Organize for more time.

Thomas, Victoria

The song "Time Is on My Side" was popularized by the rock band The Rolling Stones in the 1960s, but they clearly had not spoken to any career and technical education teachers. From responsibilities in the classroom, sponsoring career and technical student organizations, other assigned tasks at school, and, oh yes, their home lives, time is a precious commodity that is often lacking for teachers.

While the list of tasks a teacher must complete may never be shortened, those tasks could be better organized and performed more efficiently in order to carve out snatches of valuable time. Establishing routines with students and arranging your classroom to support those routines is essential.

Systems for Students

There are a number of common activities that can be systemized to allow students to manage themselves, leaving the teacher to attend to other matters. Using an induction activity (often called a bell-ringer, warm-up or do-now) provides a teacher with time. Not only is it a best practice advocated by many notable educators, it gives the teacher the opportunity to take attendance and set up materials for the day's instruction.

To make this system the most effective, train students to find the induction activity in the same place each day. If it is a worksheet, establish a tray where students know to find it each day. If there are questions to answer, create a special place on the board for these questions, write them on a transparency that is already projected when they walk in, or use PowerPoint with an LCD projector to display the questions.

Teachers should also establish a location for students to turn in assignments and to pick up graded work. Good and inexpensive tools for this task are the plastic crates that are available at discount stores and are designed to hold hanging file folders. A teacher can create folders for each student and train the students to check these folders daily as they enter the classroom or during down times in instruction. This eliminates the time-wasting activity of collecting and distributing papers, saving minutes that add up to hours over the course of the year.

Also, given that most students will be absent at least once during a school term, the practice of coming to the teacher to ask that familiar question, "What did I miss yesterday?" can be a daily occurrence. Usually, a teacher has to spend time pulling those assignments together and explaining them. Instead, create a "make-up work station" where students can find out what they missed without having to ask the teacher.

A good way to handle this is to buy five stacking file trays. Label each tray with a day of the week. For each day of the week, create a manila folder for each class taught. Inside the manila folder, include an overview of the day's activities, as well as copies of any worksheets or notes that were distributed.

Although students may still have questions, they are sure to have fewer of them. If students are assigned a "buddy" in the class, they can ask him or her for clarification on the assignments missed before coming to the teacher.

Systems for Teachers

While the old-fashioned lesson plan books have evolved over time, it seems that not one has been created to accommodate all the lesson objectives, activities, materials lists, or other things that may be required by school administrators to include in lesson plans. The solution is to create your own lesson plan book using a three-ring binder.

A lesson plan template can be created on the computer using Microsoft Word or Excel. From there, the teacher can either type lesson plans and print them out on the computer, or print out the template to handwrite the lesson plans. Behind each lesson or set of lessons in the binder, the teacher can include one copy of the notes, worksheets and activities that were used to teach the lesson.

The beauty of this system is that the binder becomes a blueprint for teaching that course for years to come. In the following years, the teacher need only refer back to the binder for everything needed for teaching the lessons. Additionally, the ease of insertion and removal of papers allows for easy updating as the teacher adjusts lesson plans for changes in textbooks and curriculum.

If the notebook becomes too massive, the teacher could divide materials into separate notebooks based on units or school terms--such as one for each nine-week grading period--or move the materials to a file cabinet after school terms or unit's end.

And just how does one organize a file cabinet for efficiency? The answer is an appropriate system of labeling and grouping.

Some teachers like to create a drawer for each course they teach. Additional drawers may be needed for career and technical student organizations (CTSOs), student information and professional materials.

The mistake that most people make when using file cabinets is not using enough hanging file folders, or manila folders within them, that are suitably labeled. As a result, the file cabinet becomes just another mass of unorganized paperwork that is only slightly more useful than having the same materials stacked on a desk. Don't be afraid to create a folder that contains only one item. As long as that folder is labeled, you will benefit from having the material filed. Then, look for combinations that make sense, such as memos from the administration and revisions to school policies being placed in separate manila folders but the same hanging file folder labeled "Administration."

Teachers may also find it helpful to tape an index card on the front of each drawer with more information about what is found inside. Therefore, wasting time riffling through the wrong file drawer for needed paperwork will be less likely.

Add Some Color to Your Life

Finally, to assist with the room arrangement, notebooks and file cabinets, use color coding. Most teachers will have more than one class to teach during the course of a day and, perhaps, more than one course to teach. Ease the confusion for students to find the correct induction activity, tray or crate by giving each class a color.

If multiple induction activities or assignments are written on the board, get in the habit of using the same color for all things related to that class. By training the students to look for their color, the teacher can set up most of the materials for the day--such as the induction activities--in the morning and will not have to make transitions between classes. Moreover, with file cabinets, using different colored hanging file folders for types of materials--lesson plans, student information, professional organizations or correspondence from administrators--eases confusion for the teacher in locating paperwork. A less expensive option is to label hanging file folders and manila folders with colored pens or to use colored highlighters to color code file labels.

While there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of new technology such as PDAs and cell phones to save time, getting back to basics will benefit teachers as well. Organization and efficiency will stop the seepage of valuable time from a teacher's day.

Time really can be on your side, when teachers take the initiative to preserve it.

Victoria Thomas is a business education teacher at Hardaway High School in Columbus, Georgia. She can be contacted at vthomas@mcsdga.oet.