Do your SHARE!

Ever since you were little you have been encouraged to share. If you are a parent you are encouraging your children to share. As a teacher you want your students to share. So... are you sharing?

I have a mission for you: make a team and share your lessons. I know I've talked a little about this before, but this time I want to be a little more specific.

If you share your lessons, you'll have so much more time to do other things. First things first, you need someone to share with. I suggest getting a group together of teachers near you who teach the same grades/subjects as you. If you are in a large school, and there are three grade 7 classes, and you teach one of them, then work with the other two grade 7 teachers. If you are not in a large school look to the other schools in your board/area. Any teacher that works or lives within a reasonable drive from you and has to cover the same curriculum as you is a potential group member.

Also, try and think outside the box. In Ontario, there are public schools and Catholic schools. But they both have to cover the Ontario curriculum. It *should* be relatively easy for a Catholic teacher to take a 'generic' lesson and add some faith ideas into it; especially with all of the extra time they will have from the process.

So do a little research, make contact with some colleagues, and set up a meeting. Try to emphasize that this is a time-saving meeting and not a time-wasting meeting. I suggest that after your initial meeting, most of your lesson sharing be done via email, so that you can easily edit each others work for your own purposes.

Things to consider during your first meeting:

• Divvy up the lessons (will each teacher take one subject for the year, or one unit of math this month and one unit of science for next month?)
• How often do these lessons need to be exchanged? (plan a lesson at a time, a week at a time, a unit at a time?)
• Are you sharing EVERYTHING or just a few subjects?
• If emailing lessons, what format to use? (old Microsoft office, new Microsoft office (annoyingly not backwards, compatible), wordperfect, within the body of the email, .txt, other)
• What units have already been covered by each teacher (you could share these, or if all teachers have already covered the same unit, you can move on)

By the end of your meeting you should have a clear idea of who will be responsible for what units, and when the first units can be ready for.

Let me know if you try this, and remember, the more teachers in your group, the less units you will have to prepare yourself. And, don't be afraid to tweak the lessons you receive.

You could even take this one step further and have meetings to reflect on the units after they have been implemented.


Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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October Routine Revamp

Well, I can't believe it's October already. A lot of us have had almost a whole month of school. Now is the time for a major reflection. Think about the routines and systems in your classroom both for your students and for you.

• Is homework coming in to the designated place you've assigned (inbox) or is that place not working because of location or lack of routine?
• Do students have time twice daily for you to check their agendas?
• Do you have time to keep on top of planning and marking?
• Are the resources that you have for you and for your students in logical places that are easily accessible?
• Are your daily and weekly routines working out?

Now is a great time to tweak your routines, organization, placement of items, and systems.

Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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Don't Re-invent the Wheel

This is a very old saying, but it still applies to us today. There is no real reason for a teacher to have to write every single lesson plan from scratch. There are tons of resources available to you.

First of all, there is the Internet. Now, of course, anyone can put anything on the Internet, so you have to sift through a lot of junk to get to the good stuff, but a lot of it is free. Start with major websites of your local ministry of education. The Ontario government had a unit planning software created called OCUP (that I'm not the hugest fan of) and on their website they have complete unit plans for the new curriculum in pdf form based on their software, so that's a great place to start. You might not have to come up with anything that way. Look around, there are a lot of good teacher sites on the Internet.

Secondly, there are other teachers. Colleagues are a fantastic resource to you. Why not find another teacher in your board or school that teaches the same grade as you and swap lessons? They plan math for October, and you plan science... Or get a group together. You don't have to have long meetings, you could just email each other your lesson plans, if you want. Also, some retiring teachers and teachers that are changing grades and/or classes will be more than happy to give you their old lessons.

Now, I know that this can sound a little too cookie-cutter, where everyone is doing exactly the same thing, but once you get a lesson plan, there is no law that says you must implement it as is. Play with the ideas in it, tweak it for your teaching style, and have fun with it! Once the major part is done, you have the freedom to be creative.

Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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!backwards Think

When planning a unit, it is important to think backwards. Begin with the end in mind.

The first thing you do when planning a unit (after looking at the curriculum) is the pick your culminating activity and/or decide what skills will be tested on the final test.

Once the end is ready, you work backwards to figure out how you will get your students to the point where they'll be able to successfully complete the culminating activity.

Next, when you have decided what skills need to be taught, you can put your lessons together, planning how many classes the unit will take, and keep your year-long plan in perspective.

This is a simple, way to get a cohesive unit plan instead of a bunch of lesson plans on a similar topic.

Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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