google assignment notebook

for Education

• Google Classroom
• Google Workspace Admin
• Google Cloud

Easily distribute, analyze, and grade student work with Assignments for your LMS

Assignments is an application for your learning management system (LMS). It helps educators save time grading and guides students to turn in their best work with originality reports — all through the collaborative power of Google Workspace for Education.

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• Explore originality reports

Bring your favorite tools together within your LMS

Make Google Docs and Google Drive compatible with your LMS

Simplify assignment management with user-friendly Google Workspace productivity tools

Built with the latest Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standards for robust security and easy installation in your LMS

Save time distributing and grading classwork

Distribute personalized copies of Google Drive templates and worksheets to students

Grade consistently and transparently with rubrics integrated into student work

Add rich feedback faster using the customizable comment bank

Examine student work to ensure authenticity

Compare student work against hundreds of billions of web pages and over 40 million books with originality reports

Make student-to-student comparisons on your domain-owned repository of past submissions when you sign up for the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Google Workspace for Education Plus

Allow students to scan their own work for recommended citations up to three times

Trust in high security standards

Protect student privacy — data is owned and managed solely by you and your students

Provide an ad-free experience for all your users

Compatible with LTI version 1.1 or higher and meets rigorous compliance standards

Product demos

Experience google workspace for education in action. explore premium features in detail via step-by-step demos to get a feel for how they work in the classroom..

“Assignments enable faculty to save time on the mundane parts of grading and...spend more time on providing more personalized and relevant feedback to students.” Benjamin Hommerding , Technology Innovationist, St. Norbert College

Classroom users get the best of Assignments built-in

Find all of the same features of Assignments in your existing Classroom environment

• Learn more about Classroom

Explore resources to get up and running

Discover helpful resources to get up to speed on using Assignments and find answers to commonly asked questions.

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Get a quick overview of Assignments to help Educators learn how they can use it in their classrooms.

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Get started guide

Start using Assignments in your courses with this step-by-step guide for instructors.

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Teacher Center Assignments resources

Find educator tools and resources to get started with Assignments.

• Visit Teacher Center

How to use Assignments within your LMS

Watch this brief video on how Educators can use Assignments.

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Turn on Assignments in your LMS

Contact your institution’s administrator to turn on Assignments within your LMS.

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• Google Classroom
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Getting started with Assignments

Learn how to use Assignments to easily distribute, analyze, and grade student work – all while using the collaborative power of Google Workspace.

Find tips and tricks from teachers like you

Get the most out of Assignments with these simple tips from fellow teachers and educators.

Discover training lessons and related resources to accelerate your learning

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Dive into Assignments

Already have Google Workspace for Education? Sign in to Assignments to explore the features and capabilities.

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Google Assignments

Save time grading. Provide feedback that counts. Quickly and securely create, analyze, and grade coursework, while helping students learn more effectively.

• Create, grade, and analyze coursework directly within Canvas
• Let students access Assignments and submit work via Canvas
• Automatically sync grades to your Canvas gradebook

Create and share coursework with ease

Generate new assignments using Docs and Drive, and provide each student with a unique copy. Using the Canvas integration with Google Assignments the sharing and ownership of these documents happens automatically.

Help students develop authentic work

Generate originality reports using the power of Search. Assignments scans student submissions for matching text on the web, right in your grading interface. And students can run their own reports before submitting to help cite and strengthen their work.

Simplify grading and provide rich feedback - all in one place

Pull up frequently used feedback from your comment bank when engaging students with in-line edits and two-way commenting. You can also apply rubrics to keep grading transparent. Assignments makes it easy and secure to accept Docs and Drive files by automatically adjusting permissions to prevent student editing during grading.

Provide students with tools that support active learning

Google Assignments provides capabilities that can help students improve their writing skills, work more efficiently and turn in stronger assignments.

• Originality reports
• Always-visible word count
• Spellcheck and grammar suggestions
• Two-way commenting
• Version Control

Create assignments in Canvas with Google Assignments

• Go to your Canvas course.
• Click Assignments, create an assignment.
• Enter a name and description for your assignment.
• (Optional) Enter a point value and due date.
• Under Submission Type , select External Tool click Find .
• Select Google Assignments .
• Deselect Load This Tool In A New Tab .
• Click Publish .

Note : If this is the first time you're using Google Assignments in Canvas, you must link your Canvas account to your Google Account.

Linking Your Google Assignments Account with Your Canvas Account

The first time you use Google Assignments, you sign in with your F&M Google Account. Linking your account allows Google Assignments to create a folder in your Google Drive for student assignments and to send grades to Canvas.

You only have to link your Google Account once per course, while creating your first assignment. Students can't submit classwork until this step is completed.

Note : In Google Assignments, you can link only to your F&M Google account.

• Open the first assignment you created for the course.
• Click Sign In and sign in to your F&M Google account.
• To link Canvas to your Google Account, click Link Account .
• To link the course to your Google Account, click Link Account .
• If you're signed in to multiple accounts and need to switch between Google Accounts, click Switch Account , or sign in to your F&M Google account.

Attach template files to an assignment

You can attach files to as assignment so each student receives an individual copy to edit and turn in.

Example attachments include:

• Google Docs or Microsoft Word files for paper prompts
• PDFs for worksheets
• Sheets for data analysis
• Slides for presentations
• Sites for digital portfolios or final project templates
• Colab notebooks for programming exercises
• In Canvas, select your course and create an assignment.
• Click Google Assignments , which will open a popup window
• If this is your first time using Google Assignments in the course, confirm your Google Account.
• Select Create assignment .
• Under Title , enter a name for the assignment.
• Under Files , click Attach and select files.
• Click Create . The Assignments window will close.
• Click Select to finish selecting the external tool.

Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment

In Google Assignments, you can create, reuse, view, and grade rubrics for individual assignments. You can give feedback with scored or unscored rubrics. If you use scored rubrics, students see their score when you return their work.

• Within your Canvas course assignment...→ click Open in Assignments.
• Next to No rubric , click Add rubric Create rubric .
• To turn off scoring for the rubric, next to Use scoring , click Turn off .
• (Optional) If you turned on scoring, next to Sort the order of points by , select how to view the criteria, either descending or ascending in value.
• Note : You can enter levels in any order, and rubrics automatically sorts the levels by value.
• Under Criterion , enter your first criterion. For example, enter Grammar , Teamwork , or Citations .
• (Optional) To add a criterion description, click More Add criterion description enter the description.
• Under Points , enter the number of points awarded for the performance level.
• Note : The rubric's total score automatically updates as you add points.
• Under Level , enter a level of performance. For example, enter Excellent , Full mastery , or Level B .
• Under Description , enter the performance expectations.
• To add another performance level to the criterion, click Add a level and repeat steps 8–9.
• To add a blank criterion, in the bottom-left corner, click Add a criterion and repeat steps 6–11.
• To copy a criterion, in the bottom-right corner, click Duplicate criterion and repeat steps 6–11.
• To rearrange criteria, in a criterion’s box, click More select Move criterion up or Move criterion down .
• To save your rubric, in the bottom-right corner, click Save .

→ More information on Rubrics.

Turn on Originality reports

You and your students can check work for unoriginal content with Originality reports. This tool uses Google Search to compare students' Google Docs against billions of webpages and millions of books. Originality reports then displays links to the detected webpages and flags uncited text.

The reports can:

• Help students identify unintentional plagiarism and uncited content before submitting assignments.
• Help instructors see where students used source material and if they properly documented their sources.

When you turn on Originality reports for an assignment, students can run 3 reports per assignment before submitting their work. You can’t see the reports students run. After students run their last report, they can continue to improve their work before submitting the assignment.

