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Studies show that the quality of your classroom environment is a significant determinant of student learning. Classrooms that are painted with color, lighted with full-spectrum lighting, and devoid of visual noise result in improved academic performance and decreased disruptive, off-task behavior.

The following infographic was created by USC Rossier Online, the online master of arts in teaching degree offered through the Rossier School of Education at University of Southern California, to help teachers, parents and school administrators understand the power of brain-friendly learning environments

The Science of Classroom Design [Full Size Here]

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The Science of Classroom Design [Infographic]

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Studies show that the quality of your classroom environment is a significant determinant of student learning. Classrooms that are painted with color, lighted with full-spectrum lighting, and devoid of visual noise result in improved academic performance and decreased disruptive, off-task behavior.

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K-5 focus, but useful for all levels

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. Why is it important to think about "choreographing your classroom" prior to teaching?

2. How does the effort put into teaching transitions pay off in the long term?

3. Why does Ms. Saul have students talk about what transitions look like, sound like, and feel like?

Teachers

English Language Arts Math Science Social Studies Arts / 3 / Teacher

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Third grade teacher Jen Saul choreographs her classroom to create smooth transitions. She talks about how she thinks about the flow of students throughout the day. Jen considers the pathways in her classroom and explicitly tells students which aisles to walk down when moving around the classroom.

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Useful for all levels

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Teacher Pamela Chin using a timer to structure her literacy lesson.

Discussion and Supporting Materials

School Details

Corona Arts And Sciences Academy
9811 44th Avenue
Queens NY 11368

Data Provided By:

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Enjoy your first three pieces of content for free. Subscribe for unlimited access. Have questions about subscribing? Click Here to learn more. Enjoy your first three pieces of content for free. Subscribe for unlimited access. Have questions about subscribing? Click Here to learn more. Teacher Pamela Chin using a timer to structure her literacy lesson.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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All levels

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Rather than pass out papers to the students all day, or try to ensure they receive important notes, invest in a mailbox for the classroom.

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How does Ms. Wessling create a strong classroom culture without a traditional classroom?

2. What materials does Ms. Wessling include in her cart?

3. How does Ms. Wessling utilize digital resources?

School Details

Johnston Senior High School
6501 Northwest 62nd Avenue
Johnston IA 50131

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Teachers

English Language Arts / 10 11 12 / Teacher

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Sarah Brown Wessling describes her transition to teaching without a classroom. With the help of a roaming cart and digital resources, Sarah is able to teach in a variety of settings. She shares how it is the people, not the classroom walls, that make a strong class culture.

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Designing Your Classroom Space (With Before and After Photos) | Scholastic

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Get tips for creating an inviting, affordable learning environment.

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These highly-effective and easy classroom organization ideas will keep your elementary classroom tidy, organized, and running efficiently.

You don't need tons of plastic containers and storage materials to keep an organized.

Classroom systems are more important as those key processes are what keep everything running like a well-oiled machine.

How Can I Organize My Classroom?

1. Stop Keeping Up with the Pinterest Joneses.

Envying other teachers' classrooms and doing your best to meet that perceived standard could keep you frazzled.

Each teacher's classroom organization should meet his or her individual standard of neatness.

2. Invest in Chair Pockets.

Chair pockets are great for storing extra supplies that don't fit into desks or cubbies.

When students are done working, they quietly take out a book or any other supplies needed from their chair pocket, without the need to roam around the classroom.

3. Use Student Cubbies or Mailboxes.

Student cubbies are so versatile.

Student desks can get rather messy or overloaded with textbooks, notebooks, papers, pencils/pens, etc.

Using cubbies allows more space for student materials.

Student mailboxes are especially useful for placing papers that need to be sent home to parents.

4. Keep Frequently-Used Documents Easily Accessible.

Keep student work in file organizers.

Place on a cork-type board near you desk (out of student reach) other important papers such as the school calendar, parent phone numbers, grading rubrics, dismissal procedures~ANYTHING referred to often.

This is simplest classroom organization idea to implement, and it makes a huge difference in keeping up with materials and supplies.

PIN IT!

5. Organize with a Planner.

At the beginning of the school year when you receive the school's calendar of the year's events, pencil in everything for the whole year.

You'll find doing this extremely helpful for remembering special events.

6. Have Emergency Lesson Plans.

A list of easy classroom organization ideas isn't complete without this essential tip.

Many schools require teachers to submit emergency lesson plans at the start of the school year, but even if your school doesn't require them, create one or two sets at the beginning of the school year.

Store them in a labeled, brightly-colored folder that's easily accessible.

You'll thank yourself later in the event that something does happen and you need to step away from your classroom for a day or two on short notice.

7. Manage with a Literacy Centers Pocket Chart.

This literacy pocket chart is versatile and practical.

Use it for student supplies, read aloud books, student papers to go home, teacher supplies - anything.

8. Have Your Students Pitch In.

Give each of your students a classroom helper job, and hold them accountable for doing it well.

Also try a portable bin just for student folders.

Each folder has a student's name and/or number. When students turn in graded papers, notes, etc., have them file their own paperwork in the bin.

9. Categorize Papers using Labeled Shelves, Drawers, or a Folder System.

With so many forms and papers to keep track of, you have to make sure they're organized.

Various types of paper organizers can be purchased easily from any office store or you can save money by using the tops of discarded printer paper boxes.

Plain or colored manila folders work just as well. Make sure to label each folder, drawer, or shelf so that you know exactly which content each contains.

Also consider file cabinets...

Make different labeled folders for each unit of study and other essential topics such as parent communication, back-to-school, quarterly assessments, running records, etc. Then place all the folders in a file cabinet.

All the math folders are grouped together, the reading folders grouped together, and so on.

When you need a folder, simply look for the appropriate labeled tab.

Get rid of any furniture, books, or materials that you for sure won't need.

Donate it to other teachers or have maintenance put it into storage.

Use the extra space for something useful that will benefit students.

If it's too overwhelming to de-clutter during the school year, then put this idea on your summer to-do list.

11. Assign Each Student a Number & Memorize Each One.

This simple idea is most effective for those teaching 30 students or less.

At the beginning of the school year, begin requiring students to put their name and classroom number on each assignment.

Then when grading or collecting papers, you'll simply organize the papers in number order.

You can then easily see whose paper is missing.

12. Implement a Strong Classroom Management System.

The success of any of these easy classroom organization ideas will be due mostly to good classroom management.

It takes a team effort to keep things running smoothly.

Students must follow the class' expectations regarding routines and procedures.

These expectations should include information about desk organization, clean-up procedures after activities, return of lesson materials to the appropriate spaces, etc.

Modeling expected behavior along with being consistent with holding students accountable will yield positive results for you and your students.

13. Have a System for Backpacks.

Have a system in place for backpack storage and use.

I have found it best to have backpacks in the hallway hanging on hooks, but I have also had success with students placing them on long window sills inside of the classroom.

This will, of course, depend on the layout of your classroom and the norms at your school.

Review expectations with students about when they can and cannot access their backpacks because if given the liberty, some will visit their backpack too frequently.

Have More Simple Classroom Organization Tips?

Classroom organization is one of the first steps to a calm and productive school year ~ for you and your students.

Follow these tips for an organized and fruitful school year.

Best

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11 Easy Classroom Organization Ideas that You Should Do

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These highly-effective and easy classroom organization ideas will keep your elementary classroom tidy, organized, and running efficiently. You don't need tons of plastic containers and storage materials to keep an organized. Classroom systems are more important as those key processes are what keep everything running like a well-oiled machine.

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It's the start of a new school year, and teachers across the country are setting up their classrooms. But what do you do when you don't have a classroom?

When a school building has more students than available space, teachers might be asked to divide their time between multiple classrooms (or even multiple schools). These "traveling" or "floating" teachers often have to load up their teaching supplies in a cart-an exercise in patience and organization.

Floating comes with its share of challenges: converting an entire classroom's worth of supplies to what can fit in a cart, sharing space with another teacher, and getting to different rooms with not a lot of time between class periods. And often, teachers are asked to travel from classroom to classroom without much guidance.

"The first year, I was kind of a mess," said Elizabeth Randall, a now-retired Florida teacher who floated for two years. "There really wasn't much out there for floating teachers."

She felt more confident in her second year as a traveling teacher and wrote a book for other educators called The Floating Teacher: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving.

Here are some tips on how to make the most of teaching without a classroom, from teachers who have been there:
Develop a Good Relationship With the 'Host' Teachers
The No. 1 piece of advice from experienced floaters-make nice with the teachers whose classrooms you're sharing. Keep their classrooms tidy, teachers say: Those relationships can make or break your experience.

