Trust me, I know the feeling of overwhelm when you look at a fifteen year old’s backpack and it is completely overflowing with papers. Or when a kid opens their chemistry notes and, “woah, there’s my math homework!” Keeping your students organized and building organization skills can be very difficult.
By the time they get to my classroom as a tenth grader, I realize that nobody taught this student organizational skills. Or the method they were taught didn’t work for them. I have this feeling that tenth grade is probably the last chance this kid has of becoming organized. Teachers of upperclassmen pretty much expect organization. It’s unlikely anybody is going to take the time to TEACH organization to a kid.
How I help my Students Build Organizational Skills
I am a ridiculously organized person. Which is good news for my chembabes. In fact, I’ve even had students I don’t teach visit my classroom and comment on how organized I am. Not only do I have a coding system that keeps my curriculum organized, I make my students use that same system – for everything.
Part of the thing that I use to keep my students as organized as I can, especially for chemistry is by giving them a unit plan. I talk about this quite a bit in my All Star Planning Masterclass, but here is the breeze over.
Upfront Planning
I do as much of my curriculum planning as up front as I can. I’m not really a fan of riding the bike while building it. Alongside the unit plans that I create for myself, I also create a student friendly unit schedule for my students. On it I outline dates, learning targets and homework. What this does, first and foremost, is that it gives my students an idea of where the learning is going. They know how long until their next text, or quiz. They know how many labs are going to happen during the unit too. I’ve set myself up for the total elimination of the questions “Is the test today?” and “What homework?” When kids ask that question in my classroom, they’re usually pretty embarrassed because they know where to find the answer. This makes my daily life SO MUCH EASIER.
In addition to giving a copy to every student, I put this schedule on the wall in my classroom, and on Google Classroom. The kids can see it no matter what. When we transitioned to distance learning in the 19-20 school year, the kids knew exactly what needed to be done and when because they were so accustomed to this unit schedule I made for them. By setting them up with a system, they have the opportunity to build organizational skills. They will have half of the work done for them, they just need to figure out what works best for them.
Tracking Grades
My students can also collect or hold on to these unit schedules and collect their grades beside the assignments. For each test, quiz and lab, they can put a check mark, or a grade to give them an idea of their progress. We do have an online portal, but it’s not a super popular feature in my school (I’m working on it though!) I like that the kids can more or less figure out how much an individual assignment will count too! We grade using a percentage system, so if we do five labs, and labs total 25% of their overall grade, they can figure out that each is worth 5 points on their average. Missing one, or four, is a different situation. The next quarter we may do 10 labs, so each is only worth 2.5 points. In that case, missing one is bad, but not as big of a deal. Considering kids are competing with each other for ranks, awards and scholarships (even if we don’t like it), that can use this information to be more conscious of their decisions.
My unit maps have been going strong for a few years now. So when it comes to planning, creating and copying them, at this point, I mainly just changed the dates. I can thank the All Star Planning Method for this. My curriculum is so strong that I make VERY few changes year to year.
Student Planning Pages
I have a bunch of student planning pages that I give my students. I don’t pick a template for them, I print a bunch, leave them in my room and let them pick what works for them. I’m also sure to encourage my students to change to a different template if they find the first ins’t quite working. Part of building organizational skills is finding a system that works. I mean, it took me four years to find a teacher plan book that I liked. And it took me a whole 5 months of absolute overworking to find a planning method that works for me. It’s no surprise many of my students hop around and find different planning pages. You can find the bundle of student planning pages here. They can easily be printed all together to create a planner book, or you can do what I do, and just print them weekly for students to take what they need.