After the student turns in their work, Google Assignments automatically runs an originality report for each submitted Docs file, visible only to you. If a student unsubmits and resubmits an assignment, Assignments runs another originality report.

Originality reports are viewable for 45 days. After that, you can run another report by opening the student's submission from within the Assignments grading tool.

To learn how an originality report analyzes work, go to How an originality report is created .

Note : The Originality report is available only for Google Docs in English. If a student uploads a Microsoft Word file, Google Assignments and automatically convert it to a Google Doc and a copy of the original Word file is included in the submission.

Turn on Originality reports within Canvas

• Create/edit an assignment in Canvas → click Open in Assignments .
• Next to Originality reports , check the box.

Open an Originality report

• Click the course.
• Click the assignment → Open in Assignments → the student's document.
• The file opens in the grading tool.
• To view the report, under Files , click # of flagged passages .

How instructors and students share files

When you create an assignment, you can attach files such as Google Docs, PDFs, or other materials for students to work on.

For example, you might include:

• A Docs essay assignment
• A PDF worksheet
• A reference image

After you publish the assignment, students work on the files and can add their own materials. When students turn in their work, you can review and grade their work and files.

As you exchange files with students, Google Assignments automatically transfers ownership and updates file permissions to View only or Edit access. When you receive student work, edit access transfers to you. When you return the work, edit access transfers to the student.

Workflow in Action

• Result : Copies of attached files are made for each student. File ownership transfers to the student. Instructors can't view or edit the files.
• Result : File ownership temporarily transfers to the instructor. Student can’t edit or view their files.
• Result : File ownership transfers back to the student, and the student's editing rights are restored.
• Optional : Student can edit and resubmit assignment.

→ More information on sharing files in Google Assignments

Student Google Assignment Resources

• Help Center
• Assignments
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• Submit feedback

Attach template files to an assignment

You can attach files to an assignment so each student receives an individual copy to edit and turn in. Example attachments include:

• Google Docs or Microsoft ® Word ® files for paper prompts
• PDFs for worksheets
• Google Sheets for data analysis
• Google Slides for presentations
• Google Sites for digital portfolios or final project templates
• Colab notebooks for programming exercises

Students can unsubmit work before an assignment’s due date. After the due date, students can’t unsubmit their work. If the assignment doesn’t have a due date, students can unsubmit their work at any time.

Note : To use Assignments, you need a learning management system (LMS) and a Google Workspace for Education account. The account usually looks like [email protected]. If Assignments isn’t installed in your LMS, ask your admin to go to Get Started with Assignments .

Attach files in Assignments with Canvas

The following instructions are for Canvas users. 

• In Canvas, select your course and create an assignment.

• Click Google Assignments , which will open a popup window.
• If this is your first time using Assignments in the course, confirm your Google Account.
• Select Create assignment .
• Under Title , enter a name for the assignment.
• Under Files , click Attach and select files.
• Click Create . The Assignments window closes.
• Click Select to finish selecting the external tool.

Attach files in Assignments with Schoology

The following instructions are for Schoology users. 

• In Schoology, select your course and open the Materials list.
• Enter a title for the assignment.
• (Optional) Adjust points and due date, add a rubric, or turn on originality reports for the assignment.
• Click Create .  The Assignments window closes.
• Open the assignment.

Need more help?

Try these next steps:.

Google Colaboratory

Colab is a hosted Jupyter Notebook service that requires no setup to use and provides free access to computing resources, including GPUs and TPUs. Colab is especially well suited to machine learning, data science, and education.

News and Guidance

Features, updates, and best practices

Browse Notebooks

Check out our catalog of sample notebooks illustrating the power and flexiblity of Colab.

Track changes

Read about product updates, feature additions, bug fixes and other release details.

Dive deeper

Check out these resources to learn more about Colab and its ever-expanding ecosystem.

Building responsible AI for everyone

We’re working to develop artificial intelligence responsibly in order to benefit people and society.

• Our Mission

Digital Science Notebooks Showcase Student Learning

Interactive notebooks that hold bell work, lab data, and class notes serve as a portfolio of learning—for the benefit of both students and their teacher.

As I reflect on what has undoubtedly been my most difficult year of teaching, I find myself evaluating strategies I relied on to make online learning productive for my students. Digital notebooks rise to the top: When I pivoted from requiring traditional bound notebooks from my biology students to requiring digital ones, all of us became more creative and learning was enhanced.

The Biology Interactive Learning Log

For over a decade pre-Covid, I had my students maintain what we called a BILL (Biology Interactive Learning Log) in a thick composition notebook, filled with daily bell work (e.g., formative questions about the previous day’s homework), course notes, study guides, and lab data from our classwork. For all of my students, the BILL was a collection of the work they’d done over the course of a unit of study that showed their learning growth, and for many, it was a great source of pride. Some even took their BILL with them to college to support the next phase in their biology coursework.

I also used each student’s BILL for formative assessment. Just about every day, as students worked through the activities in the notebook, I would walk around and check their work and provide oral or written feedback on what they were doing. This helped me to catch any misconceptions or misunderstandings immediately; I could have a conversation with struggling students in the moment.

Adapting for Online Learning

When the 2020–21 academic year began, over 80 percent of my students were learning remotely. The analog BILL model I’d relied on for so many years simply wasn’t practical. But without the BILL, my students weren’t able to collect evidence of their learning, and I didn’t have the record I most needed to do formative assessments.

BILLs had to go digital. I turned to free Google Slide templates I found at SlidesMania that replicated notebooks. The results? Students appreciated being able to include more types of evidence of learning. Video clips such as Hank Green’s “ Crash Course ” videos, diagrams from the BioNinja website, and models they found online such as the model of human hemoglobin at the Protein Data Bank  all made their way into the students’ digital notebooks.

They appreciated the flexibility and freedom that digital notebooks gave them—they could be more creative and make more connections among concepts. When I asked students what they liked about digital notebooks, they mentioned that they could truly personalize their online notebooks by easily adding in resources they had selected rather than adapting resources I had provided for them. Some students appreciated that their digital notebooks were portable and could easily be taken with them to be used in future biology classes. All in all, digital notebooks gave them more agency, which is always a good thing when it comes to engagement.

Also, BILLs became truly interactive. Before, I had relied heavily on activities that were done on paper, but once BILLs were digital, students could more easily collaborate with one another to complete a task, like a guided inquiry activity. They’d do them in pairs or groups, and even as a group during synchronous instruction. BILLs helped my students take more control over their learning, but they also helped me be more creative. My students enjoyed being able to work together in this way, as it allowed them to learn more easily from their peers and allowed them to bounce ideas off of one another.

Finally, I could integrate the notebook template into assignments in Canvas through the Google Assignments LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability), which allows me to distribute a copy of an assignment via Google Docs/Slides so that students can submit that work back to me in Google Assignments. Because my whole district uses Canvas as its LMS, we didn’t even need Google Classroom. Also, with the LTI, I could provide my students with continuous feedback, since I had unlimited, ongoing access to their files, rather than having to coordinate due dates for the notebooks. Because the digital notebooks paired so well with the learning management system, my instruction became far more efficient.

I know that going forward there will be some students who will prefer paper notebooks, and certainly they’ll have their place in terms of evidence of learning. But for assessment, I think digital notebooks will continue to be a mainstay in my classroom. 

Introducing NotebookLM

Jul 12, 2023

An AI-first notebook, grounded in your own documents, designed to help you gain insights faster.

At Google I/O this year we introduced a number of AI-first experiments in development, including Project Tailwind — a new kind of notebook designed to help people learn faster.

