spreadsheet), and made sure to display the link in Schoology (see photo below).

Now, students click on the folder in their classroom teacher’s course, then click on their specials teacher’s link, and their course will open up right inside of Schoology, without ever leaving their original course!

Here are the steps in Schoology:

1. In Schoology, click Add Materials > Add File/Link/External Tool.
2. Click Link.
3. Copy the appropriate special area teacher’s link from the spreadsheet, then paste it in the Link/URL box.
4. Give the link a title, which should have the special area teacher’s name and class (i.e. Mr. Beydoun’s Art Class).
5. Click Add.

Repeat the steps for each specials teacher’s class. This can also be done for Interventionists, special education staff, and anyone else who may need to meet with students outside of your class time. As an added bit of help, some teachers have included a schedule of days and times students are supposed to meet with their specials teachers.

Have another way to streamline specials courses? Share it with us, we’d love to hear!