It’s a New Year, teacher friends! And while the ideas I have to share with you today can certainly help set you on the course for success for the remainder of the school year, you can implement these ideas at any point! And stick around to the end to grab a freebie!
The new year is a time of self-reflection for many people and I’m certainly no exception. I find myself looking at all the systems I use in every area of my life, but especially in the classroom. Here are five things that I am implementing for this second semester to keep my physical (and mental) teacher life streamlined!
1 – Laying Out the Rest of the Year
While, I am not at all a big picture person, in December before we went on break, I began to outline the rest of the school year. I reflected on what we have accomplished so far, where we “should” be according to district curriculum, and the areas that my students are struggling in.
I used a lesson plan book – this will work with either digital or paper – but for my purposes, I used a digital format that I later printed out – and filled in all our holidays, testing days, known field trips, etc. I then went through my district’s curriculum to see what they had planned.
My district typically gives us a start day for a particular unit and then says how many instructional days are included. I used this to complete an outline of what is coming up and to get a rough idea of how much time we have to focus on any particular standard, keeping in mind, of course, that all standards will be spiraled in and out throughout the rest of the year.
I can’t even begin to explain the sense of relief I felt last month once I got this completed for the year. Of course, I realize so many things could change, and already have just in the few days since we’ve been back, but this is the skeleton for our winter and spring and I will adapt and fill in as we go along!
2 – Lesson Planning Earlier
I tend to be someone who works really well (or so I tell myself) under pressure. However, for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year, I’ve designated Tuesdays as my lesson planning day for the following week. This allows time to prep materials later in the week and frees me from stressing on Friday afternoons as I try to cram planning in at the last minute.
3 – An Agenda for the Class
I like to have a daily agenda for my students in the form of a PowerPoint slide, though I have been terribly inconsistent with it this year. This includes our learning objectives, any unusual discrepancies in our day, and our joke of the day. Most of the time, I am scrambling around at 7:30 in the morning trying to get this prepped for the day. For the rest of the year, I intend to create all the daily agendas for the following week at the same time that I create my lesson plans on Tuesdays.
4 – Going Digital
Okay, so the world being as it is currently, we have already been doing a lot of digital work, but I live in Texas and we administer STAAR. Our district is going full digital with STAAR this year (I think the state is going full digital next year, but I could be wrong). I currently teach reading, so I’ve trained my students to write summaries and pre-answer questions on paper. Now we are making the shift to digital practice and assessments.
At first, I was really unsure how we would make this happen. Fortunately, I have amazing coworkers that are entrenched in digital knowledge and I found Formative. This is a game-changer and I will be writing more about how we are using Formative as an assessment practice tool (though it has about a million and three other uses)!
5 – Designating Specific Tasks to a Particular Day
While I did touch on this a bit under the topic of Lesson Planning Earlier, each day of the week has a task associated with it for the rest of the school year.
Monday – I’m just getting reacclimated after my weekend, so this is a day to return parent phone calls, notes, and messages. This is also just a catchup day for me and doesn’t have any specific tasks associated.
Tuesday – As mentioned previously, lesson plans and agendas for the following week!
Wednesday – Grading day! I am the WORST at staying on top of grades, so I am hoping this will help.
Thursday – We have PLCs (Planned Learning Communities) on Thursdays on my campus, so that is how I will spend my planning time.
Friday – This will be my prep day – making copies, gathering materials, and creating exemplars for the following week.
Hopefully what I have planned for the rest of this year isn’t too ambitious and I’ll be able to get into a routine fairly quickly. And hopefully, you have garnered an idea or two for your own teacher life! If you would like to try designating tasks to each day of the week, grab my free, editable planning template below!
Until next time!
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