Today we’re beginning to roll out Project Tailwind with its new name: NotebookLM , an experimental offering from Google Labs. It’s our endeavor to reimagine what notetaking software might look like if you designed it from scratch knowing that you would have a powerful language model at its core: hence the LM. It will be immediately available to a small group of users in the U.S. as we continue to refine the product and make it more helpful.

It’s hard to go from information to insight

We know people are struggling with the rapid growth of information — it's everywhere and it’s overwhelming. As we've been talking with students, professors and knowledge workers, one of the biggest challenges is synthesizing facts and ideas from multiple sources. You often have the sources you want, but it's time consuming to make the connections.

We started to explore what we could build that would help people make connections faster in the midst of all this data, especially using sources they care most about.

NotebookLM automatically generates a document guide to help you get a better understanding of the material

NotebookLM: an AI notebook for everyone

NotebookLM is an experimental product designed to use the power and promise of language models paired with your existing content to gain critical insights, faster. Think of it as a virtual research assistant that can summarize facts, explain complex ideas, and brainstorm new connections — all based on the sources you select.

A key difference between NotebookLM and traditional AI chatbots is that NotebookLM lets you “ground” the language model in your notes and sources. Source-grounding effectively creates a personalized AI that’s versed in the information relevant to you. Starting today, you can ground NotebookLM in specific Google Docs that you choose, and we’ll be adding additional formats soon.

Once you’ve selected your Google Docs, you can do three things:

• Get a summary: When you first add a Google Doc into NotebookLM, it will automatically generate a summary, along with key topics and questions to ask so you get a better understanding of the material.
• A medical student could upload a scientific article about neuroscience and tell NotebookLM to “create a glossary of key terms related to dopamine”
• An author working on a biography could upload research notes and ask a question like: “Summarize all the times Houdini and Conan Doyle interacted.”
• A content creator could upload their ideas for new videos and ask: “Generate a script for a short video on this topic.”
• Or an entrepreneur raising money could upload their pitch and ask: “What questions would potential investors ask?”

While NotebookLM’s source-grounding does seem to reduce the risk of model “hallucinations,” it’s always important to fact-check the AI’s responses against your original source material. When you're drawing on multiple sources, we make that fact-checking easy by accompanying each response with citations, showing you the most relevant original quotes from your sources.

Learning and building, together

NotebookLM is an experimental product, built by a small team in Google Labs .

Our team has two goals in mind:

• Build a product with our users : We’ll be talking to people and communities often to learn about what’s working well and where the gaps are, with the intent of making NotebookLM a truly useful product.
• Roll out this technology responsibly : Getting feedback directly from you is a critical part of developing AI responsibly . We will also use a strict set of safety criteria in alignment with our AI Principles and implement appropriate safeguards before expanding to more users and launching new functionality.

We’ve built NotebookLM such that the model only has access to the source material that you’ve chosen to upload, and your files and dialogue with the AI are not visible to other users. We do not use any of the data collected to train new AI models.

We hope that in these early days you give NotebookLM a shot. Sign up to the waitlist to try it out!

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5 Free Assignment Tracking Templates for Google Sheets

Posted on Last updated: November 18, 2023

It’s that time of year again—assignments are piling up and it feels impossible to stay on top of everything. As a student, keeping track of all your assignments, due dates, and grades can be overwhelmingly stressful. That’s why using a Google Sheet as an assignment tracker can be a total game-changer.

With customizable assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets, you can easily create a centralized place to organize all your academic responsibilities. The best part? These templates are completely free. 

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of using assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets and provide links to some excellent templates that any student can use to get organized and take control of their workload.

The Benefits of Using Assignment Tracking Templates for Google Sheets

Assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets offer several advantages that can help students stay on top of their work. Here are some of the key benefits:

• Centralized tracking: Rather than having assignments scattered across syllabi, emails, and other documents, an assignment tracking spreadsheet consolidates everything in one place. By leveraging assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets, you can kiss goodbye to hunting for due dates or double-checking requirements.
• Customizable organization: Students can add or remove columns in the template to fit their needs. Thanks to this, they can effectively track due dates, point values, grades, and other helpful details. They can also color code by class or status for visual organization.
• Easy access: Google Sheets are accessible from any device with an internet connection. With this, you can easily view, update, or add assignments whether you are on your laptop, phone, or tablet.
• Shareable with others: For group assignments or projects, assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets make collaboration seamless as you can share the sheet with a study group or entire class to coordinate.
• Helps prioritization: Sort assignments by due date or point value to always know what needs your attention first. With prioritization added to assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets, you can stay on top of bigger projects and assignments.
• Reduces stress: There’s no better feeling than looking at your assignment tracker and knowing everything is organized and under control. Saves time spent scrambling, too.

Picking the Perfect Assignment Tracking Templates Google Sheets

When choosing assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets, you’ll want one with specific fields and features that make it easy to stay on top of your work. Here’s what to look for in a homework organizer template:

• Assignment Details: A column for writing down each assignment’s name, instructions, and notes will help you remember exactly what you need to do.
• Due Dates: Columns for listing the due dates of assignments, tests, and projects allow you to see what’s coming up and schedule your time wisely.
• Status Tracker: A place to mark assignments as “Not Started,” “In Progress,” or “Completed” lets you check on what still needs your attention.
• Subject and Type: Categories or labels for sorting assignments by subject or type (essay, presentation, etc) keep your spreadsheet tidy.
• Big Picture View: Some templates include a calendar view or semester schedule to help you plan assignments week-by-week or month-by-month.

The right spreadsheet has the fields you need to fully describe your homework and organize it in a way that works for you. With the perfect template, staying on top of assignments is easy

Top Assignment Tracking Templates

Now that you know the benefits and what to look for in an assignment spreadsheet, we have compiled a list of top assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets that will help you seamlessly track your assignments. 

And guess what? You don’t need robust experience with Google Sheets to maximize these templates, as they are easy to use.

Convenient Homework Planner Template

The Convenient Homework Planner Template is one of the most comprehensive and user-friendly assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets. It’s an excellent fit for students seeking an all-in-one solution to organize their work.

This template includes separate tabs for an overview calendar, assignment list, and weekly schedule. The calendar view lets you see all assignments, tests, and projects for the month at a glance. You can quickly identify busy weeks and plan accordingly.

On the assignment list tab, you can enter details like the assignment name, class, due date, and status.

The weekly schedule tab provides a simple agenda-style layout to record daily assignments, activities, and reminders. This helps you allocate time and schedule focused work sessions for tasks.

Key Features

• Monthly calendar view for big-picture planning
• Assignment list with details like class, due date, and status
• Weekly schedule with time slots to map out days
• Due date alerts to never miss a deadline

With its intuitive layout, useful visual features, and thorough assignment tracking, the Convenient Homework Planner has all you need to master organization and time management as a student. By leveraging this template, you’ll spend less time shuffling papers and focusing more on your academics. 

Ready to explore this assignment tracking template? Click the link below to get started. 

The Homework Hero Template

The Homework Hero is an excellent assignment-tracking template tailored to help students conquer their academic workload. This easy-to-use Google Sheet template has dedicated sections to log critical details for each class.

The Subject Overview area allows you to record the teacher’s name, subject, department, and timeline for each course. This provides helpful context and reminds you of important class details.

The main homework tracking area includes columns for each day of the week. Here, you can enter the specific assignments, readings, and tasks to be completed for every class on a given day. No more guessing what work needs to get done.

At the extreme end of this sheet is a section for additional notes. Use this to jot down reminders about upcoming projects, tests, or other priorities.

