Rearranging for The Summer – The Professional Stuff

Yesterday, I wrote about my organizing my personal life and making the transition to my first Summer break as a teacher. Today, I want to cover my professional goals.

Organizing My Classroom Curriculum – This is probably my most daunting task for the Summer. I spent most of the last year using items and then throwing them in a pile thinking that I would organize them later. Later is here now and it’s time to pay the check. I have also inherited a bunch of amazing activities from another teacher and need to go through those items and integrate them where I want.

My current plan is to use the TEKS to organize everything. I’m not ready to write about my challenges from the past school year yet, but a physical touchstone regarding the TEKS should help me be more successful this year.

I have been looking for an organization system for every activity and I love this one, but it requires a lot of expensive materials to implement. Instead of using project cases, I’ll just start with a few plastic document folders and see if it gets me close to what I ultimately want.

The other challenge is organizing Google Drive. I’ve decided this is just not going to happen this Summer. Given Google’s detailed search capabilities, I’m just going to wait until I’m ready to go paperless, which is a few years down the road.

Redecorating My Classroom – I limped through the year with a hodge-podge of decorations, but was never really happy with how the room looked even though it was functional. Also, there were a few items I tried that just didn’t click with me and the students such as personal weekly goals. I threw almost every idea I had into the room and I want to cut back and refocus.

Professional Development – I’m currently signed up for about 140 hours before the next school year. I’m doing math, science, social studies, and computer science. Some friends and colleagues have warned me that I may be taking on too much, but almost all of it relates directly to my classroom, so I think it will help me be less stressed during the school year.