Randall said when she was on good terms with the host teachers, they would give her some shelves for her textbooks and books, and would leave space on the board for her lessons. They'd also let her come into the classroom a few minutes early to set up. But in one instance, a teacher wasn't happy about sharing her classroom-and would often interrupt Randall's lessons by taking phone calls in the classroom. Randall spoke to her assistant principal, who "tactfully resolved the situation."

"It's kind of a pain for the [host] teachers, too: They have to leave during planning," she said. "You have to be understanding of their challenges, too."

On Reddit, one host teacher wrote that he lost his room for both of his planning periods to a floater. The situation is frustrating for both parties, the teacher wrote, but they found some ways to make it a little easier. One workaround: The host teacher uses Google Chrome, and the floating teacher uses Firefox, "so we don't have to spend the time logging out of and logging into everything."
You Can Still Have a Classroom Library
If you've developed a large classroom library over the years, lugging all those books from room to room can be a recipe for back pain. Teacher Jenny June Lemieux asked other English teachers how they managed to travel while also maintaining a focus on independent reading. She got some creative solutions, ranging from digitizing her library to claiming some space in each classroom:

Ask for a shelf in each room where you are teaching and keep "featured" books on each, rotating every few weeks. Also I built time in each week for students to visit the school library. A master list of books you have that aren't there can be helpful.
- Donna Vorreyer (@djvorreyer) August 7, 2019

What if you created virtual library where students could read a synopsis or general information about your books and request you bring one into class for their independent reading time? You also could put the info into a binder that they could look at the day before IR time.
- Rachel Ciambriello (@RachelCiambrie1) August 7, 2019

In addition to the suggestions here, can you take photos of all your books, perhaps the spines, and create a poster or photo collage to hang in each room. This could allow students to "shop" your shelves w/out hauling your entire library everywhere.
-- glenda funk (@gmfunk) August 7, 2019
Carry the Essentials-and Only the Essentials
In a Teaching Channel video from last year, high school teacher Sarah Brown Wessling said she had to do a "lot of purging and a lot of careful thinking about what was really important to a classroom." She filled her cart with critical items like note cards, sticky notes, pens and highlighters, and handouts for students, and scanned her entire file cabinet, so all those documents are now electronic.

Randall said she had a designated file folder for each class, which kept her organized. And she carried an extension cord to help with technology setup in each classroom.

Other must-haves from experienced floaters: binder clips, sticky labels with your name on them, and a well-organized backpack or bag.
Deck Out Your Traveling Cart
Due to the constant wear and tear, Randall said her cart was held together with duct tape: "I would be going around the corner, and a wheel would fly off."

But some traveling teachers have found ways to personalize their carts, which can make the experience more fun for both the teacher and students. English teacher Kiersti Hunkle wrote in a blog post that a big part of her teacher identity is her pink cart-"my shadow, my personal assistant, my little fashionista."

She has a bike bell on the handle of the cart to help prevent "running over toes" in a crowded hallway. And she wrote that she looks in the Target dollar bin to find cute decorations for every holiday, including a string of rabbits and light-up shamrocks.

Some more creative traveling carts:

Shout out to the traveling teacher on a cart! Mr. Stegman has the Christmas spirit ! pic.twitter.com/EjV8bMSWn8
-- Angie Barnes (@Abarnes2554) December 4, 2013

What does a traveling teacher do when he likes random "stuff". Customize the cart! #WorkInProgress #MobileClassroom pic.twitter.com/ZDc3UAaWDL
-- Mr. Baldwin (@FZNBaldwin) August 5, 2016

Love the traveling teacher history cart complete with standards, the agenda and essential questions! #ECHS pic.twitter.com/i0KmnCrgVI
-- Dr. Hallam (@JeannetteHallam) September 3, 2013
And Consider the Bright Side
While it can be frustrating not to have a permanent home base, teachers say there are some benefits to traveling.

"I got to know a lot of teachers I wouldn't have known otherwise," Randall said. "You really get to know the faculty, the campus, and the students-you're out a lot, the students see you. It's a sociable thing if you make it one."

And one teacher on Reddit put it this way: "I spent WAY less money on my classroom."

In a 2011 blog post, teacher Josh Caldwell wrote that his year of teaching without a classroom gave him a rare opportunity to see firsthand what his colleagues were doing.

"We should all have the opportunity to teach in unfamiliar environments," he wrote. "We should all enjoy the serendipitous collaboration that comes from having another teacher in the room. We should all step out of our comfort zones a little more often."
Have any more tips for being a traveling teacher? Comment below! Image via Getty

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Tips for 'Floating' Teachers: How to Survive Without a Classroom of Your Own

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It's the start of a new school year, and teachers across the country are setting up their classrooms. But what do you do when you don't have a classroom? When a school building has more students than available space, teachers might be asked to divide their time between multiple classrooms (or even multiple schools).

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COVID-19 has hit the U.S. and we are all feeling its effects. The lives of many have been uprooted due to this virus and people are trying to adapt however they can. One population that has been especially disrupted is the education sector. Teachers and students have been forced to finish up the school year at a distance.

Teaching online is a whole different ball game than teaching in person. How you organize your course, your teaching style, and the materials you need are all different. In this time of uncertainty many teachers and professors have found themselves unprepared to transition their in-person classes to the internet. Here is a round-up of tips for teachers who have had to move their courses online:

1. Be Understanding

Each of your students is now in a different situation with a different set of resources and has different family needs. They are concerned about their health, finances, and future plans. Uprooting one's life is jarring in any situation - unfortunately students also have to deal with the disappointment of lost jobs, cancelled internships, and graduations put on hold or not happening altogether. Teachers also have been scrambling to get their courses online and help students finish strong all while balancing their own family needs. It has been rough for everyone.

What's most important at a time like this is to be understanding and flexible. Show your emotional support to students in the communications you send them. Virtual classes are isolating on their own, your kindness will go a long way. Most of your planned lessons, projects, and labs will need to be adapted - and some students may struggle more than others. If someone cannot complete an assignment due to lack of resources, create an individual plan just for them. COVID-19 is no one's fault and we need all the help we can get.

2. Decide how you are going to teach

There are two ways to conduct online courses: synchronously and asynchronously. Synchronous classes occur at the same time for everyone - usually over video call where the teacher and students can come together and carry out a discussion. Asynchronous classes allow everyone to go through course material at their own pace. These occur with pre-recorded lessons or prepared content.

Due to the uncertainty right now and changing situations for your students, you may start with one teaching style and realize you need to pivot. There's no shame in this! Each course is different and it will take some trial and error to have an effective transition from in-person to online.

3. Define your goals for the remainder of the course

Projects and final tests have probably changed shape. An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education helps conceptualize what traditional teaching tools (homework, tests, presentations) are made to do and how to translate that to an online format.

First, you need to look at the goal of previously scheduled lectures, quizzes, discussions. Why are you doing them. In the case of lectures, quizzes, and discussions, it's probably presentation of content, checking for understanding, and collaborative learning, respectively. Next, analyze what you had planned for your course and reframe for an online setting. For example: Instead of a discussion that needs to be synchronous, could you use something like a discussion board to support students who are now learning asynchronously?

Some assignments or projects may need to be cut out entirely. If a lesson doesn't really contribute to your courses goals, cut it from your calendar.

4. Communicate a LOT

This transition to online learning mid-semester can be particularly confusing. It's important that students feel supported and understand what's going on. Overcommunication is better than not going into enough detail. To start, make sure all documents, textbooks, other resources, and a calendar of your course can be found online.

Online Teaching Advice suggests teachers record themselves explaining assignments as if they were in class. This allows students to hear exactly what is expected of them and adds a human element to the course. If you can, showcase past student examples to demonstrate what an "A" looks like.

Furthermore, tell students how to reach you. It's a good idea to connect to students on free platforms like Slack, Whatsapp, or provide a secondary email address in addition to your regular channels. This way, students can get in contact with you if one platform fails.

While some questions can be easily answered with an email or message, students may need more in-depth assistance. Though you probably can't meet in person, you can still hold virtual office hours. Below are a number of different video calling softwares that could assist. A graphic from edublogs lists the different functionality of some of the major ones.

From Resources for Teaching Online During School Closures

5. Avoid Surprises or Ambiguity

It's likely that assignments will take students twice as long as before due to stress and other environmental factors. Pop-quizzes or time-bound "surprise assignments" will set students up for failure. Be as detailed as you can when re-explaining existing assignments or assigning new ones. Students should understand exactly what they need to do and how to achieve the grade they want.

A director of online education at Georgia Tech, David Joyner provides his method of creating an intuitive course cadence that students can rely on:

Set a memorable deadline policy. Make assignments or quizzes due on regular dates - like every Friday at 11:59 ET.

Post announcements at regular intervals. This could be an announcement at the start of each week reminding students of upcoming assignments, exams, or notable happenings.