Key features

• Subject Overview section for every class
• Columns to record daily homework tasks
• Extra space for notes and reminders
• An intuitive layout to map out the weekly workload
• Easy to customize with additional subjects

The Homework Hero assignment tracking template empowers students to feel in control of their assignments. No more frantic scrambling each day to figure out what’s due. With this template, you can approach schoolwork with confidence.

Click the link below to get started with this template. 

The A+ Student Planner Template

The A+ Student Planner is the perfect template for students seeking an organized system to manage assignments across all their courses. This Google Sheet template has useful sections to input key details for flawless homework tracking.

The Weekly Overview calendar makes it easy to see your full workload at a glance from Sunday to Saturday. You can note assignments, projects, tests, and other school events in the daily boxes.

The Class Information section contains columns to list your class, teacher, room number, and times. This ensures you have all the essential details in one place for each course.

The main Assignment Tracking area provides space to log the name, description, due date, and status of each homework task, project, exam, or paper. No more scrambling to remember what needs to get done.

• Weekly calendar view to map out school events and tasks
• Class information organizer for easy reference
• Robust assignment tracking with all critical details
• An intuitive layout to input assignments across courses
• Great for visual learners

With a structured format and helpful organization tools, The A+ Student Planner provides next-level assignment tracking to ensure academic success. Staying on top of homework has never been easier.

Ready to get started with this assignment tracking template? Access it for free via this link below. 

The Complete Student Organizer Template

The Complete Student Organizer is an excellent minimalist assignment tracking template for focused homework management.

This straightforward Google Sheets assignment template includes columns for the date, total time needed, assignment details, and status. By paring down to just the essentials, it provides a simple system to stay on top of homework.

To use this template, just fill in the date and time required as you get assigned new homework. In the assignment details column, outline what needs to be done. Finally, mark the status as you work through tasks.

• Streamlined columns for date, time, assignment, and status
• Minimalist layout focused only on crucial details
• Easy input to quickly log assignments
• Track time estimates required for assignments
• Update status as you progress through homework

The Complete Student Organizer is the perfect template for students who want a fuss-free way to track their homework. The simplicity of the grid-style layout makes it easy to use without extra complexity. Stay focused and organized with this efficient assignment tracking sheet.

You can get access to this template by visiting the link below. 

Assignment Slayer: The Ultimate Planner Template

Assignment Slayer is the supreme template for tackling schoolwork with military-level organizations. This comprehensive planner is ideal for students taking multiple classes and juggling a heavy workload.

The template includes separate tabs for each academic subject. Within each tab, you can log critical details, including the assignment name, description, status, due date, and associated readings or tasks. With this assignment tracking template, no assignment will fall through the cracks again.

Plus, it has additional columns that allow you to record scores and grades as they are received throughout the semester. This level of detail helps you better understand your standing in each class.

The Ultimate Planner also contains an overview dashboard with calendars for the month, week, and each day. With this, you can visually map out all upcoming assignments, tests, and projects in one view.

• Individual subject tabs for detailed tracking
• Robust assignment logging with name, description, status, due date, and more
• Columns to record scores and grades when received
• Monthly, weekly, and daily calendar dashboard
• Visual layout ideal for visual learners

Assignment Slayer equips students with military-level organization. Its comprehensive features give you command over academic responsibilities, resulting in stress-free homework mastery.

Want to explore how this template can make your job easy? Click the link below to access this free assignment tracking template now. 

Why You Should Take Advantage of These Assignment Tracking Templates For Google Sheets

The assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets we reviewed in today’s guide offer significant advantages that can make managing homework easier. Here are some of the top reasons students love using these digital planners:

Get Organized

The templates allow you to sort all your assignments neatly by subject, type, due date, and status. No more fumbling through papers to find the next thing you need to work on. Plus, the level of organization you get with these templates helps reduce stress.

Manage Time Better

Knowing exactly when assignments are due helps with planning out your week. You can see what needs to get done first and schedule time accordingly. No more last-minute assignment crunches.

Access Anywhere

You can view and update your homework template from any device as long as you have an internet connection. The templates are ready to go as soon as you make a copy – no setup is needed. Easy access keeps you on track.

With useful tools for organization, planning, and accessibility, these assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets make managing homework a total breeze. Boost your productivity and reduce academic stress today by using these templates for your assignment. 

Final Thoughts

Today’s guide explored some of the most accessible and useful assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets. These handy templates make it easy for students to stay organized and on top of their workload.

As a busy student, keeping track of your homework, projects, tests, and other responsibilities across all your courses can be daunting. This is where leveraging a spreadsheet template can make a huge difference in simplifying academic organization.

The assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets reviewed today offer intuitive layouts and customizable features to create a centralized homework hub tailored to your needs. 

Key benefits include:

• Inputting all assignments in one place for easy reference
• Tracking due dates, status, grades, and other key details
• Customizable columns, colors, and more to fit your study style
• Easy access to update assignments from any device
• Helps prioritize your time and tasks needing attention
• Reduces stress by helping you feel in control

By taking advantage of these assignment tracking templates for Google Sheets, you can reduce time spent shuffling papers and focus your energy where it matters – knocking out quality academic work. Make your life easier and get a digital organizational system in place. 

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Getting Started with Python and Google Colab

Using Google Colaboratory for this Course

The assignments for this course rely on Google Colaboratory (Colab) notebooks. Each homework assignment and exam will have portions that require you to write your own Python code, and this code needs to be submitted in a Colab notebook, through Canvas (the Learning Management System for the course). Furthermore, examples in subsequent lessons are given in Colab notebooks. For these reasons, it is important to become familiar with how Colab notebooks work. Both Google Colab and Canvas are accessed online, so there is nothing you need to install. However, you do need to access course materials and assignments with your PSU Google Workspace account, so that your submissions are properly attributed to you.

Preliminary Task: Make sure your PSU Google Workspace account is setup

• Go to https://google.psu.edu/
• Click Launch
• A Google sign-in screen should open. Login with your PSU email (e.g., [email protected] ), and associated password. You may need to perform two-factor authentication.
• If you encounter a new window asking what sort of account to use, select Organization G Suite Account
• Otherwise, you should be at your Google Account home page, in which case your account is successfully set up.

The following videos demonstrate:

• How to access Google Colab through Canvas (for Assignments, including their submission)
• How to create your own Google Colab notebooks from scratch (in Google Drive)
• The basics of adding code to a Colab notebook
• How to add Text Cells to a Colab notebook
• What to do if your Colab session freezes or stalls
• The basics of functions in Python

1. How to access Google Colab through Canvas

This first video starts in Canvas and walks through accessing and submitting a mock assignment that uses Colab. For all assignments and exams, a template Colab notebook is given to you for you to add your work. The video also points out how to attach supplemental work. For example, you may find it easier to write the solutions to textbook problems on paper and scan that work. The scan can be attached to your submission as a separate document alongside your Colab notebook. The video also shows how to view feedback and comments on your graded work.

Hi. In this video I'm going to show you how to access Colab for your homework assignments through Canvas and submit them. So, here we go. So, I'm starting here in Canvas under our course assignments, here. And just to illustrate how to access Google Colab, we're going to do this through this Python and Colab practice, which you all will have access to, and you can use to test out the environment. So, we'll click on that. Takes a minute for Google assignments to load, but once it does load, it gives this view. And we can see here if we scroll down that we have an ipynb file. This is a Python notebook, Google Colab Python notebook. And so, we can click on that to access the assignment. And so, here I can insert all my work to be submitted. There's other things that I can attach to the homework assignment too, and I'll show you that functionality in a minute here.

