I’m something of a minimalist, and thus, paperwork from class is not something I like to have a lot of. Disorganization breeds confusion, and the more “things” we’re talking about, means the more potential for mess and error. When it comes to organizing and keeping track of student work, here are a couple of my top tips:
If you are dealing with physical papers – work out a system so that you know exactly where things are in the workflow. For me, that meant organizing my students’ geography papers by section, and then by “turned in”, “graded”, and “entered”. As I moved the papers through the workflow, they moved from one folder to the next, until they were taken out of the “entered” folder, and passed back for students to keep.
If you are dealing with digital files – I do so much work in Google Drive, that students were also sharing work with me, and I was giving them feedback, even without Google Classroom to help me. The easiest way to organize folders and files is to start from large, and work to small. For me that meant creating one folder for each section, and then one subfolder for each assignment. In each assignment folder went all the student work related to that particular assignment. This makes for easy organization, and I can quickly find student work when I need it. When it comes down to grading or giving feedback, I can open the corresponding folder, and work one by one through the files.
Amanda M. Orozco 