6. Ask for Feedback

Students likely see issues that you don't. You want to help them succeed, so it's important to understand when coursework is confusing or they are not able to complete assignments due to resource constraints. Set up a designated feedback loop. This could be done by sending out a survey on your Learning Management System, asking for responses via email, or setting up an anonymous Google Form.

Students may feel uncomfortable providing feedback or won't do so until things get really bad. Make feedback a regular, anticipated action. Here is a resource written by George Washington University on what questions you can ask to students - while these were meant for in-person courses, they easily translate for online teaching.

7. Support Each Other

Moving your courses online at the drop of a hat is difficult! Your ultimate goal is to help your students, but don't forget your fellow teachers. Keep in touch with instructors; see what's working for them and what's not. If you have time, help review a colleague's online course portal. You may be able to poke holes in their course design or material that they may not have seen.

Many people have put together resources to support those transitioning to online teaching. Teaching Tolerance, for example, has created an extensive list of resources to help instructors, students, and families. You can find articles on emotional support, free education, how to help families in need, and best practices for distance learning. There are also many Facebook groups designed to foster community for teachers while coronavirus is happening - Teaching During COVID-19 being one of them. Don't be afraid to join or to ask for help.

8. Be Kind to Yourself

Teaching is a noble job, and it can be hard enough without a pandemic. The disruptions to your daily life, challenges with staying inside all day, family needs, and health and economic concerns are real. It's okay to feel overwhelmed or a bit down. Do what you can to make students feel supported - interact on the discussion board often, send out occasional emails, be present to answer questions - but take some time for yourself to process what's going on. Good mental health will translate into effective teaching.

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8 Tips for Teaching Online During COVID-19 - AdmitHub

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COVID-19 has hit the U.S. and we are all feeling its effects. The lives of many have been uprooted due to this virus and people are trying to adapt however they can. One population that has been especially disrupted is the education sector.

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Middle & High School

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I'm not a naturally organized person. In July before my first year of teaching, I remember being at the office supply store in the file/tray/organizer aisle, picking up a single black tray and thinking, "Hmm ... this should do it."

Needless to say my first year was a mess both literally and figuratively. Like a lot of things in teaching, I learned how to be organized by trial and error.

Lots and lots and lots of error.

To save you some error, here are my top five organizational tricks!

The BGT in my class stands for Big Gray Thing because I don't know what else to call this beautiful specimen. A friend donated it to me. I believe normal people call them mail sorters.

I teach three double-blocked class periods, so I have one "column" in the BGT for each class, with different tray labels for vocabulary, grammar, school forms/slips, absent/late work, tests, and then Assignments A through C for work that doesn't fall under the other categories. I color-coded the labels to minimize students putting their work with the wrong class.

I honestly don't know how I survived without the BGT. Gone are the days of huge, towering stacks of work around my classroom or 95 students asking every day, "Where do I put this?" Instead, they know already where to put it OR I simply post on the board where the assignment gets turned in. When it's time to grade an assignment, I just collect the papers across the row of trays for that assignment in the BGT.

During my conference period, I sometimes collect anything in the Absent/Late Work tray and grade that. But sometimes I just spend my conference period spinning in my chair or watching videos of my kitten.

Just keeping it real, y'all.

Oh, Black Binder! How I love thee. Isn't it beautiful?

OK, so it's pretty normal. If I were one of those teachers who are perfectly perfect, I would have some adorable and colorful label on the front that says my name and the year, but I'm not. It's beautiful to me, OK?

Black Binder keeps track of every assignment for every student, but it's a lot less work than it sounds. Here's how it works.

First, let's talk about the binder pages. I have one page per class, with every student listed in the order that their names appear in my online gradebook (this makes it easier to input grades later). Next to each student's name, I have five columns for assignments with enough space for both a checkmark and an actual grade. When you make your page, just insert a table with the number of students you have as your rows and about six columns. Here's a sample page with fictional names and fake assignments:

As you can see, Theon Greyjoy needs to get his act together.

If you save the template with student names and blank assignments, you can just print out this page each time you fill it up (it also makes it easier to add and delete students when they move).

Here's how the binder works when kids turn in work. First, I set a hard deadline for an assignment (i.e., "Wednesday at the beginning of class before my timer goes off" or "Thursday before 3:45 after school"). As work gets turned in, I pull out the stack a couple of times and check off whose assignments I have on the left side of the column for that assignment. Then, the second the deadline has passed, I check for any additions to the stack of work. That way I can immediately hold students accountable and say, "Jon Snow, I'm missing your essay-I'll pick you up from lunch to give you more time to work on it" instead of realizing his mistake at home when you've sat down to actually grade it. (I say this under the assumption that your school is like mine, where missing work is the teacher's responsibility, not the student's. Anyway. Moving right along.)

The BGT also cuts down the "I turned it in!" excuse. It's kind of hard for a students to claim that you lost their papers when they watch you take it out of the stack right in front of them.

I'm telling you. Black Binder. It's the real deal.

3) Posted directions for almost everything

This is an excellent way to reduce the stress of repeating yourself and very easy if you have a projector of some kind. At the beginning of every class, I have a list of what students need and what they should be doing ready on the board (along with a timer of how long they have to do it).

I also post instructions when my students are working on multiple assignments:

when they're taking a test:

and other times they might need reminders. This cuts down on what is probably my biggest teaching pet peeve, which is hearing, "I'm done." When instructions are posted, all you have to do is smile politely and point to the board. Students will get used to this, and pretty soon, "I'm done" will be a distant memory.

4) Hanging files for returning student work

Super easy! First, get yourself some hanging files. Give one to each student and have them write their names on the tab. Then file them in alphabetical order in these hanging file crates, which are stackable to save space. When you're ready to pass back assignments, just grab that class's box and file the assignments in the correct folder. I have my students check their files once a week.

It took me way too long to figure out how to blur out my students' names. Anyway.

Having student files cuts down on:

Not knowing what to do when you're passing back work and come across an absent student.

Students feeling embarrassed or obligated to compare grades from work passed back at the same time.

You tripping over 35 backpacks, gym bags, chair legs, real legs, etc., while trying to hand back work to each student.

5) Table bins for materials

For some reason, it took four years for me to learn that it's better to put a few supplies at each table instead of putting all the supplies in one area. Having supplies at individual tables minimizes traffic, and at the end of class allows you to hold individual tables accountable for their messes instead of not knowing whom to address for a completely destroyed communal supply area.

Because I have only a few double-blocked periods, I have bins for each table AND for each class. It was expensive to buy 18 all at once, but I can't tell you how well this has taken care of the "Someone stole my silent reading book/journal!" phenomenon.

6) Setting a timer for getting started after the bell/transitioning

This works well, but only if you use it consistently. I use a timer every day with my eighth graders at the beginning of class to show students how much time they have to be on task. If they don't need any supplies other than a writing utensil, I give them about 30 seconds after the bell to be situated. If they need lots of supplies or have to move desks or something else that will take more time, I give them somewhere around the three-minute mark. The first week of school I let them get used to the timer, the second week I start giving out small consequences (for blatant violations, like the darling who chooses to talk to his friend about weekend plans for the first minute and 45 seconds, then scrambles to get ready in the last 15 seconds and fails). After the second week when they realize I'm for-real about the timer, I only have to remind my students a few times a year.

I also use the timer to transition between activities. Sometimes I use the actual timer on the board, and sometimes I turn to face a corner and say "I'm going to count out loud to 30 in Pig Latin and when I turn around, I need to see your desk in rows for testing. GO! Irty-thay ... enty-nine tway ..."

It might seem like using a timer is kind of militant (which is what I thought going into my first year when I didn't use it), but I can assure you that my classroom is far from that. Using a timer lets our learning run smoothly with minimal interruptions, which means less wasted time, which means more time for extension activities and other fun stuff. Plus, who wants to be in a class where the first 10 minutes of every day is listening to the teacher plead for the class to get settled?

I just use a Google Chrome window with this link open as my timer, but there are many options online for you to choose from. It just needs to big enough for students to see even if they're seated at the back of the room.

So, I know what you're thinking: Most of these hacks require having supplies (bins, hanging files, a BGT, a projector, etc.), and chances are your principal hasn't given you an American Express Black card* for school spending. I would first recommend asking around at your school to see if you can snag extras that may not be in use. If you're still lacking, set up a project with Donors Choose and see if you can get it funded. If that doesn't work, write a letter to your governor and attach a receipt for your supplies and ask if he/she will refund you because his/her budget cuts have made things difficult for you.

I hope at least one of these hacks will be helpful to you. What are YOUR top teaching hacks?

Looking for more support? Check out our Facebook page, exclusively for new teachers!

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My Top 5 Organizational Hacks for Teaching High School

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Even if you're not a naturally organized person, you can overcome! These organizing tips from a vet are brilliant and time-saving!

