Cleaning up Google Classroom involves several steps to declutter your classes and associated files, making it easier to manage for the next term or year.
Cleaning up Google Classroom helps you stay organized and improves efficiency for both you and your students. It's recommended to do this at the end of a term or school year.
Here are the key steps to effectively clean up your Google Classroom, incorporating essential advice for managing your digital space:
1. Finalize and Return Student Work
Before archiving a class, ensure all student work has been reviewed and returned.
- Return all work: Make sure you have returned assignments to students. This gives them access to their graded work and prevents clutter on your side.
- Grade if you need to: Complete any pending grading. Once a class is archived, grading and returning work can become less intuitive.
2. Archive Old Classes
Archiving is the primary way to clear your main Classroom view without permanently deleting content.
- Archiving removes the class from your active classes list but retains the class data (assignments, posts, student work, grades) in an archived state.
- You can access archived classes anytime if you need to reference past materials or student work.
3. Manage Student Enrollment
Review your class roster and remove students who are no longer in the class.
- Consider removing or unenrolling students who have left your class or the school. This simplifies your roster for future reference and manages access.
4. Clean Up Associated Google Drive Files
Google Classroom creates a dedicated folder in your Google Drive to store all class materials, assignments, and student submissions. Managing this folder is crucial.
- Do NOT Delete the Classroom Folder: This is a critical point. Deleting the main "Classroom" folder in Google Drive will permanently remove all associated class materials and student work, which cannot be easily recovered. Archive classes in Classroom first; the Drive folder should remain intact for archived classes.
- Clean Up Your Google Drive: While you shouldn't delete the main Classroom folder, you can organize its contents or clean up other areas of your Drive. Move files, delete unnecessary documents, or create subfolders within class folders if needed.
- Create a folder for exemplary work: As you review student submissions, identify outstanding examples and create a separate folder (outside the automatically generated student work folders within the Classroom structure) to save copies of these for future reference or examples (ensure privacy policies are followed).
- Keep files in "Shared with Me": Files in the "Shared with Me" section of your Drive are files that others own but have shared with you. You don't own this storage space, and these files aren't automatically part of your Classroom backup unless you copy them. Keep relevant shared files where they are or make copies if you need to integrate them into your organized Drive structure.
By following these steps, you can efficiently clean up your Google Classroom interface and associated Google Drive files, preparing for new classes while preserving important historical data.
