Staying Organized as a Teacher

Published: 2023-10-19 9:12 PM

Category: Teaching | Tags: organization, tools, habits, workflow

I got a suggestion to write about how I stay organized during the teaching day and I thought that was a great idea. My organizational strategies have changed over time mainly depending on my work and the types of projects I needed to do. Now that I'm back to teaching, my systems are changing again.

Pen and paper

I used to rely on a lot of tech becuase I was on my computer for a large part of the day. Now, I'm back to hand-written notes for just about everything. All of my immediate todos get put on sticky notes right next to my mouse so when I do sit down, I can take care of that correspondence or finishing grading that paper.

I used to keep a pretty significant bullet journal, but since I'm not managing a team or attending meetings during the week, it has lost its utility for me. I don't need to keep track of several moving pieces across departments or follow up on specific project to do's any more. My black grid notebook has been neglected, but it's there, ready for some love when I figure out how it'll play into my organizational strategies.

There isn't quite enough room in it for lesson planning, which is why I switched back over to a legal pad. I have a yellow legal pad with each page broken down into two columns (two classes) and five rows (five days each week). I can jot down the main points for the day and make notes in the margins for what papers need to be printed and copied on what days to be ready. It's easy to flip back and forth and make sure my progressions make sense and I can adjust easily enough if I need to speed up or slow down based on assessments.

Drive

We're a Google school, so all of my documents live in Google Drive. We have a shared department drive with resouces for each science course and we regularly collaborate and clean those up. Instead of editing those for my classes, I typically make copies into my own folders and then add things like scoring guides, references to the learning standards, or just make the margins more narrow. The content stays the same but my formatting preferences keep things consistent for my classes.

Email

I'm fortunate to be in a school where there isn't too much email flying around. On a heavy day I might get five emails in my school inbox. Many days it is just one or two. Nonetheless, I've set up some email filters to catch certain kinds of messages, like sharing notices from Google Drive, student emails via Google Classroom, or notes from our interventionist on students they're working with and other student documentation tasks they may need help with. Those filters put the messages unread into labels so a quick glance tells me if I need to reply or if I'm caught up on those other kinds of responsibilities.

Getting organized for teaching was one of the harder transitions to make from my old work, but I'm getting back into the flow. Scheduling at least a week ahead helps me to know where I'm going and allows me to focus planning and after school time to student feedback to drive learning.