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Have you ever had so many tabs open at once that you can't even tell which tab is which? Yeah, me neither ( cough). No one wants their brain to feel like it has a tab issue. Yet, that's what distance learning can seem like for both students and teachers. COVID-19 put most people into a state of emergency. It's kind of hard to transform from face-to-face instruction to an online classroom overnight. But, many of us did! Going forward, however, we need a better plan to organize a virtual classroom for both students and teachers.

We can organize learning experiences to reduce confusion and save time for everyone involved. This post offers some ideas for establishing routines and organizing work in a digital classroom.

ESTABLISHING ROUTINES

Checking In

During a traditional school year, we teach students the routine of checking (usually the board) for information like...

supplies they need out on their desk

the day's agenda

the bell ringer

homework and due dates

An online classroom needs the same cultivation. We can start by helping students develop a habit of checking in at the same location each day. Whether it's Schoology, Google Classroom, or a fun Bitmoji classroom, we need to establish the routine of starting in the same place regularly.

Because it can be taxing to read a lot of text on a screen, the more visuals we can use to organize the day's learning for students, the better! It's relatively simple to insert a few images on a slide (as pictured above), and it will reduce distractions for students when they're trying to focus on their work.

Finding Assignments

Scrolling in general can be annoying, but having to scroll endlessly to find past assignment details is the worst. Instead of posting assignment details in the Google Classroom stream, it can help to create an ongoing calendar for students. The calendar can be linked to the learning management system.

On the calendar, we can add links for assignment details, videos, suggested pacing, due dates, and turn-in locations. The fewer places students have to check to get organized with their work, the more efficient the process is for everyone.

I like organizing the calendar weekly. If you add a separate slide for each day, the document gets to be pretty big, which makes it harder for students to find what they need. And, with a whole month, I don't have enough room to add my links and reminders. (You can grab this weekly calendar !)

Communicating with Students

Thousands of emails. What used to be frequent, daily face-to-face conversations are overwhelming when they turn into a congested inbox. So, we can organize online learning by teaching students how to ask for help.

First, decide on your preferred method of communication.

Do you want them to email you? If so, consider teaching students to use a specific subject line. For example: 1st Hour Question on Informative Essay. A clear subject line helps us to prioritize when skimming our inboxes.

Email etiquette is always one of my first writing lessons of the year. Teaching students how to email professionally (a real-world writing lesson) saves everyone time and frustration in the long run.

But, there are other options!

Keep a running doc where students can ask questions, and you can respond to them. Add headings and activate the outline feature on Google Docs so that students can quickly scan to see if their question has already been asked before posing it a second time.

Flipgrid can work in a similar fashion. Invite students to post questions on a board, but watch the other frequently asked questions first to make sure theirs has not already been discussed. Padlet is another similar option where students can quickly post a question and even include a photo of their work for feedback.

Turning in Work

As much as possible, it helps to keep assignment due dates and turn in locations consistent. In a digital classroom, it can be easy to lose track of time and forget about an assignment. Without a physical paper to remind us, it can very much be "out of sight, out of mind."

But, if students know they have work due by 5 p.m. every day or every Friday, and there is a regular location to turn that work in, they will be more likely to remember.

And, we have to intentionally teach students the process of how to submit work on different platforms. One way to do that is to record a very short tutorial video and put it on our main platform. That way, if students have issues, they can just watch the tutorial instead of emailing or not submitting.

Parent-Teacher Communication

If your inbox is full of parent-teacher communication, and trying to track all of the touchpoints is getting cumbersome, I have a practical solution.

Create a short Google Form. Fill it out every time you touch base with a parent or guardian. You can bookmark it or pin it as a tab that will open every time you turn on your device to make it more convenient. In the form, record data like the student's name, the person you contacted, and the reason for the communication. Fill out the form as you are on the phone or as soon as you finish an email. Taking the extra 30 seconds to enter details about the contact in this way will help you to be more efficient with tracking the who, what, when, and why of parent communication.

To easily sort the data, export Google Form results into an excel spreadsheet. From there, you can create filters or organize columns by student name, which will cause all of the contacts you've made for one student to show up clumped together.

Streamlining this communication will help you to feel more prepared to conduct parent-teacher conferences. Plus, you'll have organized evidence of communication to show your evaluator. And, you won't have to spend hours searching your sent folder to track down details.

Make a free copy of my parent contact Google Form here.

ORGANIZING WORK

Organizing Learning Activities
Regularity without Ordinary
Students can get into a rhythm if we organize online learning to include some predictable elements. In college, I remember a couple different ways professors made our once a week meetings feel more regular. One was through weekly discussion posts (those I did not love!) and the other was through weekly journal responses to reading (which I enjoyed a lot!).

Part of our job as teachers is to find out how our students like to learn and interact with new information. Then, we need to build in some regularity to those activities with online learning.

Will you use an online bell ringer? For instance, maybe they will complete one digital vocabulary activity a day.

Will students be encouraged to read a book of their choice every day? If so, they'll need to work on developing a reading habit and have a variety of engaging options for responding to their reading. Digital one pagers, journal responses, social media activities, literary element analysis...we can incorporate some predictability and critical thinking while providing choice to eliminate anything mundane.
Visual Attention Grabbers
And, IMPORTANT! - Where will students locate these activities? When we use the same organizational system for students who are in person as well as those who are at home, there will be less confusion. If we use a white board to post our agenda in person but a learning management system to post assignments remotely, students probably won't know where to look when they're at home.

One option for housing daily activities is to create something visual that will catch students' attention when they log into the platform. Whether you have color-coded folders, a Bitmoji classroom linked to your daily agenda slides, or digital buttons, visuals are more effective than words.

Providing Video Lessons

I've flipped my classroom for many years, and one thing I notice about doing so is that it frees up so much class time for me to work with students. Moving into a digital classroom environment is similar in that video lessons allow us to differentiate more easily. Those who need to re-watch can. And, we can make short enrichment lessons for students who need a challenge.

It can be overwhelming for students to try to write without being in the same room as a teacher. Video lessons are a way for us to bridge the gap. We can incorporate lessons on grammar, fluency, and ideas. Plus, we can model our thinking and writing process for students.

Learning to Self Assess

One of the most critical aspects of organizing online learning for me is to find a way to get feedback from students regarding how they are doing, what they are learning, and what questions they have. It's imperative that we teach students to self-assess. It's part of the culture we create.

I think we can do this in many ways, but one of them is through conversations. We need to show students why it matters...that their voice and input help shape the learning environment!

We can also model this process for students. As we read and write, we can point out different things, like...

I am not completely confident that I understand what this means. I need to do some more work to find out. Maybe I could ask a friend or look it up online.

I love the way my essay turned out, but I wasn't able to do it on my own. Maybe since I needed help, that means I'm still developing these skills. I have more work to do!

A fun acronym for self-evaluation!

And, we can share helpful tips with students. Acronyms can be powerful. In order to self-assess, we need to be EQUIP-ed.

E - Evaluate? Consider your effort. Did you do your best on this work?

Q - Questions? Don't be afraid to ask them. Did you advocate for yourself?

U - Understanding? Do you feel confident about what you are learning? Can you connect it to life or other school lessons? Could you teach someone else about it?

I - Independence? Did you need help with this assignment, or were you able to do it independently?

P - Positivity! What are your strengths? What did you do well? Notice the progress you have made. Give yourself some praise. You are growing!

Download a free student self-reflection questionnaire for this fun acronym here.
Self-assessing during online class meetings...

With synchronous meetings, we can organize online learning by streamlining lessons and discussions with quick formative checks. Have students hold up emoji cards or colored papers (red, green, yellow) to indicate clarity, confusion, or uncertainty. Many other symbols can be used as well. Think: thumbs up, down, or a question mark.

Digital learning doesn't have to feel like you're standing in the middle of a whirlwind. As educators, whenever we are faced with a new challenge, we learn from what works, and we fix what doesn't moving forward. I hope these lessons I've learned will help you organize a virtual classroom for students, teachers, and parents so that the process is more efficient and manageable for everyone.

In the mood to organize more? Read Language Arts Classroom's post in which she offers some additional suggestions for designing a digital classroom.

READ NEXT:

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Easy Ways to Organize a Virtual Classroom - Reading and Writing Haven

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Have you ever had so many tabs open at once that you can't even tell which tab is which? Yeah, me neither ( cough). No one wants their brain to feel like it has a tab issue. Yet, that's what distance learning can seem like for both students and teachers.

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We still may not be 100% sure what school will look like this fall, but we know that we'll want to make every second we have together count! Today, we'll discuss a five keys to create a conducive learning environment no matter what learning situation you end up facing.

listen here:

creating an orderly learning environment

Procedures may not seem like the most important thing in the midst of the unknown, but they should actually be one of your top priorities. Your routines and procedures need to be well thought-out, especially in light of social distancing guidelines. But that's not enough.

