End of the Year: Archive
You made it! Another school year successfully under your belt. Before you go off and enjoy your well deserved summer vacation you may want to do a little end of the year maintenance on your Google Classroom classes. Check out this previous blog post on 3 Things to Wrap Up Google Classroom for the Summer.
Archiving
Do not delete your class and assignments, you want to be able to reuse them next year! Even if you archive a class you can reuse the assignments from that class.
Go to the class tiles page: classroom.google.com. Locate the 3 dots in the upper right hand corner. This is the “More options” menu. Click on the 3 dots and choose “Archive.” Click here for more information on archiving classes.
3 Lines Menu
When you archive a class your class is not deleted or lost. It is simply located under “Archived classes.” Click on the 3 lines menu in the upper left hand corner and select “Archived classes” at the bottom.
Documents Are Not In Google Classroom
A paradigm shift to remember is that nothing is attached in Google Classroom. Everything is linked from Google Drive. Archiving a class in Google Classroom shuts down the ability for students to submit work to the class. However, any documents linked in an assignment are still in Google Drive. The documents in the student’s Google Classroom folder at the end of the year are still in their folder. The documents in your Google Drive are still in your Google Drive.
Create an Awesome Assignments Class
Want some homework over the summer? (No, you don’t but here is an idea anyway.) Create an awesome assignments class with no students.
In that class click the Create button on the Classwork page and “Reuse post.” This will allow you to choose from a list of classes, including archived classes. Choose the class you just archived!
Which assignments were amazing and you would probably reuse next year? Reuse them. Remember that the “attachments” in the assignments are NOT attached. They are linked from Google Drive. You do NOT want to make copies of things in your Google Drive. This just makes a giant mess of documents with the same name. UNCHECK the “Create new copies of all attachments” checkbox.
Immediately the assignment opens for edit. This is the perfect time to reflect on how the assignment could be improved. What would you do differently? How would you reword the directions? What additional resources might your students benefit from?
Click Attachment Titles
Any “attachments” are really just links to Google Drive. Click on the “attachment” title and launch the document from Google Drive. Change dates and update information. Use the SAME document every year!
Version History
Do not make copies!! For Google Apps use the File menu and choose “Version history.” Restore the document to a version that does not have student edits on it. Then it is fresh and ready to go for next year. In the case of a Google Form, go to the Responses tab and click on the 3 dots menu. This will give you the option to “Delete all responses.” This makes your form ready to go for next year! Do not make copies! Reuse!!
Assign
Assign the assignment to the awesome assignments class with no students.
Next Year
Create a new class for your new students. Use the “Reuse post” option to reuse assignments from your “Awesome assignments” class. This way you know they are already updated and you do not have to scroll through all the assignments you had last year.
Tip
Next year, consider making a new Google Classroom class every unit or every 6 weeks. Then archive throughout the school year. This makes it easier to reuse your posts from the previous year since you do not have to scroll through the entire last year’s assignment list.
Question – if I teach K-6 every year and see every student, should I archive their old class or just rename and keep going?
I recommend you make a new Google Classroom each 6 weeks or every unit.
Great article! Thanks so much for the ideas on archiving. I have set up folders throughout the year and stored assignments in those according to topic. Is there any way to move an entire folder into one of these ghost classes? I’m setting one class up for each quarter and reusing posts, but it’s very time consuming….I teach 3 subjects and 5 classes. Also, is there any way to remove a teacher from an archived class that I originally set up? Thanks!
They may have changed it but it used to be the teacher had to leave, not that you could kick them out. I suggest making a new Google Classroom every 6 weeks or every unit.
I teach at a year round boarding school and am pretty new to using Google Classroom. I’ve been deleting kids as they leave my class and inviting new students as they arrive, and just adding as I go. I read a separate article that said classes and assignments need to be re-created every year. Will I still need to do that even though I’m using them all year long?
Please do not do that. Instead make a new class and reuse posts (do NOT copy attachments)
What do you recommend teachers do with student work in the drive? I’m familiar with archiving classes and have done that for a few years, but I don’t know what to do with all the student “stuff” in my drive. Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks.
Delete it. Why do you want to save it?