Organizing Your Students

Organization is a gift that wise teachers give their students, and it is a gift that is useful long after the goodbyes are said in May. In Organization Made Easy!, we devote an entire chapter to organizing students.

One of the central topics is the use of student planners. While some schools have adopted and then left the idea, we explore the subject in enough depth and emphasize the follow-up that is needed from teachers to make the tool work.

We also look at habits and techniques that increase productivity and decrease stress for students:

• Writing it down
• Breaking goals into little parts
• Getting the book bag empty daily
• Learning to deal with papers
• Getting everything ready the night before
• Organizing the locker
• Using the "one-binder" method

You can order your copy today. Use coupon code IRK95 at checkout for a 20% discount.

New posts will continue to appear on this site for the remainder of June. After that, continue to enjoy new material at http://FrankBuck.org.

The Art of Delegation (for Teachers)

Some teachers are masters of delegation. Simple classroom jobs are delegated to students. These teachers realize two important concepts:

A teacher cannot do it all. Delegating those things which a student can do and do well leave more time for the teacher to do those things which require his/her expertise.

Allowing students to help with running the classroom gives them a "stake in the program," gives them a sense of ownership, and builds responsibility.

In Organization Made Easy!, the chapter entitled "Focused or Fragmented" examines this concept. Read about how two elementary teachers structured systems giving every student responsibility. Read tips on how something similar could be used in secondary schools.

Workshop Review

The last two weeks have been busy ones, but a good ones. My thanks to the Illinois Principals Association for having me as one of the keynote speakers for the IPA Assistant Principal & Deans Conference. The subject was "Time Management in a Digital World."

I always enjoy presenting at the Alabama Educational Technology Conference. The timing allowed me to present in Illinois and return to Alabama the following day to present five sessions:

• Free Tech Tools That Increase Productivity
• Social Media: All the Eggs in One Basket
• The (Almost) Paperless Teacher
• Get Organized in the Cloud
• Why Your PowerPoints are Awful and What to do About It

As promised, I drew a name from those who had attended at least one of those sessions and had connected later either through Facebook, Twitter, commenting on this blog, or becoming a newsletter subscriber.  Congratulations to Pamela Harman, winner of a copy of Organization Made Easy!: Tools for Today's Teachers.

The room filled up early for the first session of the day at AETC.

This week, I enjoyed presenting a half-day version of Get Organized! The 5 Keys to Organization & Time Management and half-day hands-on version of Get Organized in the Cloud through the University of Montevallo Regional Inservice Center. A special thanks goes to Dwight Jinright for ordering copies of Organization Made Easy!: Tools for Today's Teachers  and providing each teacher with a complimentary copy.

Organization Made Easy! Do You Have Your Copy?

Are you beginning your teaching career? Are you moving to another school, have inherited a room left in disarray, and need to know where to begin? Are you a veteran teacher who for far too long has been hampered by disorganization and are determined to turn over a new leaf? Do you know someone else who fits into one of these categories? 


Organization Made Easy! was written for just these people. Every good things we do for students happens through the dimension of time, and the productivity we get from the time we have is directly related to how organized we are.


As you begin this school year, I invite you to do so with a copy of this book in your hands. You can pick up a copy here. 

Change and "Crystal Clear Task Lists"

I recently read Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, written by Chip and Dan Heath. They are also the authors of the bestseller Made to Stick.

In the book, the Heath brothers say we must do three things for change to occur:

1. Direct the rider
2. Motivate the elephant
3. Shape the path

Directing the rider and motivating the elephant are metaphors for appealing to the intellect and appealing to emotions, respectively.

What strikes me is the wording used to describe what one must do in terms of directing the rider. The authors state on page 17, "What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction."  We read on page 72, "Clarity dissolves resistance."

In the September 2010 issue of Fast Company, the Heath brothers further explore this concept in their article "Tase the Haze." One of their examples sounds exactly like a line out of the Get Organized! workshop:

Imagine that you have two items on your to-do list. One is "pick up AAA batteries". The other is "deal with tax issues." Guess which one is still unchecked four weeks later?

Replace "AAA batteries" and "deal with taxes" with the examples "buy shoestrings" and 'improve the math curriculum" and you could be sitting right there listening to me!

In both Get Organized! and Organization Made Easy!, we talk about the elements which go into making an "organized task list," a list that stands a chance of having the items on it accomplished. The first rule of an organized task list? Make the next step crystal clear.