You need to invest time in making sure your students learn the procedures. Even when you may feel more pressed for time than usual, this is not a waste of time. It will pay off! Teach them clearly, practice them with your students, and insist they are followed. If your class doesn't do the procedure correctly, have them re-do it. This will pay off greatly in a calm, conducive learning environment for the year.

For more about teaching procedures, check out our article How to Teach Procedures that Your Students will Actually Follow.

2. give students clear expectations

Be really clear with your students about what you expect of them and what's needed to succeed. Don't assume; communicate directly what you need them to do.

This is especially important if students are doing long-distance or blended learning at home. For example, if you're doing flipped learning, explain to the students that they need to watch the videos with headphones, no distractions, and have supplies with them to take notes. Over-communicate your expectations.

3. allow real student choice

Allow real student choice about what you're doing, especially for older students. Choices can increase student motivation by giving them ownership in their learning.

They can also be helpful in accounting for the varied circumstances our students faced in the spring and may continue to face this fall. The pandemic really reminded us that every student comes from a different situation. Some students stayed on track or even did better than usual during distance learning. Others may not have logged on all spring.

You can provide student choice by giving the options to complete a remedial skill or a more challenging skill. Teach students how to self-assess themselves to make the right choice. That also takes the burden off of you to assess every student for every assignment option.

You can also offer choices of different learning formats. For example, one assignment requires internet access, but the other doesn't since students have different technology options.

A quick reminder to offer student choice in a sustainable way that doesn't put extra burden on you. Small tweaks work; you don't need to create two completely different assignments.

For even more student choice ideas, check out 20 Student Choice Ideas that Share Control Without Losing It.

4. create space for community

Some students may have continued to have social interactions through the pandemic, but others have been isolated for 6 months. Teachers may feel the crunch to push academics every minute of the day, especially since some students have fallen behind.

But we also need to create space for social/emotional learning. Some students have faced serious trauma in these last few months, some have faced more minor trauma, but we have all been affected by these last 6 months. We are all bringing different experiences back into the classroom and ignoring that would be doing a disservice to our students.

B uilding relationships and giving students space to express their emotions is not a waste of time. One way to do this in elementary school is through morning meetings. This is based on the book ​The Morning Meeting Book​​​​ .​​ You can find out more about morning meetings in Beyond Classroom Management, but basically, you take 15-20 minutes in the morning every day to meet together as a class. You can review academics, teach social skills, teach communication skills, and have some social interaction.

In secondary education, you might do this through exit slips that ask more personal questions, allowing students to turn and talk for the last few minutes of class, or having students share in the beginning of class. This social time is especially needed if your school is very strict on social distancing. Students can be far apart physically, but you can help them feel closer emotionally and socially.

5. provide clear communication with parents

Clear communication is necessary so that parents can better support their kids, especially when doing distance or blended learning. As much as possible, give responsibility and ownership to the students, rather than the parents. But at the same time, you need to clearly communicate what's going on with the parents.

If there's something the parents can do to help their students stay on pace, let them know that. The younger the students, the more important communication is because parents are usually administering the work.

Remember to put yourself into the parents' shoes. They don't have the same background on the assignment that you do. Ask yourself: "If I weren't the teacher, would I know what to do?" Instead of "Do the assignment on page 8," you may need to say, "Before s/he does the assignment, remind your student how to add using the hundred chart."

It's difficult to live in the unknown and not know exactly what next year will look like. However, whether it's virtual, in-person, or blended learning, these five principles can make your classroom run smoothly.

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Your Blueprint to Create a Conducive Learning Environment as Schools Reopen

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We still may not be 100% sure what school will look like this fall, but we know that we'll want to make every second we have together count! Today, we'll discuss a five keys to create a conducive learning environment no matter what learning situation you end up facing.

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If you've read Norman Clark's hypothetical day in the life of a physically distanced classroom, then you've probably started to worry about how faculty and other instructors might facilitate discussion, group work, and other forms of active learning this fall. If I'm standing at the front of the classroom with half or a third of my students in the room with me, but sitting six feet apart from each other and wearing masks, while the rest of my students are joining class by videoconference, what strategies might I employ to engage all of my students in meaningful learning?

I'm going to try to outline some options here in this blog post, drawing on ideas and resources from across the higher education community, but I would enthusiastically welcome additional approaches in the comments below or via Hypothesis annotations.

First, let's take a big-picture view of fall courses on many college and university campuses this fall. We're likely to see perhaps a handful of courses fully in-person, more courses fully online, and a significant number of courses taught in some kind of hybrid or blended fashion. See these infographics from the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation (OTEI) at Clemson University for a useful overview of options. Decisions about modalities will be made at a number of levels (department, school, university) for a number of different reasons (safety, pedagogy, student access). I'm happy to talk (elsewhere) about the pros and cons of these decisions, but for the purposes of this blog post, I'm assuming faculty have opted into or been required to teach in some blended or hybrid manner, one which will feature synchronous class sessions with a mix of in-person and online students. To be clear, I'm not arguing for classrooms structured this way; I'm just being realistic that many instructors will be facing them this fall.

I'm also assuming a few practical things:

For instance, let's assume that the online students are visible and audible to the in-person students, either because the instructor is projecting the videoconference on the big screen at the front of the room or because the in-person students are also logged into the videoconference, perhaps with their audio muted or on ear buds.

I'm also assuming that all the students are able to participate synchronously. This is a pretty big assumption-it's quite likely that there will be students who can't participate synchronously for various reasons. How to engage those students equitably is an important conversation, but that will have to happen in a future blog post.

And I'm assuming that in-person students have some kind of digital device (laptop, tablet, phone) they can use to participate. There are some low-tech strategies in what follows, but, in general, this is not the semester to ban digital devices in your classroom.

One more note before we look at strategies... Teaching and learning in these kinds of classrooms will be challenging. Here's some advice from Allison Leich Hilbun, a senior lecturer in biological sciences here at Vanderbilt:

"I feel like engaging students can be helped by having honest conversations with the students about how they are feeling about this novel approach to learning. Even stopping class to ask how students feel emotionally and whether or not they feel connected could potentially help foster social connections and comfort with the new system."

Being student-centered in our approaches to teaching means talking with our students about their experiences as learners and trying to understand and then meet their needs. Be prepared to have these conversations regularly during your course, as you and your students adapt to changing conditions.

Now, let's talk about strategies...

This may be one of the more challenging activities to conduct in a hybrid and socially distanced classroom. Why? It will likely be hard for the students participating virtually to hear contributions made by students participating in-person. The virtual students will presumably be able to hear the instructor through a microphone, but without extra microphones to pick up the voices of the students in the room, it's not clear how the virtual students will hear the in-person students. Some rooms may have the audio equipment to pick up in-person students, but many classrooms won't have that kind of gear and it's not clear yet how well those extra mics will work for students who may be speaking through masks.

Could students in the room use their laptops or phones to participate in the videoconference? Unlikely, given some preliminary testing done by the Pepperdine University Center for Teaching Excellence. They found that having multiple people in the same room on the same videoconference led to unpleasant audio feedback. Without some more advanced hardware or an organized way to have all participants except one mute their devices, this doesn't look like a solid option.

If you, dear reader, have ideas for conducting classwide discussions in the hybrid and socially distanced classroom, please share! In the meantime, let's consider some other strategies.

One simple way to engage students in the room and on the Zoom call is to use a live polling tool to ask them questions about the course material. Back in the day, we used "clickers" for this type of live polling, but these days we have lots of options for classroom response systems. One option would be to use whatever polling feature your videoconferencing tool provides. Zoom polls, for instance, let you ask multiple-choice and multiple-mark questions pretty easily. This would mean your in-person students would need to be in the Zoom session, which has advantages. But if your Zoom screen is getting too busy, you could have your in-person students turn off their cameras; Zoom can hide participants who don't have their cameras on.

If having your in-person students in the videoconference is hard, or if you'd like to ask more complex questions (free-response, clickable image questions, and so on), you could shift to a second platform like Poll Everywhere (free for a limited number of students) or Top Hat ( free for all Vanderbilt faculty). This adds a little overhead for instructors and virtual students (now you have to manage, say, Zoom and Top Hat windows), but if you're going to use polling regularly, that learning curve might be worth it.

What kinds of questions might you ask? Well, gosh, I wrote a book on that. But if you'd like a primer, see my 2009 essay " Multiple-Choice Questions You Wouldn't Put on a Test," which discusses one-best-answer questions, student perspective questions, and misconception questions, or read through my blog posts about classroom response systems.