But just to illustrate this, so to start out, we've got just an empty, well semi-empty, Colab notebook here. And I've got some prompts to do the exercise. And in the next video, I'll show you how to add work to this, how to add cells containing your code, and text, and things like that. But for now, suppose we add everything. We're complete and we're happy with it. Then we just want to make sure to click save. It'll say all changes saved. We can close this out. Back in Google assignments, we'll still have this file here. And if we want to make sure that it's updated, we can click on it again to make sure it all works in there. But otherwise, if everything looks good, we can click open to attach and submit. We'll have the Python notebook file here.

We can add other files. So, for example, we can access files from Google Drive, or you can upload files. So, if you wanted to answer the textbook questions in a Word doc, you could upload that here. Furthermore, you could create, for example, a Google doc that contains your answers to questions. Some questions may have you sketch out a solution, say, for example, what our distribution might look like. And so, you could add your sketch here, either as a slide, or as a JPEG, or what have you. So, we might have some other files added on here. But at the very least, you do need to have your Python notebook with the coding work contained in it.

Once that's all good, you click submit. It says resubmit here because I've done this exercise already. And so, if you haven't submitted yet, it'll just be a submit button. You click on that, and you're done. And that'll automatically get pushed to Canvas where the instructors will grade it. It will give you feedback that will look like this. So, this is overall feedback on the whole assignment. I'm saying to myself, “Nice job, Dr. Morgan!” and then any rubric that's used will have the grades entered here. So, you'll see, you get full credit for this example. It'd be 0.5 out of 0.5, and 0.5 out of 0.5. Additionally, instructors can leave comments directly in your Python notebook file, and you'll see those on the right-hand side. Okay, so that covers it for accessing your Colab homework assignments and submitting.

2. How to create your own Google Colab notebooks from scratch

For general-purpose use, outside of this course, you may find it helpful to develop your own Colab notebooks. For example, you may find Python a convenient tool for solving some problems in another course. A Colab notebook is an easy way to develop this Python code and display your results. The video shows how easy it is to make your own, blank Colab notebook through Google Drive. The notebook, ending with the extension " .ipynb ", is treated just like any other file in Google Drive.

Hello. Today we're going to be talking about how you import data into Google Colab. We're going to talk about three different methods over the course of three videos, each of which is slightly different, but it'll give you good practice on how you can import data and then going forward you can always choose whichever one you feel the most comfortable with. So, without further ado, let's go ahead and get started. 

So, over here in Google Colab we have some text cells that describe these different methods. So, the first one I'm going to go over is mounting your Google Drive, the second is what I call the drag and drop, and the third is using a special upload files button. Before we get started, just a reminder of some key terminology. We'll be working with libraries, and we'll be working with functions within those libraries, and we're going to give libraries nicknames. And we do all of this through using the “from” import and “as” commands. 

All right, so in order to mount your Google Drive…  first, in order for this to work, you will need to have all of your data stored on your personal Google Drive, but once it's there you can always access it through this process. So, to start, we're going to import the drive library from the Google Colab meta library. So, we say from Google Colab, so this is our meta, or larger, library.  We're going to import a sub-library called Drive, and then in order to connect to our Google Drive, we use that library “drive” with the mount command, and we say, “slash content slash drive,” in quotes. And so, we click this, and it's going to go through a process. So, you need to say, “yes.” Connect. Use your Penn State email address. Say, “allow,” and it'll sort of go through its process. And occasionally, it takes longer or shorter, depending on the current resources available. But once it's done, you'll see this check mark. It'll tell you that we mounted it and if you click this file folder over here, we now see that there is a drive folder. And so, this is where we start step three.  We click the file folder icon. We click into the drive folder, and you navigate to wherever you stored your data. So, I'm going to use this lecture three retail sales. I'm going to click these three dots over here and copy the path, and then I'm going to close that. And that path is where we're going to actually access the data. Before we can do that though, we need to import another library. So, we say import pandas as PD. So, here the library is called pandas, and we're giving it a nickname PD so that when we use these commands, we don't need to repeatedly type pandas over and over again, we can just type PD, which makes things a little faster. And so then to actually read the file in, we give it a name. So, I'll just say “DF” for data frame and the command is, “PD dot read underscore CSV.” And then you open some quotes. And here is where you actually paste that file path that you copied earlier using step three. And sometimes this will be where you end. In this particular file, we need to add an additional argument. We say skip rows equals four. And we're doing this because this particular data set has four rows of metadata where it's telling us the units, and the source of the data, and their own internal processes they went through. And we don't need that, we want to start with row five, which is where the headers are. And this is something that you generally only learn by opening the actual file up in Excel to figure out how many rows you need to skip. But we can run that. We can see that it's run here.  If we open up the variable tab over here, this X and curly bracket, our data frame now shows up as  “DF” tells us the type of data, and the shape. We can also come over here, print the data frame by just typing the name and hitting run, and then we can see that we've got different variables, column headers, and different pieces of data within that data frame. So that is the first option that we have in order to upload data into Google Colab.

3. The basics of adding code to a Colab notebook

Now that you know how to access or create a Colab notebook, let's get to the fun stuff: coding ! The following video demonstrates how to add a "Code Cell" to the notebook. In this Code Cell, you will enter your Python code, and execute the code by pressing the "Play" button on the left side of the cell. It is important to bear in mind, especially as we progress to more complicated coding examples and assignments, that:

• The lines of Python code within a Code Cell are executed in order from top to bottom.
• The Code Cells are executed in the order in which you press the "Play" buttons (unless you do "Run All", which will run the cells in order from top to bottom in your notebook).

Hi. In this video, we're going to go over some basics of using Google Colab. In particular, inserting coding cells and running those computations. So, without further ado, here we go. So, we're in this practice document here. And to do my work, to insert the code, all I have to do is hover over one chunk of code and click, plus code. Okay, and so right now I've got a code cell. And I can enter any code I want here. The prompt for this exercise has me print out a statement, hello world. And so, I can type out my code to do that. In order to make this happen, we'll use the print function, which I will go over many functions in this course, so this is the first that you're introduced to. The print function will just print whatever argument we give it in the subsequent parentheses to the screen. And so, in quotes, I'll put “hello world!” exclamation point and that's my instruction for the computation here.

In order to make this happen, however, I need to click the play button. Pretty straightforward. Note that when I do this, it takes a minute because it's connecting up here to Google servers. When we get this green check mark it's connected, and it can execute. Here it's executed, and it's printed to the screen, hello world. Let's do something mathematical. So, if we want to insert a code cell down here, again hit code, also I can go to insert, and choose code cell up here. It'll be another way to do it. And so, the prompt here is to display the result of any mathematical operation. And so, if I just do two plus two, if I treat this like a regular calculator and just do two plus two, it'll print out four. Note that I don't have to use print here because it just gives the default output straight to this. However, if I assign this output to a variable by saying variable x for example, equals the result of this operation, it does not get displayed to screen unless I resort to my print command. Note that I do not use quotes here because this is not, I don't want to print literally x, I want to print what is contained in the object x, and it's 4. If I had used quotes, it would print literally x to the screen. You see the difference there? Furthermore, some other basic operations are subtraction, using the minus sign, you get zero, of course. Division, you get one, multiplication, four, and exponentiation we also get four.

