Thoroughly dissatisfied with my level of disorder (if you're a former student, you know that piles are my thing, for better or for worse). So, I have been searching online for a complete binder that satisfies my high school needs. Unfortunately, most teacher binders cater to elementary folks, so I endeavored to make my own.
Here's what I did. (Also, if you want my files I will totally send then to you, just comment below!)
1. Use a heavy duty binder, and put in a super cute cover sheet. Mine is 1.5" which at first I thought was too big, now I'm wondering if it will all fit. And, of course, use command strips to cover your name.
2. Buy some tab dividers, becasue you will create tons of sections. I have one for each month, behind which I placed a month view calendar and my weekly view lesson plans. I also have one for grades and one for attendance, the pages for which I'll print off from my gradebook once the semester is underway. I'll have one for SOLs also. I'm thinking behind that will go my IEP and 504 paperwork for my SpEd students, divided by block.
Here's a look at my monthly planning page
3. For each month, you'll have a view like this for important dates and to space out your pacing guide. I don't have a calendar or a pack g guide for my new school, so my months are blank for now.
Weekly lesson view. I need color in my life, and I broke it into 4 sections left to right with the dark colors denoting M-F and the column on the right denoting the dates, handwritten.
4. In each month, you'll also want the weeks lesson pages. There are tons of lesson pages online. My lesson pages are designed for a 4x4 block. This gives me 3 courses per day, plus a planning block. I leave a block for planning each day because I like to jot down, "make copies of" or "call soandso". Thats whah I struggle to find, because most are aimed at elementary teachers with 1 class covering all the subjects. I learned a lesson here about spacing when you print, so I have to print some more. I am definitely willing to send directions for others. If they want.
5. Wait until the semester begins to get the grade sheets, attendance pages, etc. I plan to print out a blank one for each course with my students names already typed in. I can use that for checking off HW, etc. Then, as grades are entered in, I'll also print off an updated paper copy of the grades in case the system crashes.
As the year progresses, I'm looking forward to adapting my teacher binder for how I've been using it.
How about you? What type of system do you use to plan and keep everything organized? Do you write anything down? Are you even asked to have lessons to show ever? Or are you at a school where you must submit lesson plans every so often?
I also have a teacher binder, but I only use it to hold meeting minutes and a weekly planner page. All my lesson plans MUST be posted every week to my classroom webpage. The school is so strict about it that if they aren't posted there, we get an email AND it gets brought up in our evaluations. So, because they have to be electronic, all my lessons are typed. I used to print them out to have them just in case, but I gave up on that and went to my weekly planner page (kind of a week-at-a-glance) instead.
ReplyDeleteI haven't worked in a system that requires plans to be posted online. My new school will require me to present the plan book at every observation, hence the creation of this one. I'm a better planner on paper, despite my technology focus in the classroom. I plan to put my meeting handouts in the front of each month's section. I've also already added a tab for professional development, because I attended a conference last week where I got TONS of new resources and ideas!
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