The text chat that likely comes with your videoconferencing tool can be used to host what is called a backchannel for class discussion. The spoken dialog between you and your in-person or online students forms the "frontchannel," while the text chat provides a forum for supplemental discussions among students. A backchannel can be useful for fostering dialog and even a sense of community among your in-person and online students. It can also serve some universal design purposes by providing a written alternative to spoken discussions or an ad hoc text captioning of spoken conversations.

Note that, as with live polling, if your videoconferencing tool's built-in chat tool isn't suitable, you could add a second platform like Slack, Discord, GroupMe, or Microsoft Teams. These platforms can also be useful outside of class time for less formal communication among students and instructors. Note also that for some videoconferencing platforms (e.g. Zoom), if a student drops the call and then re-enters the session, they lose the earlier text chat, which is another reason to use a second platform.

Monitoring and responding to the backchannel can be a challenge for instructors, of course, whose attention can only be split so many ways. I recommend appointing someone to be the "voice of the chat." This person could be a rotating student or a teaching assistant or a faculty colleague (maybe you can return the favor in their class). Their job is to monitor the backchannel and look for questions or comments that should be brought to the attention of the instructor. I like to plan "voice of the chat" moments in my lesson where I call on this person to speak up and share these questions and comments, and I'll even signal these moments in my slides, using a graphic like the one seen here.

It's a good idea to talk with your students about how to use the backchannel productively during class sessions. You might want to establish some community norms about appropriate text chat use. You might also want to direct students' contributions to the backchannel with some guiding questions. For some ideas, see my 2010 blog post " Backchannel in Education - Nine Uses."

If audio is a challenge in your fall classroom, that is, if it is hard to hear students who are socially distanced and wearing masks, then the backchannel + voice of the chat combo might be particularly useful. If you have a microphone to share with your voice of the chat, you could invite all students to share their questions and comments on the backchannel, then rely on the voice of the chat to vocalize those questions with you and the entire class using the mic.

A variation on the backchannel approach is collaborative notetaking. This typically involves setting up a Google Doc for students to use during class to take notes on the class discussion. Often, two or three students are appointed lead notetakers for a given class session, with that duty rotating among students over the semester, but all students are invited to read and contribute to the shared notes.

This approach provides a structure for active listening during class-notetakers don't participate in the discussion but try to capture all of it they can, while the rest of the students can focus on participating in discussion without having to worry about taking notes-and might be particularly valuable in a classroom where it is hard to hear some students, especially if the notetakers are scattered throughout the socially distanced classroom..

Live polling, backchannel, and collaborative notetaking are useful activities that don't require students to leave their physical or virtual seats. But what about group work in a hybrid classroom where the in-person students aren't free to move around the classroom? Let's consider a possible scenario:

You have three discussion questions for your students to consider in small groups. Under normal circumstances, you might have posted these questions in a PowerPoint slide or included them in a printed handout. In your hybrid classroom, however, you've put your three questions at the top of a Google Sheet, one question per column. You ask your students to get into groups of two or three, with the in-person groups sitting six feet apart from each other at tables and your online students moving to breakout rooms in your videoconferencing platform. You give your students some time to discuss the questions in groups and report their answers using the Google Sheet, with each small group selecting an unused row of the spreadsheet to document their answers.

Ordinarily you might circulate among your students as they work to eavesdrop and ask a few questions. That's not feasible now, but the Google Sheet serves a similar purpose. As the students work, you keep an eye on the sheet, monitoring your students' progress through the activity (so you know when to call time) and getting a sense of their responses (so you can plan the debrief at the end of the activity). When the group work is over, you highlight a few student responses to share with the full group (either yourself or by asking the loudest group member to speak) along with your comments reflecting on and synthesizing the student ideas.

This approach has the advantage of engaging your in-person and online students in essentially the same activity. Your online students might actually have an easier time of it, if your in-person students find it difficult to talk at a distance and through masks. That said, having a collaborative document of some sort for the small groups to use gives them some options for handling the group conversation. For example, one group might assign each question to a different student to draft a response to, then switch up the questions for editing and revising. The coordination would happen through some simple, in-person communication, but the heavy lifting of responding would happen in the collaborative document. You might encourage group strategies like this one, if you find yourself in a classroom where students can't hear each other well.

Of course, Google Sheets is just one option for a way to organize and share student work. Other collaborative tools ( Google Docs, Google Slides) might work better for some activities. Consider also annotation tools ( Hypothesis, Perusall, NowComment, VoiceThread, ReClipped), virtual whiteboards ( Mural, Miro, Padlet), and spaces in your course management system. Different activities will benefit from different tools. You'll also want to consider whether you want each group to have its own virtual space for collaboration or have all the groups work in the same virtual space.

Sometimes you might want rather structured responses from students, using something like Sheets with its columns and rows is useful, and other times you might ask more open-ended questions, asking each student group to construct its own slide in a Google Slide deck. Note that the more structure you build into the activity, the faster you'll be able to parse and respond to student responses. In large classes, very structured options, like multiple-choice polling questions, are the most practical.

Note that moving to groups (in-person and online) and getting started using a collaborative tool will take students a little time. This isn't as simple as turning to your neighbor in a traditional classroom and discussing a question, but if you make the group tasks meaningful and use the same tools regularly, this approach to group work has the potential to be practical.

One note for those teaching in disciplines (like mathematics) where group work involves students seeing each other's written work: If you're able to equip students with individual small portable whiteboards and markers, these might make it easier for students to show their work to group members across a six-foot gap. And for students participating in group work virtually, if they're Zooming in using their phones, they can probably point their phones at their own handwritten work when they need to share with their groups.

Here's another spin on group work: Ask your in-person students to pair up with virtual students for a quick Zoom or FaceTime call. If all the in-person students are using earbuds or headphones and if you can solve the matching problem, this might be a practical way to include pair work during class time. And it has the added benefit of fostering community across your two groups of students.

Keep in mind general strategies for using group work, like the jigsaw approach. In a jigsaw, students participate in two rounds of small group activities. In the first round (sometimes called "focus groups"), each group of students is given a different reading or topic to discuss. In the second round ("task groups"), groups are reformed so that each new group has a representative from each of the first round groups. The tasks groups are then asked to bring to the conversation perspectives shared during the focus groups. In the hybrid classroom, each set of groups might be facilitated using the strategies mentioned above, and the second-round groups might be assigned intentionally so that in-person and virtual students interact.

Here's an activity that might actually work better in a hybrid classroom. The fishbowl is a class discussion strategy with a long history. In the classic formulation, an instructor would identify a small set of students who feel the same way about a topic. These students are instructed to make a circle with their chairs in the center of the room; they are in the fishbowl. They discuss the topic-how they think about it, why it's important to them, and so on-while the rest of the students listen; the other students are outside the fishbowl. Then the instructor asks the observers to summarize or paraphrase what they heard; students in the fishbowl can affirm or clarify these remarks. Then the students switch places and repeat the process. The strategy is meant to encourage empathy for other points of view, and can be particularly useful for addressing contentious topics.

With a few modifications, the fishbowl activity should work well in the hybrid classroom. Instead of selecting students for the fishbowl by their points of view, an instructor might select a subset of their online students to be the "fish." These students are asked to discuss the topic at hand from their various perspectives, while the other students (the in-person students and any remaining virtual students) listen and observe and (optionally) take notes in a collaborative document. After the fishbowl discussion, the observers then paraphrase or question or argue as appropriate to the topic, perhaps using their voices, the backchannel, or one of the group work structures mentioned above.

Running a fishbowl activity this way might not work as well at encouraging empathy, but it takes advantage of the fact that in a hybrid classroom the students in the room will likely have an easier time hearing the virtual students than the other way around. And if your hybrid class is structured so that you alternate which students attend in-person and which attend virtually, you can make sure that all students get the chance to be in the fishbowl over time.

There's evidence that physical movement can benefit cognitive functioning ( Ferrer and Laughlin, 2017). Although the socially distanced classroom might make moving around the room difficult, there still might be ways to incorporate physical movement in classes this fall. For instance, you might supplement a yes/no or agree/disagree polling question with some vertical movement by students, e.g. stand up if you agree, sit down if you don't. I can imagine some more colorful options here, too, like asking students who vote a certain way to dab.

Here's another idea, assuming you can access some office supplies: During a group work activity, students could jot down ideas or questions on Post-it notes and take turns affixing their notes to a group whiteboard or chalkboard. If the sticky notes and writing utensils are large enough (I'm fond of 5" x 7" notes and Sharpies), students in the group will be able to read the collected ideas. If not, one group member could take a photo of the notes with their phone and share it with the group.