One other thing to point out here in terms of basics is, we can see what variables we have stored by looking at our variable list here. So, we click on this variable list. It opens up a side menu, and we see we have variable x stored as an integer here. If I make another variable, when I say, y equals four times eight, I print y to the screen. Not only am I left with what's printed for x, but I also have the output from y here, and we get y as a new variable here. Note that when I click play here, it reruns this whole cell in order from top to bottom. So, it does x first, prints x, does y second, prints y. Furthermore, the order that we run the cells, the coding cells, is important. So, if I insert another coding cell here, and I do another operation, I say z is equal to x plus y, we print z. Note that this is going to require x and y to exist before I run the cell. So, I need to run this one first, so that x and y are contained in memory. That is, I have them in the variable list here, and then I can run the second cell that has z, working with x, and y. And now we have the z variable. So, pay attention to the order that you run cells in because if we restart runtime here, and wipe out what's in memory, if I now try to run this cell without having x and y, I get an error, “x is not defined.” And so, they know I'd have to pay attention and say, well, I should have run this one first, so that I have x and y, and now I can do z.

Okay, in subsequent videos we'll go over how to use the text cell and more about functions, but for now, that gives you a good basic overview of how to use the coding cells in Google Colab.

4. How to add Text Cells to a Colab notebook

Text Cells are very handy for providing an explanation of your work. Besides describing the steps you perform in your neighboring code cell, or interpreting the results of your code, Text Cells can also be used in this course to give your solutions to the textbook problems (if you prefer). You can even insert images into a Text Cell, which may be handy for some assignment problems which ask you to draw or sketch something. The following video gives a brief demonstration of some of these key features of Text Cells, and you are encouraged to explore other functionality of the Text Cells.

Hi. In this video, I want to explain how to insert a text cell, and how to edit some of the text there. So, if we're going back to this example, we've already done some mathematical operations here. I might want to explain what I've done. And so, I can hover over, and I can add a text cell by clicking this button. And anything I type here will give me some formatted text. And I have different formatting options here. I can change this, designated as a heading, bold, italicize, etc. These are all operations that you may already be familiar with from something like Microsoft Word. And so, I can explain what I've done. I can say, here I've calculated z as x plus y.

On the right-hand side, it gives me a preview of what I've typed. When I move away from this, it just gives me the result, so my explanatory text here. And I can always go back and edit this. Again, if I want to stylize it a bit and italicize some of these mathematical variables, I can do that. I can insert a hyperlink. Something that might be useful for some of the homework problems in this course would be to insert an image. So, if I click on, insert image, it gives me a dialog and I can navigate to anywhere. to upload an image here. This is just an example image. And it shows as a bunch of gobbledygook, not a whole lot, but if I again navigate away from the cell, let this scroll to the very top here. If I scroll back down, it does have just the image there. Okay?

I can always delete what I have by clicking this button here. I can add comments to it. I can also move cells around in the document by using these arrows. So, I can move this down below, here. But I don't really want to do that because this cell depends on x and y's, we've discussed before. And that's about it.

5. What to do if your Colab session freezes or stalls

Sometimes, you may unfortunately find that the code in your Colab notebook refuses to run or appears to be running but is taking an exceptionally long time. Often, this is due to an interruption of the connection to Google's servers (upon which your code is running). The following video shows you how to reset this connection, through a few different approaches you can try. In summary, we recommend trying these in order until your code is working again:

• Go to Runtime menu --> Restart Runtime (or Restart and Run All, if you want to also execute all your Code Cells in order)
• Save your Colab notebook and restart your browser (quit and open again)
• Save your Colab notebook and restart your computer
• Save a copy of your Colab notebook, as a separate file, and continue your work in that. Make sure to then attach this new notebook to your assignment submission.

Hi. In this video, I wanted to discuss troubleshooting some runtime errors that you may encounter, but hopefully, you don't. So, normally, you should see this green check mark indicating that you're safely connected to Google's server and everything's running smoothly. If you don't see that, usually just running a code cell will connect you to that runtime server. However, you may encounter the situation where either the execution of a code cell is taking a very long time, longer than you would expect it to. Maybe it's just chugging on indefinitely, or the whole thing freezes up. And you may still have this green check mark, or it may turn into some other symbol. But if you do, if things are still taking too long, or it seems frozen, something that you can try to do is go to runtime and restart runtime here. Okay, you’ll get this dialogue. You click, yes, and it just says restarting, initializing. It goes through this process of reconnecting again. Basically, you're just refreshing that connection to the services that Google provides.

Alternatively, you can do restart and run all. If you do that, then it will restart and run all the code cells in order from top down. So again, pay attention to the order that you have code, and how they integrate with one another. Until it gets to the bottom, and everything will be refreshed in your Colab session. Okay? If that does not help, hopefully, you've saved your work, or hopefully, you still can save your work. Click save, and you might just need to shut down your browser, reopen it, and continue on with your work in a new refreshed browser.

If that still doesn't help, another thing you can try is saving this, restarting your browser, and restarting your whole computer, basically to refresh your computer's connection to the internet. Yet another thing you can try is, file, and not just save, but save a copy in Drive. This will create an alternate version of the work you're working on, this Colab notebook, and you can always do file, and locate in Drive, to see where this new version is. And here we see a copy of Eugene Morgan python code practice. So, that is this current document. And I can continue on with my work here. I can finish my homework assignment, save it, and then when I go to submit the assignment in Canvas, I just need to make sure to attach this code here, and sub that in there. Okay? So, those are several things you can try if you do encounter the unfortunate situation where your runtime environment has frozen up. Okay?

6. The basics of functions in Python

A previous video introduced you to the print  function and did not provide much explanation about how you would know how to use that function. This video provides some more general background on functions in Python (you will be introduced to many throughout this course). The typical format of a Python function follows:

Different functions may only take a certain number of arguments, or some can take any number (such as print ). Often, "argument" and "parameter" are conflated and used interchangeably. Either term indicates information that is passed into the function.

In this video, let's talk a little bit more about functions. So, when I introduce this print function you might have asked yourselves, “Well how did Dr. Morgan know to put in, ‘hello world’ here in quotes, or x or y here? How do we know how this print function works?” Well, in a subsequent video we'll talk a bit more about debugging code and getting help with functions and various things in Python. But I want to point one thing out to you and discuss the basic usage of how functions work in Python.

So, to do that, let's insert a new code cell and let's continue on with print as an example, here. Suggesting print is the built-in function. If I do a parenthesis, what automatically pops up in Google Colab, and this is very nice, is how to use the function. So, first, I would have to know that some function called print exists. And that's a separate issue. In this class, we’ll introduce you to many functions to use for data processing visualization, and analysis, and statistics, and things like that. So, we'll cover a lot of those. So if we know print exists, we want to use it, well, the next question is well how do we use it? And that's what these instructions are telling you here. Although initially, this might not make a whole lot of sense to you.

One key thing to focus on here is this line of example code right here. This is generally stating how to use the print function. So, we have the function, print, open parentheses, some value. This could be a text or a number, as you've seen in examples previous. Dot, dot, dot means we could have any number of additional values included here. And then we've got some strange things. We've got sep, end, file, all those business. What are those? Well, all these things separated by commas here are called arguments to the function. These are things that could be supplied to the function and so it needs values, those are required arguments, and then these are optional arguments. And what's being shown here are the default values for those. And we can read about them further down.

So file, a file-like object or a stream. Default is to do the current system standard out. This is basically just printing the screen, is the default. We see that here, sys.stdout means print to screen for this file argument. But you could provide paths to other files if you wanted to write to those. sep string or text inserted between values, the default is a space. And then, end string. Again, string is referring to text appended after the last default, a new line, and so on so forth.

Okay, so how can we put these to use? Well, we could have one value, we could say our value of z is… and then z. Let's see what happens here. So, we're supplying two values now. Of course, I didn't need to run these again. There we go. Our value of z is 36. And I could change how these are separated. I could say sep equals, and I could put anything I want in here. If I put a colon, it changes that space to a colon, if I wanted a new line, it's dash n, or I should say backslash n, is 36, and so on and so forth. And so, I could tack on any number of things here. I could say z equals x plus y. Note that each instance is separated by a new line. [unintelligible] Or want to go back to just a space again, include that, and so on, and so forth. So, I think you get the idea here. Okay, so that's a little bit more detail of how functions are structured and how they operate in Python, and how to learn about what arguments to supply to specific functions once you know what those are.

