What are the Best Classroom Management Apps & Tools Recommended by Teachers?
What comes to mind when you hear ‘classroom management’?
Experienced teachers know that effectively managing a classroom is the essential prerequisite for successful instruction, collaboration, and assessment. A teacher can have the most engaging and well thought-out lesson plans at the start of a class, but if the teacher is lacking in one or more areas of classroom management, the lesson may fall apart.
The challenge for many teachers is that reactionary classroom management threatens to disrupt learning and take up class time. Having the right structural supports in place for learning management, time and task management, student engagement and formative assessment, behavior management, and communication with parents and students makes it easier for teacher to effectively manage their classroom while focusing primarily on instruction and feedback. Responsive classroom management anticipates students’ needs and potential challenges in the learning environment, and embeds structural supports throughout the lesson to keep students engaged, on-task, and aware of how their actions impact others.
Below, we’ve compiled 40 of the best classroom management apps and tools, recommended by experienced teachers. From digital assistance queues and peer grading to providing positive reinforcement and game-based formative assessments, we’re confident that readers will take away at least a handful of resources that can make teaching in their classrooms all the more simple. If we’ve left some awesome classroom management apps out of this list, let us know what we’re missing!
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The 40 Best Classroom Management Apps & Tools
Learning Management Apps & Tools
Manage a standards-based gradebook, utilize rubrics, maintain your calendar, communicate with parents and students, track attendance, plan lessons, and more.
Both a learning management system and curriculum library, Canvas makes it easy for teachers to organize online, hybrid, and in-person learning.
Teachers can create assignments, distribute them to students, and give real-time feedback and grading through Classkick’s tools. Additionally, teachers can view how students are progressing on any assignment.
Make learning visible with photos, videos, and other media by assisting students in curating their own digital portfolios.
One of the most popular LMS out there, Google Classroom is adored for how well it integrates with other useful apps. Post content, give feedback on assessments, and organize student groups in this all-in-one location for teaching and learning.
Teachers can build gamified courses that motivate students to pay attention to their own learning. Activities utilize concepts to increase student autonomy and give them freedom to take risks without the fear of their grade plummeting.
Create your own online courses and assignments and keep track of students’ progress using Moodle, one of the most popular LMS used in schools today.
The Schoology LMS comes equipped with more than 200 integrated tools and education platforms (like Google Drive, nearpod, Khan Academy, and Brain POP). Teachers can manage classes, design and distribute assignments, foster interactive discussions, perform assessments, and more.
With Seesaw, students use embedded multimodal tools to capture their learning in a digital portfolio — teachers can observe all aspects of student thinking and progress to better differentiate instruction.
Showbie helps teachers deliver feedback, and this tool has it all: a gradebook, parent sharing, collaboration, assignments, portfolios, voice notes, discussions, and annotation tools.
Time & Task Management Apps & Tools
No seconds, minutes or hours…just an hourglass that allows students to visualize time flow and make decisions regarding task management.
In a class with one teacher and 25+ students, it can be hard to keep track of who needs help. Students may also get frustrated and impatient when they wait for help that may never come. With ClassroomQ, students can join a queue for assistance, and the teacher can go to students in the order in which they ask for help.
This Google Chrome extension visualizes information about student work in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drawings assigned through Google Classroom, along with assignment deadlines from a course calendar, allowing teachers to get a view of student effort.
LanSchool classroom management software allows teachers to monitor student devices to keep them safe, shift focus to them by blanking screens and locking devices, view individual student monitors, and limit or disable access to specific websites during tests, quizzes, or other times.
This app rewards students for staying off of their phone during class with deals from local and online retailers. Teachers can also create privileges like extra credit points, dropping a lowest assignment score, tardy passes, and snacks passes.
Time Timer’s red disk disappears as the seconds go by. It’s easy to set a timer and start a visual countdown for classroom activities and transitions.
Student Engagement & Formative Assessment Apps & Tools
Teachers can map conversations of up to 40 participants with this tool that tracks types of contributions by groups or individuals.
This beloved formative assessment tool makes learning fun by offering timed quizzes set to upbeat music, and showing a leaderboard after each question round.
Enhance instructional content with interactive games, assessments, and lessons. Users can also discover ready-made graphic organizers and manipulatives.
Teachers can make any slides-based lessons interactive, add formative assessments and videos, and deepen engagement and understanding through gamification.
Start by browsing a library of thousands of conversation topics, host an online roundtable, encourage dialogue, and highlight exemplary responses with Parlay.
Students can participate meaningfully in peer feedback with this app, which allows teachers to require certain questions, randomly distribute anonymous writing to other students, and stipulate the length of feedback responses.
Plickers is a free, quick-response class polling app that scans and records student responses.
With Socrative, teachers can engage students with activity choices like quizzes, space races, exit tickets, multiple choice questions, true/false questions, or short answers. It’s also easy for educators to deliver quick feedback during assessment.
Teachers can select a student at random with just a tap! Additionally, the app can suggest question stems for learners at different levels and record how students respond during discussions. Questions can be based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, ELL skills, or degree of difficulty.
Behavior Management Apps & Tools
Bloomz allows teachers to share class updates, manage events, schedule conferences with parents, sign up volunteers, and talk with families (all without sharing their personal cell phone number).
With Class Charts, educators can create instant seating plans for differentiation or classroom management, view behavior analytics, and motivate students with behavior points.
Aligned with SEL, PBIS, MTSS and behavioral RTI initiatives, Classcraft allows teachers to reward students for doing the right thing, demonstrating growth mindset, staying on task, helping others, and more. Essentially, it helps motivate students to be invested in their own learning, as well as their classmates’ learning.
Over 95% of U.S. schools use this app to engage students and connect with families. Teachers encourage students to demonstrate specific skills or values, students can create digital portfolios, and parents can visualize their children’s learning.
Teachers can track standards-based practice on Marzano scales, record positive and negative behaviors (along with consequences), track student accommodations, and manage hall passes.
Class123 houses a timer, seating charts, random student selectors, a chalk board, and mechanisms for keeping records and giving positive motivation to students.
Educators can track and reinforce behaviors like teamwork, perseverance, disruption, and off-task in this mobile app — the family portal allows parents to get a detailed picture of their child’s daily activity.
Create and print automatic or differentiated seating charts in minutes.
Designed for students in grades K-5, the Great Behavior Game allows students to earn points for appropriate behavior, assigns time-outs, and freezes a student’s points while they are exhibiting undesirable or disruptive behavior.
This app displays a noise meter on a digital whiteboard to help students realize when they need to change volume levels.
Student & Parent Communication Apps & Tools
Educators can send messages, share class materials, and facilitate discussions with Edmodo, an app that also shares class updates with families.
Need to make a call to a student’s family member outside of school hours, but don’t want to share your personal cell phone number? Google Voice assigns you a special 9-digit phone number that you can use to make contact with families when it is most convenient for them and you.
Otus calls itself the best platform for standards-based grading, common assessments, and progress monitoring. It also organizes data so teachers can get a holistic picture of each student’s growth journey.
Teachers can manually add students, or students can sign up to join a class remind account. Here, teachers can send all-class or individual student messages to remind them for upcoming tests, quizzes, field trips, and important class/school events.
Document student behavior, identify behavior trends, and communicate with parents — this is a great tool to keep records and anecdotes of the spectrum of student behavior.