We’ve all heard the adage: being organized is essential for a teacher. It is true – the amount of papers, emails, classroom supplies and books seems to either triple or completely disappear over the course of the year.
While being super organized comes easy to some and is a constant struggle for others, I am going to share a few simple tricks that I have used and that will make your life so much easier no matter where you are.
Use a planner
It will save your life. I promise. As a traveling teacher, I find it difficult to have multiple notebooks for different purposes (such as meeting notes) because there is only so much space in my bag. Therefore, when I look for a planner, I also want it to have some space to jot down quick notes. Having a multi-purpose one allows you to save space and have all the necessary information at your fingertips.
Use it for lesson planning, noting schedule changes, putting in reminders about meetings, field trips, and parent-teacher conferences. It can serve as a place to quickly jot down an idea or to map out an entire unit in 5 words.
And if I haven’t convinced you yet, I’ll repeat: you need a planner. Period.
Use google docs
If you haven’t crossed over to the Google docs side, now is the time to do so. Here are just a few reasons:
- You can access them anytime, anywhere you have the internet connection. Bye bye Word document saved on your computer, which is twenty miles away.
- You can share them with your colleagues, who can either view them or edit, comment and suggest feedback
- You can share them with your students (and students – with you) so you both can edit, say, an essay in real time.
- You can organize them by folders in your Drive (and color code them!)thus saving paper.
- You can create a shared drive with your team. It probably goes without saying that this feature is super handy for those who work in multiple schools.
- You can create not only documents but also presentations, spreadsheets, and drawings if you like
- google docs saves and backs up your documents so you don’t lose important information!
Create a teacher binder
A binder that contains all the important information will come in handy at various times during the year (if not daily!):
- general calendar
- school calendar with all the events
- school schedule
- your schedule
- important information such as phone extensions for the main office, nurse, etc.
- lesson plans (ideas)
- meeting notes
- student information (schedule, teachers, etc.)
- student test scores
- filler activities
- school handbook (both staff and student)
Any other information that you may need to use at any point in time during the year but that needs to be readily accessible.
Keep it in your classroom for easy access and have digital copies in your Google Drive for days when you need the information but are not at school/in that classroom.
Assign individual Folders
One year, my teaching partner and I had a student who needed a lot of help. But our schedules did not allow us to make it so that only one of us worked with him. So we “shared” that student. On the positive side, the student received a lot of English instruction. On the flip side, how do you reach a continuity in teaching when there are two teachers working with the same student?
We found a great solution, which worked! We started a separate folder for that student. You can dedicate a manila folder, on which you will write the student name and on the inside, on the left-hand side, staple a paper, where you can briefly describe what you worked on during a particular session.
We have since done it for other one-on-one students and it works great even when we don’t work with the same ones.
Sticky notes
Sticky notes are a controversial topic. Some people love them and some hate them. I personally have a sort of love-hate relationship. They are an amazing teaching tool and a quick note reminder but at the same time, I tend to lose them or not look at them when I need to.
That said, I still think that sticky notes have a potential to be a teacher’s best friend. Besides the obvious use of writing notes on them and sticking them all over your laptop/computer/desk, sticky notes can be used for a variety of other purposes, such as:
- assigning students to take notes in their book
- color coding your calendar and organizing your tasks on it
- using them to review vocabulary before the end of the class (each student writes a concrete example of what they learned – sentence, definition, etc.)
- manipulating sentence structure
- creating a story on the board
- labeling items in the classroom
- hide information from the board
And if you want to save trees and be 21st-century savvy – add a Sticky Notes extension to your Google Chrome and be organized without ever losing or forgetting.
Organize your papers
As mentioned before, papers are the daily joy and struggle in a teacher’s life. There are handouts and tests and written journals and notes – you name it. Although quite a few schools are going paperless even when they assign homework, tests, and quizzes (which, in my humble opinion, poses a whole new set of organizational problems), having a paper copy of the said assignments is still prevalent.
Therefore, you will need to have a plan on how to organize them. The two most important factors in this are location and quantity.
Where should you keep your papers?
I used to create file folders for everything – student work, vocabulary quizzes, writing, etc. Until I’d get a paper that does not fit into any of my created file folder categories. Is it a vocab quiz? A homework assignment? Do I keep it? Do I toss it?
One day I came across an article (yes, I looked online for a solution to my problem:) that fundamentally changed the way I organize my papers. The author of the article suggested that we all ask ourselves a simple question: are you a filer or a piler? If filing seems a logical way for you and you tend to organize your papers this way, go for it. But if filing is against your grain and you find that you keep piling stuff in one place, don’t fight it. You can create bins labeled with general terms like Writing, Vocabulary, Classroom assignments, etc. and then pile whatever papers come your way in there.
In other words, there is no right or wrong way, so allow yourself to be you. I’ll admit, once I accepted the fact that piling papers is my style, life in the classroom organization department has been much smoother.
How many of the above-mentioned papers should you actually keep?
Quite honestly, a master of each worksheet, quiz or test is plenty. Plus, having a file of the said documents on your computer will make it much easier.
Finally, if you teach beginners, it is good idea to have either a folder, a binder or a bin (!) that contains all the necessary handouts for any new student that will come after the school year has begun. Such handouts could be letters of placement and permission to service, student questionnaires and any other information you give to a new English learner.
A word of advice for the traveling teacher
Some of you may be the sole teacher for the district or travel between at least two schools. Here is where being organized reaches a new level.
Over the years of traveling at first between two schools and lately between three or more, I have found the following to be true:
- a laptop is your best friend. Therefore, google docs and google calendar are your best friends.
- comfortable laptop bag (I use one on wheels and find it indispensable) is a very worthwhile investment. After all, papers tend to pile up and time tends to run out. Protect your shoulders.
- make one school your “home”. By “home” I mean having an office, or a classroom, or a shared space – any space – where you can keep your documents, supplies, and textbooks. This will guarantee that you will know where things are.
- become friends with the front office, guidance office and janitor. These are the people who will be able to find you a space to work if you need it and will get you the information and the supplies necessary for you to do your job.
- be flexible. It is part job description and part work with yourself. There will be times when you will be rushing from one place to another just to come in time for a fire drill. There will be times when students that you are about to pull out for services are in the middle of an engaging math or science activity. There will be times when the classroom teacher forgets to email or text you that your student is absent and you have made the trip to another school in vain. Breathe. The only thing you can control is how you react. You are not the only one and it will be ok.
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