Eye on Education featured this idea on their blog in November of 2009. You can read that post here.

The fact that the same idea shows up again worded in virtually the same way is simply evidence of its truth. Before we can make progress, we have to define what progress looks like. We must know exactly what is being asked of us. When worded in a crystal-clear manner, tasks become easier to do. Mountains become easier to move. Wasted motion goes away. Stress goes down. Productivity goes up. Take a look at your own to-do list with the filter of clarity in mind. How could you re-write so that items which have been sitting there suddenly start to get done?

 

Have you ever had an item that sat in your to-do list for what seems like forever? What did you finally do to get it moving?

Help Needed

Eye on Education is planning a second printing of Organization Made Easy! As carefully as we proofread before the book went to press, there remains the likelihood that a typo slipped in here or there.

For those who have purchased the book, have you found any typos? We have a short window of time where we can fix them before the second printing. If you have found a typo, simply click here and let us know what you found. We have until July 22 to identify errors. Thanks!

Configuring Outlook

Throughout Organization Made Easy!, we refer to Outlook as a tool to help the teacher with the calendar, to-dos, e-mail, contacts, and reference information. Appendix B in Organization Made Easy! provides a concise guide for setting up Outlook so the teacher can make maximum use of this software.

Checklist for a Great Start

So much to do and so little time. That statement is one often uttered by the teacher who has just joined the faculty and is preparing for the start of the school year in a new setting.

In Organization Made Easy!, one entire appendix is comprised of a checklist of all of the people, places, equipment, procedures, papers, etc. that the teachers must become acquainted with before the year begins.

Organization Made Easy! Available on Amazon.com

Organization Made Easy is now available on Amazon.com.  

Click here for the link.

Digital Resources Chart

Good teachers have always used additional resources to supplement the textbook. Thanks to the Internet, resources have never been more plentiful. The unlimited number of resources also introduces the problem of how to keep up with them. The teachers can quickly become overwhelmed.

Organization Made Easy! introduces the "Digital Resources Chart," a single spreadsheet organizes it all and puts each resource a click away.

Who Can Help? The Art of Delegation

Some teachers are masters of delegation. Simple classroom jobs are delegated to students. These teachers realize two important concepts:

A teacher cannot do it all. Delegating those things which a student can do and do well leave more time for the teacher to do those things which require his/her expertise.

Allowing students to help with running the classroom gives them a "stake in the program," gives them a sense of ownership, and builds responsibility.

In Organization Made Easy!, the chapter entitled "Focused or Fragmented" examines this concept. Read about how two elementary teachers structured systems giving every student responsibility. Read tips on how something similar could be used in secondary schools.

Organzing Your Students

Organization is a gift that wise teachers give their students, and it is a gift that is useful long after the goodbyes are said in May. In Organization Made Easy!, we devote an entire chapter to organizing students.

One of the central topics is the use of student planners. While some schools have adopted and then left the idea, we explore the subject in enough depth and emphasize the follow-up that is needed from teachers to make the tool work.

We also look at habits and techniques that increase productivity and decrease stress for students:

• Writing it down
• Breaking goals into little parts
• Getting the book bag empty daily
• Learning to deal with papers
• Getting everything ready the night before
• Organizing the locker
• Using the "one-binder" method

Clearing the Clutter of Bulk Items

Teachers never have enough storage space. The lack of space results in clutter. Get Organized! Time Management for School Leaders focused on eliminating the paper clutter. In Organization Made Easy!, we examine how to handle those three-dimensional items and bulk items. We also look at the concept of "off-site" storage, or at least "out of the room" storage and how a teacher can find and use it.

The "Inbox," the "Mail Center," and Student Work

Teachers exist in a world where they receive paperwork from anywhere from 15 to 150 students on a daily basis. Having a system which minimizes time spent collecting, sorting, and returning papers is a huge time saver. Read an excerpt from Organization Made Easy!: Tools for Today's Teachers which addresses this subject. Scroll to pages 14-15.

Click here to read the excerpt.

Organization Made Easy! is Available for Purchase

Organization Made Easy! is now available through Eye on Education. Though many of the tools can be used in any profession, the book with all of its scenarios and examples is written for teachers.

Over the next month, you will see posts periodically which highlight topics from the book.