It might be hard to require movement from your virtual students, but if you have one or more in-person students taking notes on the class discussion for later sharing with the class (via a Google Doc, for instance), some of your virtual students might enjoy going for a walk while they attend class, if they are able. Planning stretch breaks into long class sessions can be useful, too.
The strategies listed above are hopefully a useful starting point for planning hybrid and socially distanced classes this fall. This isn't meant to be a comprehensive list! We encourage you to add your ideas in the comments below or via Hypothesis annotations. Credits: Several of the strategies and tools above, including the fishbowl activity, the ideas for physical movement, and some of the group work tools, were mentioned in the POD Network Google Group by Natalie Parker, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Texas Wesleyan University. Thanks to Natalie for sharing her ideas, and to my CFT colleague Heather Fedesco for helping to expand on those ideas. Thanks also to colleagues who provided helpful comments on a draft of this piece, including Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Nancy Chick, Joshua Eyler, Christopher Heard, Karen Costa, Kelly Hogan, Aimi Hamraie, and the faculty participants in the Center for Teaching's early-June Online Course Design Institute.
Tags: covid-19, Educational Technology, hybrid teaching, socially distanced teaching

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Active Learning in Hybrid and Physically Distanced Classrooms

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by Derek Bruff, Director If you've read Norman Clark's hypothetical day in the life of a physically distanced classroom, then you've probably started to worry about how faculty and other instructors might facilitate discussion, group work, and other forms of active learning this fall. If I'm standing at the front of the classroom with half...

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How to Plan for Hybrid Teaching and Learning | Common Sense Education

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Learn 6 key considerations for a blended model of in-person and remote instruction.

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As painful as the decision was to close campuses and force virtual learning in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators must make new, perhaps more difficult, decisions about how to resume classes in the fall. Many schools are asking: can learning happen both digitally and in lecture halls?

The hybrid model of teaching and learning uses both online and in-person options in a purposeful way. Not only does this model give you the flexibility to craft your course to reduce the risk of exposing you or your students to the virus, but it also gives students more ownership over their learning.

Here are our top tips taken from a review of existing research on how to make it work for you.

1. Build around what you want students to learn

Successful hybrid courses fully integrate online and face-to-face instruction, planning interactions based on good teaching practice. That means starting off on the right foot:

Don't think of your hybrid course as your normal course directly translated to be online, or your normal course with added online components. One meta-analysis cited that many blended courses were not successful because they were "a course and a half".

Do build your hybrid course starting with the learning objectives listed in your syllabus. Then, as you're building your course, select and align the delivery method, technology, and assignments that will best help students learn the objectives and content.

Consider what is best done:

in person versus online

in real-time versus giving students flexibility

facilitated by the instructor versus facilitated by the learning resources

For example, few students reported being satisfied with their institutions creating a sense of belonging during the pandemic. Since it can feel more difficult to build relationships online, take advantage of in-person opportunities.

Online learning resources have advantages that enhance learning, such as immediate feedback and progress monitoring. In fact, across many studies, research shows that on average, blending online and in-person learning is slightly more effective than face-to-face learning.

There are two things to consider when selecting how to approach the online parts of your hybrid course:

Is there educational technology that can help solve any problems you have? For example, students may focus on getting through learning activities as quickly as possible, rather than engaging deeply. Adaptive learning technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated at detecting when students are engaging productively and when they are not, and can react to keep students' attention.

Are you at risk of using digital technology solely for its own sake? Purely replicating an analog experience with digital technology can add complexity without bringing any benefits.

For more resources, this paper is designed as a starting point for thinking about how to use technology in your class.

Generally, a hybrid course is balanced to have more online, technology-facilitated work and fewer in-person meetings. For example, one model many schools are considering to encourage social distancing is to hold a large lecture online with small, in-person discussion sections.

Here are just a few examples of how others have blended online and face-to-face learning:

This course was delivered via a blended learning format in a flipped model, with online lectures followed by a two-hour face-to-face workshop tutorial each week.

This class met both in person and online. They used a flipped learning approach where students were expected to complete assigned activities before coming to a four-hour face-to-face class.

This hybrid course met once a week for three hours in a computer lab with the remainder of the course activities completed online.

2. Plan effective interactions

After you've identified your objectives, think about what interactions you'll use to facilitate learning. Hybrid learning gives you a lot of flexibility in how to interact. These different types of interaction fall into the following three categories.

Learner-instructor interactions

Learner-instructor interactions, like emails, announcements, and discussions. Instructor interaction is a major driver of successful learning, but feels more difficult online. You can make a point of fostering connections by using students' names and humor.

Learner-learner interactions

Learner-learner interactions, like discussions, collaborative group work, and peer review activities. These can either happen at the same time in person, or online and outside of class. Each mode has its pros and cons:

face-to-face, synchronous interactions are good for creating a sense of spontaneity and connection, but not as good at fostering participation or giving flexibility.

online, asynchronous interactions encourage participation, depth of reflection, and flexibility, but they can lack spontaneity and connection and may let students procrastinate.

Learner-content interactions

Learner-content interactions include activities, like reading content, watching a video, or working through a problem set.

3. Integrate the experiences

You can design the online and in-person interactions in such a way that they support each other, rather than feeling disjointed. For example, assign challenging and engaging online learning activities and then discuss them in person, inviting questions. If you're encouraging online discussions, reference them in class to confirm their value.

4. Craft a learner-centered approach to learning

In a hybrid model, encourage your students to take control of their learning. Start by enabling students to choose how they engage with the content. Then encourage them to monitor and reflect on their learning.
By using technology with progress monitoring functionality, you can also help them stay on track. Professor Manda Williamson has over 700 students every semester and uses the dashboard in her online course material to give students ownership over their learning. She talks more about it in this guide.

5. Support student success

In hybrid learning, students must be more self-driven. Set clear expectations and build in support for self-directed learning, such as encouraging students to plan, check their understanding, study more as needed, and reflect on their learning.

To further support their success, help them use the tools by holding a technology "onboarding" session on how to use the tech and where to go for help.

This approach can not only help keep students motivated, it also builds an important lifelong skill: self-management. If you're interested in learning more about how to teach self-management, this paper goes into detail.

6. Assess learning online

Since you won't be in the room with the students when they are taking the test, clearly communicate the rules and instructions before the exam. The rules may include how many opportunities students have to complete the exam, if they can save and come back later to finish, if they need to put away all mobile devices, and whether it is an open or closed book exam.

Technology can help you reduce the opportunities for cheating:

password protect your exam and limit students to one login attempt.

require students to complete a statement of honesty before beginning the exam

open and close access to your exam session within a predetermined time period

shuffle items or create multiple versions of the exam to randomly assign to students

create a pool or item bank to pull random questions from, a function built into many learning management systems
ask students to justify or explain their answers by adding an open response field after each selected-response question

if you don't have these capabilities, use more open-ended question types instead of true/false or multiple choice questions

This blog post gives more advice on crafting quality assessments online.

7. Continuously improve

Keep your approach simple at first and aim for continuous improvement, not perfection. We encourage you to try something, get feedback from your students, and keep improving your course. And you're not alone: your colleagues may have advice too. You can build an informal or formal learning network to learn from each other.

This fall will be a learning experience for everyone. When faced with the unknown, as researchers we first look to what others have studied and the lessons they've learned. These seven tips, which are based on findings from over a decade of implementing hybrid teaching, can give you direction on how to bring together the best of in-person and online learning. For even more detail and research on hybrid teaching and learning, check out this paper.

About the authors

Katherine McEldoon is a Senior Research Scientist at Pearson, and is a research to practice connector. Trained in cognitive science research labs across the country, she has worked to connect insights from the science of learning to educational pra

ctice throughout her career. Katherine earned her PhD in Cognitive Development and was an Institute of Education Sciences' Experimental Education Research Fellow at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education. Her research focused on the cognitive development of children's mathematical reasoning, as well as the causal mechanisms and efficacy of instructional interventions in both laboratory and classroom settings. Her postdoctoral work at Arizona State University centered on a research partnership between The Learning Sciences Institute and ASU Preparatory Academies, incorporating a theory of active learning into middle & high school teacher pedagogy. Since then, she has continued to bridge research and practice outside of academia, working with educational technology start-up companies, state governments, and more. Katherine firmly believes in the power of enabling educators with insights from research and incorporates this mindset into her work at Pearson.

Emily Schneider has spent more than a decade researching and designing learning experiences for higher education. As a Senior Learning Designer at Pearson, she helps product teams create effective and engaging digital learning experiences at scale. Emily believes that we should take advantage of technology for what it offers but never forget the power of the embodied human experience. She holds a PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford University.

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Katherine McEldoon, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, and Emily Schneider, PhD, Senior Learning Designer, Pearson

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7 tips from research for effective hybrid teaching | Pearson Blog

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As painful as the decision was to close campuses and force virtual learning in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators must make new, perhaps more difficult, decisions about how to resume classes in the fall. Many schools are asking: can learning happen both digitally and in lecture halls?