You now have the ability to get started using Google Colab notebooks and developing your own Python code. The Python and Colab Practice assignment in Canvas is a non-graded assignment that gives you the opportunity to practice accessing and submitting an assignment, so you can see for yourself how that works without fear of having a mistake that costs you points. You can also experiment with Python code and Text Cells in this practice assignment.

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Homework management system: Calendar vs. assignment notebook

Katie November 15, 2021 executive function , homework , organization , productivity

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.

I’m frequently asked about the difference between a calendar and an assignment notebook. They are not the same. At all. While both are essential pieces of a student homework-management system, they each have a unique function. The bottom line: Neither a calendar nor a basic assignment notebook is sufficient alone, and they should instead be used together.

All student planners (assignment notebooks) come with a weekly spread. A weekly spread could be on one page of the planner or it could span two pages.

Some student planners come with a monthly calendar. Usually, a monthly calendar spans two pages, with or without monthly tabs for easy flipping. A calendar by itself, without a weekly spread, is not a sufficient homework management system.

When choosing an assignment notebook ( here’s how to pick one ), pick one with both a monthly calendar and a weekly spread. ( Here’s a good, basic assignment notebook suggestion , or this one too .) Why? An ultimate homework management system requires that students keep track of two different types of information:

• Time-sensitive information
• Tasks and assignments

If you’d prefer a single, one-page homework tracker, try this daily homework tracker here or this weekly homework planner here . I have made them with love, of course.

What about digital calendars?

Digital calendars are excellent, as long as you use them consistently. If you only use your digital calendar sporadically, you won’t trust it, and if you don’t trust it, it won’t work. If you want to use a simple assignment notebook with just a weekly spread, and then use a digital calendar for the calendar component, go ahead. 

Here is my complete step-by-step tutorial on how to use Google Calendar for school .

What goes on a calendar?

The calendar section of an assignment notebook is for time-sensitive information, excluding daily homework assignments. This includes the following items:

• Project deadlines
• Tests and quizzes
• After school meetings
• Field trips and special events
• Early releases and early dismissals
• Practices and games
• Appointments
• Reminders to bring something to school on a particular day

Again, the calendar section is not where you write your daily homework assignments.

What goes in an assignment notebook?

The weekly spread of an assignment notebook is for nothing other than homework assignments. This is where you simply list out the homework you have to do for each class. Don’t forget that studying for tests is an implied assignment. Teachers won’t always tell you to study before a test, because that’s the expectation – so write down your study sessions as if they are homework assignments.

In each daily space, list your assignments by class, like below:

• Math: worksheet; page 167 in textbook #4-28
• English: read chapters 4 and 5 in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Science: Edpuzzle
• History: write 3rd body paragraph for essay; find another primary source
• Spanish: Study imperfect vs preterite endings for Friday’s quiz

Write down all assignments on the day they’re assigned, not on the day they’re due. For example, if you are assigned a math worksheet on Monday that’s not due until Thursday, write math worksheet in Monday’s space, not Thursday’s space. If you don’t get to it Monday, rewrite it in Tuesday’s space on Tuesday. This post here explains exactly how to use 3 specific symbols in your assignment notebook for this exact purpose.

Once you write down all your assignments, get to work and do them. Don’t know what to do first? Here’s a simple 4-step method for prioritizing homework .

Final notes on the perfect homework management system

The calendar vs. assignment notebook debate isn’t that complicated, but it certainly comes up a lot with my students and their parents. The truth is that you really need both in order to have a fully functioning homework management system. Whether you use a digital calendar or an analog calendar doesn’t matter too much, but I hold tight to my suggestion of using an analog assignment notebook. Whatever you do, you can not rely on your memory for keeping track of homework and due dates; that’s not a thing, it’s silly, and you are way smarter than that.

Are you a parent? Here’s my FREE downloadable 10-page Guide To Teaching Your Child Time Management Skills . It’s really free. Nothing spammy or weird.

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‘The Notebook’ Review: A Musical Tear-Jerker or Just All Wet?

The 2004 weepie comes to Broadway with songs by Ingrid Michaelson and a $5 box of tissues.

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By Jesse Green

Romantic musicals are as personal as romance itself. What makes you sigh and weep may leave the person next to you bored and stony.

At “The Notebook,” I was the person next to you.

You were sniffling even before anything much happened onstage. As the lights came up, an old man dozed while a teenage boy and girl frisked nearby in an unconvincing body of water. A wispy song called “Time” wafted over the footlights: “Time time time time/It was never mine mine mine.”

But having seen (I’m guessing more than once) the 2004 movie on which “The Notebook” is based, and possibly having read the 1996 novel by Nicholas Sparks, you perfectly well knew what was coming. That was the point of mounting the show, which opened on Thursday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater , in the first place.

It therefore cannot be a spoiler — and anyway this block of cheese is impervious — to reveal that over the course of the 54 years covered by the musical, the frisky boy, Noah, turns into the dozing man. And that Allie, the frisky girl, having overcome various impediments to their love, winds up his wife. Nor does it give anything away to add that Allie, now 70 and in a nursing home with dementia, will not remember Noah until he recites their story from a notebook she prepared long ago for that purpose.

So there’s a reason the producers are selling teeny $5 “Notebook”-themed boxes of tissues in the lobby. Love is powerful. Dementia is sad. The result can be heartbreaking.

Or maybe, seen with a cold eye, meretricious.

The movie, a super-slick Hollywood affair, did everything it could to keep the eye warm. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, as the young couple, could not have been glowier. The soundtrack relied on precision-crafted standards like “I’ll Be Seeing You” to yank at your tear ducts. The production design, like a montage of greeting cards come to life , celebrated valentine passion, anniversary tenderness and golden sympathy, releasing flocks of trained geese into a technicolor sunset to symbolize lifelong pair bonding.

The musical, unwilling except at the margins to alter a plot so beloved — or at least so familiar — tries to distinguish itself in other ways. It aims for a rougher, hand-hewn texture, befitting Noah’s career as a carpenter and the indie-folk sound of its songwriter, Ingrid Michaelson . The directors, Michael Greif and Schele Williams, have cast the couples regardless of race: a nice, universalizing touch.

In other updates, the book writer, Bekah Brunstetter, has shifted the period by two decades — Noah fights in Vietnam, not at the Battle of the Bulge. She adds a third, intermediate incarnation of the couple, crowding the stage with replicants and pushing the 27-year-old Allie (Joy Woods) into the star spot because someone has to be there. (The 29-year-old Noah is played by Ryan Vasquez.) And instead of the cliché geese, Brunstetter gives us … sea turtles?

No, I don’t get that one either.

In any case, the de-slicking was a mistake; it turns out that the Hollywood varnish was the only thing holding the picture together. In its place, the musical makes few convincing arguments for a separate existence.

Certainly Michaelson’s relentlessly mid-tempo songs do not; they are pretty but flyaway, as insubstantial as blue smoke. Except for a number in which teenager Allie and Noah (Jordan Tyson and John Cardoza) first see each other undressed, the lyrics are vague and humorless, often budding with clichés the book is trying to prune. “I wanna know that my old heart can grow like spring again,” sings Older Noah (Dorian Harewood) — an alarming thought, really, for a 72-year-old or for his cardiologist. Older Allie (the great Maryann Plunkett) barely sings at all, a great loss.

