That’s why we’ve come up with the ultimate teacher planner at TeacherVision to help you out. It includes everything you need to plan your day, week, or year.
Whether it’s the date of student birthdays, detailed plans for tomorrow’s math lesson or a meeting reminder, our teacher planner is the only resource you’ll need to stay organized. We’ve even included customizable, user-friendly PDF and PowerPoint templates.
At TeacherVision, we make it our job to be attuned to teachers’ needs. Here’s why we know our teacher planner is the one for you.
What should be included in a teacher planner?
Of course, each educator will use their planner differently depending on their subject area and teaching age. But there are a few essential components that any good teacher planner should have, such as:
- Class list(s)
- Daily schedule
- Parent contact information
- Birthdays
- Communication log
- Passwords and login information
- Medical information
- Seating chart(s)
Beyond these basics, there are other important features of a good teacher planner that can enhance your organizational ability.
For one thing, it’s helpful to have both a weekly and a “month-at-a-glance” overview in addition to your daily lesson plans. This facilitates both short-term and long-term planning simultaneously.
You may also want to keep any state or county standards and Common Core requirements in a handy spot for easy reference when planning.
At a more micro level, you’ll want a space designated for small group lesson planning and any standards you’re trying to hit in each lesson. Color-coded stickers are a great tool to help you keep them straight.
The ability to track student data is necessary, as well as any Individualized Education Plans (IEP).
Finally, designating separate sections with stickers for each subject you teach can help you keep resources and information organized.
"From meetings to parent emails to activities for reading groups, there’s a lot to keep in your head and even more to keep in your planner."
What should go in a teacher binder?
A teacher binder is similar in form and function to a planner, and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably.
It usually takes the form of a folder containing all necessary information about your students and curriculum.
Some school districts have specific requirements for what teachers must include in their binders, while others leave it up to individual teachers to decide.
Items that should go in a teacher binder include:
- School and class calendars (keep all calendars, including those used for testing, meetings and planning, together for easy cross-checking)
- Student grades
- Schedules
- Curriculum overviews
- Lesson plans
Divide your binder into different sections with stickers designating different subjects. Here is where you can keep a curriculum map for each subject so you can easily reference them when writing your daily lesson plans throughout the school year.
As you can see, there is a fair amount of overlap between items that belong in a teacher binder and those that belong in a teacher planner. Ideally, you should be able to use one organizer which includes all these items in one handy place. This is how we’ve customized our Teacher Planner. Of course, if anything is missing, you can personalize various templates and calendars to fit your needs as the school year progresses.
What should a teacher do when they are updating a lesson?
One of the most beautiful things about teaching is the many opportunities for a fresh start. If a lesson did not go as you hoped, you can go back to your planner and tweak any plans or checklists you’ve written to ensure a better outcome next time.
Whenever you update a lesson plan, keep the following ideas in mind:
Make it relevant
How will your students use this knowledge? How does it relate to their real lives? Take a look at your plan, and if you don’t see any real-life connection to keep it relevant and engaging for your students, revise accordingly.
Be flexible
Even the best-laid plan can go in an unexpected direction, and that’s not always a bad thing. So be prepared to think on your feet and to take advantage of those teachable moments which are impossible to plan or predict.
Focus on the standards
An effective lesson plan always starts with the standards or learning objectives and goes on from there. If you haven’t identified the lesson’s objectives in your plan checklists, make sure you remember to add that now.
"Whether it’s the date of student birthdays, detailed plans for tomorrow’s math lesson or a meeting reminder, our teacher planner is the only resource you’ll need to stay organized."
What are the benefits of using a teacher planner?
When we think of using a teacher planner, images of old-school spiral-bound notebooks and agenda books come to mind. However, you’re no longer confined to this one-size-fits-all approach to lesson planning. Today’s teacher planners are easy to customize, so you can adapt templates and checklists to your subject area, teaching style, or needs. Much of this customization can happen digitally using tools like PowerPoint or Google Slides.
Another benefit to this style of lesson planning is that it’s easy to communicate with others. You can quickly and effectively share resources and curriculum documents with colleagues, and they can share theirs with you, facilitating meaningful collaboration. You can even share relevant documents with home-school families so they can track their progress, too.
Additionally, using the right teacher planner makes it easy to link learning activities and assessments to your standards, ensuring that lesson plans do not exist in a vacuum but support your broader learning goals.
A good teacher planner lets you see at a glance what materials you’ll need for each lesson. Using a digital version of your planner means you can add files and links directly into your lesson plans, so they’ll be at your fingertips when you need them.
"At TeacherVision, we make it our job to be attuned to teachers’ needs. Here’s why we know our teacher planner is the one for you."
What is the difference between a student planner and a teacher planner?
At first glance, it might seem like teacher and student planners are the same. After all, they provide a place to keep track of daily schedules and a calendar with important dates. They each offer a place to keep track of tasks and activities in and out of school. They both have paperwork and assignments to keep track of.
However, the needs of a teacher are unique. Let’s face it; teachers have massive amounts of paperwork and information that they must keep organized. Not only do they need a schedule of times for each class, but they also need a detailed list within each class which gets down to the nitty-gritty of every moment of their time. Each activity must be minutely planned, even down to the questions you will ask to check student understanding.
Besides their school calendar, teachers have an endless list of important dates to remember. Department meetings, parent-teacher conferences, emergency drills and grading deadlines are just a few of the dates they must remember. They also have specific deadlines for ongoing tasks like writing curriculum or submitting lesson plans to administration for approval.
And teachers are also responsible for recording the progress that every individual student makes towards learning goals. This requires a little more documentation than simply copying down some homework assignments at the end of the day, as our students do.
Because of their unique needs, teachers need a planner created especially for them. So we encourage you to download this fantastic teacher planner for traditional and home-school teachers today and get started.
Here at Teacher Vision, we know it is hard to stay organized. But with the right teacher lesson planner, you’ll be more on top of things than ever. Sign up for our newsletter for more tips and advice about staying organized.
