Three common ways include:
Short term, "quarterly" (3-month) change: the change compared to the previous quarter, for instance Q1 2017 on Q4 2016
"Annual" change: the change compared to the same quarter a year before, for instance Q1 2017 on Q1 2016
Average annual change: the change in the average of the most recent four quarters compared to the average of the four previous quarters
For more on GDP see SPICe...