Thursday, August 12, 2010

Organization Tips for New Teachers

The topic for the August 11th New Teacher Chat on Twitter (#ntchat) was Organizational Tips-concerns, ideas, strategies. I am not a new teacher and found many of these very helpful, so I thought I would share some with you. A copy of all the tweets that night can be found in the newteacherchat wiki archive.

Tips you might find useful:
  • Put things away don?t just put them down (otherwise clutter!) If you don't use it, remove it from your classroom!
  • Everything in your classroom should have a place (especially great for senior citizens!)
  • Idea of a "teacher tool belt": http://bit.ly/cFGYqj
  • Have your kids make stuff to put up. Walls are a great blank slate! Build community too!
  • Have a basket, folder, etc. for each day of week and have resources for that day in place. Update 1x/week
  • Keep a folder with all sub info, medical info, class list
  • Once you know your schedule, make a sub plan template for each day of the week, then just fill it in with needed info - great time saver
  • Develop procedures and allow time at end of day for kids to help organize for next day (straighten library, chairs, pencils, etc.)
  • I love binders. Have one for every subj or unit of study and one to keep my lesson plan sheets for each week. LiveBinders works well for this too.
  • We are using google apps as our lessons are digital and delicious to organize research resources
  • Organizing Your Classroom links (love Kim & Zendre sites) http://bit.ly/bHDHFt
  • Lots of spare lesson plans and activities in the sub folder too
  • Greatest classroom organizer I've come across in last year....@Dropbox
  • Leave classroom each night w/ clean desk, objectives on board, 1st activities ready, etc. It will feel like a gift in the morning
  • I use hanging folders for students to place their work. Each folder tabbed with name & number. Helps correcting when you have 32
  • Assign each student a number. They should put this number on every paper (it makes it easier to see who has not turned in something). Putting numbers on books helps too.
  • I also have two baskets; one for corrected, one for not corrected homework - students place homework there themselves

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