When songs provide so little information, barely differentiating the characters let alone advancing the plot, a musical tends to sag. And when a musical has gone to some trouble to accommodate those songs — the movie of “The Notebook” runs two hours, the show hardly 20 minutes more — the trade-offs are of the nose-versus-face variety.

So Brunstetter, hacking through the story with a scythe to make room, has left bald stumps everywhere. Allie’s meddling, disapproving parents are demoted to mere nasties, their motivations discarded with their back story. Her fiancé is a nonentity. What Noah and Allie do between their late teens (when they meet and separate) and their late 20s (when they are rapturously rejoined) is reduced to a throwaway: “Let’s see — heartbreak, graduation, many many Tuesdays, Thanksgivings, a war.” Flip lines like that break whatever spell the material, usually earnest to a fault, is trying to cast.

The staging is consistently more engaging. Unlike the movie, which keeps its focus on one couple at a time, here we often get all three together, in color-coded costumes (by Paloma Young) that clarify their connections. (The Noahs wear blue and brown, the Allies blue and white.) And though the switching among them sometimes feels mechanical, as the lights (by Ben Stanton) dim on Older Noah reading the notebook and rise on the younger characters enacting its story, the process creates a kind of time-lapse exposure that feels natively theatrical and thus occasionally effective.

On Allie’s side of the equation especially, the time-lapse provides information the movie did not. Because all three ages exist simultaneously, her impetuousness as a teenager is connected to her indecisiveness 10 years later and, perhaps less credibly, to her eventual dementia. In all periods, her relationship to home — “Home” is the title of the Act I finale — is usefully forefronted: the home she leaves, the home she dreams of, the home Noah builds her, the home she cannot get back to.

But only in this last stage does “The Notebook” achieve any real pathos, thanks to Plunkett’s uncompromising naturalism and the lifetime of stage savvy she inevitably brings with her. Her locked-down Allie, banging frantically on the doors of her memory, is an unexpectedly terrifying character to meet in an otherwise bland musical.

It doesn’t hurt that, for those who have followed Plunkett over the years, she is also banging down the doors of our memory. Her troubled Agnes in “Agnes of God” (her Broadway debut, in 1982), her insouciant Sally in “Me and My Girl,” for which she won a Tony Award, and her series of anxious dinner-table Americans in all 12 plays of Richard Nelson’s “Rhinebeck Panorama” help turn a barely there character into a moving one.

Whether that is sufficient to make me cry for a would-be weepie is a different matter. That the “Notebook”-themed tissues are so teeny says it all.

The Notebook At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, Manhattan; notebookmusical.com . Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.

Jesse Green is the chief theater critic for The Times. He writes reviews of Broadway, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, regional and sometimes international productions. More about Jesse Green

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Theater Review: Broadway’s ‘The Notebook’ Is Shallow, Boring and Slow

From the baffled comments overheard during intermission, the audience didn’t seem to know that all those people they were watching were playing the same two characters..

The Notebook | 2hrs 20mins. One intermission. | Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre | 236 West 45th Street | (212) 239-6200

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Why are Broadway musicals suddenly so lousy? Many reasons, I can safely assume: geniuses die, leaving a hole in history with no one to replace them; teams of amateur hacks are everywhere, filling gaps once occupied by Irving Berlin , Cole Porter , Oscar Hammerstein , Jerome Kern , Rodgers and Hart , Lerner and Loewe, and Comden and Green; considering the garbage they listen to every day, it’s no wonder wanna-be songwriters couldn’t write a memorable melody or an intelligent lyric line with a gun to their heads; clueless producers with no taste plunk down plenty of money to finance projects without a hope in hell of commercial success. Nobody has written a classic musical score with any originality and style since the death of Stephen Sondheim .

After his lovely and haunting Light in the Piazza, I had high hopes for Adam Guettel , but this season’s flop, The Days of Wine and Roses , proves the rumor that he spends every waking moment thinking of ways to avoid any comparison to his illustrious grandfather, the one and only Richard Rodgers . So what we’re getting instead of fresh, original musicals is increasingly forgettable carbons of old movies. The newest disappointments are The Notebook and Water for Elephants, a pair of gooey, predictable and temporary tearjerkers based on two of those corny romance novels cut from the same fabric as The Bridges of Madison County that teenagers drag to the beach with a nickel pack of Kleenex.

More about Water for Elephants next week, but first The Notebook,  saccharine fiction by Nicholas Sparks that found its way into an inevitable 2004 movie that shamelessly poured on more schmaltz as it chronicled events in the labored story of Allie and Noah, a pair of lovers who survive endless pitfalls for five decades and still love each other long after mutual devotion has been invaded by personal tragedy. The movie tells the story of their saga through the eyes of two separate versions of Allie and Noah, who are of different ages. The device was annoying, but I remember enjoying it anyway. With older Allie and Noah played by ravishing Gena Rowlands and charming James Garner , and younger Allie and Noah played by beautiful Rachel McAdams and handsome newcomer Ryan Gosling before he became a Ken doll, what’s not to like?

The choppy, overwrought new Broadway production turns Allie and Noah into three couples instead of two, and every time they waft in and out of each other’s story, their races change along with their genders. The old Allie is now an elderly blonde in a nursing home suffering from dementia, and the old Noah, who seems years her senior, is Black. She doesn’t know if he’s the janitor or a fellow patient, but one thing she never suspects is that he’s been her husband for 54 years. Cut to two periods in their youth, and the two Allies are suddenly Black, and their Noahs are white. They all sing loud, which is not the same thing as good, but to no effect because the score is so forgettable that the songs seem to be inserted for the sole purpose of dragging out the running time. To make everything doubly confusing, old Allie doesn’t know who anyone is, including herself. From the baffled comments overheard during intermission, the audience didn’t seem to know, either. It is doubtful that half the audience knew all those people they were watching were playing the same two characters.  

Before Noah can rehabilitate Allie and bring her back to normal, he has a stroke and now there are two lovers in terminal danger. No mention is made of the interracial pairings, so it is unfair to dwell on that aspect of the confusion, but when all six Allies and Noahs sing together, chaos reigns. What worked on the screen in a lugubrious, long-winded way doesn’t work on the stage at all. Both Ingrid Michaelson , who penned the boring, surface-deep songs, and Bekah Brunstetter , who wrote the shallow, sentimental book, are making their Broadway debuts, and the lack of experience shows. The badly needed element of poignancy to add depth to cardboard characters is nowhere in sight.

This a shame because Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood , who play Older Allie and Older Noah, are engaging pros who deserve a better showcase. I was especially excited to see Harewood in a leading role that guaranteed Broadway stardom at last. I once shared the stage with him in one of those all-star AIDS benefits in Hollywood that showcased the historic songs of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe and he sang a heartbreaking arrangement of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” and “Gigi” I have never forgotten. I thought the stardom that had unfairly eluded him in the past would finally happen at last when he co-starred in the 1974 Broadway musical Miss Moffat, the musical version of The Corn is Green, starring the one and only Bette Davis . Alas, it closed in previews.

Now, here he is, at last, excellent as always but woefully denied any kind of show-stopping number you could confidently call memorable. This is the fate of the entire cast, unexceptionally choreographed by Katie Spelman and directed with mediocrity (there’s that over-riding keyword again) by Schele Williams , both of whom are also making their soggy Broadway debuts. Michael Greif , curiously listed as a second director for reasons known only to the producers, has done fine work elsewhere, but in The Notebook, he doesn’t appear to do much more than move the actors from one dark part of a room into the next, like furniture.

The result is a shallow, boring and totally irresolute The Notebook that crawls at a snail’s pace.

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• SEE ALSO : The Best Winter Books for Hardcore Chionophiles

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