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Whether you're a seasoned online teacher or a newbie to the virtual world, with all the new research around distance learning, we can adopt some practices to help set us up for success this year.

As you prepare for the unprecedented 2020-21 school year, you need the right resources and tools for distance learning. Even if your district plans to go with a traditional reopening, you know you need to remain flexible.

Here are eight online practices that can support a better student experience.

1. Incentivize Participation

You prepare a virtual lesson that entertains and educates your students, but then you worry whether they'll put the same effort into learning. You might wonder, "How do I get kids to actually attend?"

One of the most important aspects of online teaching is the ability to incentivize class involvement. Explain each lesson's purpose and establish clear guidelines for participation, such as participating in an online quiz or poll, or posting a response to a question to get points for attendance. When your learners must miss a live session, plan meaningful reflective activities as make-up assignments.

2. Cultivate a Classroom Community

Another top distance learning tip for teachers is to make students feel less isolated by creating a classroom community. Savvy instructors can organize group chats where students can share ideas and offer support to their classmates, who understand their experiences and struggles as online students.

Students can often offer meaningful study suggestions for each other, as well as constructive conversations on whatever lesson you're teaching, which provides much-needed interaction and engagement. Encourage collaboration - and blowing off steam appropriately.

3. Include Resource Links in Your Syllabus

One benefit of online learning is that it teaches children problem-solving skills. However, that doesn't exonerate you of your need to point them in the right direction like a quality coach.

Create both an online and print version of your class schedule with links to resource websites and related class materials for parents and students - like TurnItIn, where they can check their work before submitting it for grading.

4. Let Students Help Solve Tech Problems

When a student struggles to connect to a live lesson, they might ask you for help. Why not turn this event into a teachable moment that inspires participation and collaboration? All you have to do is ask your class, "Has anyone encountered a similar problem?" and "How did you solve it?"

This distance learning tip helps classmates resolve issues and builds problem-building skills.

5. Connect Students With Tutoring Options

Online learning does allow students more time to grasp challenging material. However, sometimes they need extra assistance that's difficult to provide from a distance.

Fortunately, families don't need to leave home or admit strangers during this time of social distancing. You can find ample online tutoring resources for reasonable fees. You could also coordinate with others in your district to create a campus tutoring program. Older students with good grades can earn elective credit by helping their younger peers.

6. Teach Organizational Skills

Because your students are now more independent when it comes to keeping up with their classwork - which could be a completely new experience for them, depending on the age group - it's important to teach students how to use their planners. Ask yourself how much productive class time you lose when not everyone has done the reading for a discussion, or how much it can damage students' overall grades when their assignments are overdue.

Kids might not be the best with innate time-management skills - if you want to be an effective online teacher, help your learners develop it.

7. Create an Online Lecture Library

You can create a classroom YouTube channel so that your students can review class information anytime. Doing so requires minimal additional work if you master how to record your live class lessons and upload them to your page. You could also record lectures and upload to any platform you use.

8. Keep Assignments Student-Driven

As an adult, you know you need to do your job regardless of whether you like the assigned task. However, think about how you react to micromanagers versus school leaders who give you more leeway in approaching your workday.

Kids tend to disengage from tasks they find "boring" without considering the long-term benefits of the activity. By allowing your students a choice in assignments, you enable them to explore their interests. This is a vital skill for future success in a highly specialized workplace.

Keep Your Online Curriculum on Point With These Distance Teaching Tips

When it comes to online instruction, teaching yourself is as important as teaching your students. Try to incorporate these resources and tips into your curriculum this year as distance learning becomes a part of the new normal.

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8 Ways to Keep Your Online Curriculum on Track

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Whether you're a seasoned online teacher or a newbie to the virtual world, with all the new research around distance learning, we can adopt some practices to help set us up for success this year. As you prepare for the unprecedented 2020-21 school year, you need the right resources and tools for distance learning.

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Remember that old saying "If life hands you lemons ... "? "Floating teachers" -- teachers who work from carts, not classrooms -- make their own brand of lemonade! Today, five floaters talk about the pains and the perks of teaching from a cart. They prove that you can't sink a good floater! Included: A link to a comprehensive, reproducible guide to "la cart" teaching for teachers and administrators.
Teaching from a cart has its share of difficulties, but many teachers also discover unexpected rewards. "As a new teacher, floating gave me a chance to get to know the culture of my school very well and very quickly," Beverly Maddox, who teaches at Henderson Middle School, in Little Rock, Arkansas, told Education World.

THE FLOATING ADVANTAGE

Ten Tips for Traveling Teachers

The teachers who contributed to this Education World story share ten tips to help teachers manage life on the road.

* Be organized.

* Preset materials in each room.

* Design a great cart.

* Allow time for setup and cleanup.

* Streamline activities.

* Learn host teachers' routines.

* Use overheads and the Internet.

* Delegate setup and cleanup tasks to student helpers.

* Carve out a quiet, student-accessible home base.

* Stay positive.

"The teachers who remained in their rooms until I arrived energized me with their warmth and affection for students and for teaching," Maddox said. "The open friendliness they modeled was adopted by my students and helped me to quickly establish rapport."

Another surprise benefit was the increased opportunity to work with colleagues. Mary Catherine Reljac, a music teacher at Moss Side Middle School, in Pennsylvania, floated during a school renovation project. "I really liked being able to visit each classroom and see what the students were learning in their other subject areas," Reljac told Education World. "Instead of being isolated in the specialty wing, I was able to talk with other teachers all the time. We gained a better understanding of our respective curricula, which has helped us collaborate in more effective ways."

Dick Fuller, from Renfroe Middle School in Decatur, Georgia, seconded Reljac's opinion. "What I miss most about floating is the energy of the other faculty members. I enjoyed the camaraderie and impromptu team teaching with teachers from different disciplines," Fuller said.

Floating has some concrete, practical advantages, pointed out Sybil Humphries, a teacher evaluator who works with first-year teachers in Pickens County schools, in South Carolina. "Floaters do not have to decorate a room before school begins," Humphries told Education World. "Floaters also don't have a homeroom. That can really mean a lot when crunch time comes!"

READY, SET, GO!

Experienced floaters agree that the key to success is organization, planning, and preparation. The first step, well worth time and attention, is to create a functional mobile home, tailored to the teacher's discipline, personality, and style.

"Use a cart with sides on it so things don't fall off," advised eighth-grade teacher Maddox. "A luggage cart with one of those plastic file crates tied on can even be bounced up and down stairs."

"Find a good bag to carry your materials in," music teacher Reljac told Education World. "I used an old curriculum package bag that had many slots to separate items. Everything went into a file folder and was well marked so I could easily find it and replace it where it belonged. I wore a pen around my neck so I wouldn't lose it!

"Plan activities that are portable and realistic," Reljac continued. "I would check each room and preset as many materials as possible. The extra time spent before school helped ease my frayed nerves during the day. I also wrote detailed substitute plans and included a map of the school."

Experienced floaters learn to travel light, using transparencies, chart paper, or a dry-erase board instead of reams of handouts and the host teachers' blackboards. Some ask for a bulletin board or white board in a corner of the host classroom or use hallway space. Many create storage nooks under stairwells, in supply closets, or in the room of a particularly understanding colleague. "Use the Internet for materials you cannot cart around," teacher-evaluator Humphries advised.

"I traveled with a two-folder system for each class, an in folder and an out folder," Cindy Warm, a former floating English teacher at Middletown (Connecticut) High School, told Education World. "I also asked for space in each room-- a box or file drawer -- for student folders and copies of work sheets. That way, students were able to pick up missed work and turn in assignments. I made sure my schedule was posted so that students and teachers could track me down."

"One difficulty is not having materials on hand if a 'teachable moment' pops up," Beverly Maddox told Education World. "As an English teacher, I made sure to have several books of favorite poems, short stories, essays, and other things I could find quickly and read aloud to underscore a moment."

TIME IS NOT ON YOUR SIDE

"Be time conscious," advised middle school teacher Dick Fuller. "For me, that was a hard lesson. You have the same two to three minutes to change classrooms as the students do. You need time to set up and then to put things away so you can move.

"It is imperative to learn the idiosyncrasies of the host teachers," Fuller noted. "People like their window shades at a certain level, chairs in a certain way-- make sure you clean up the way that is expected."

"Find a kid or two in each class you can count on to help you into and out of the room -- meet you on the way and take the cart, open the door, pass out and take up materials, etc." Maddox added. "I always had my journal prompt on a transparency as well as my daily oral language, so I could slap them up quickly."

"Always have a 'bell-ringer' activity ready the day before," agreed evaluator Humphries.

A+ FOR ATTITUDE

"Stay positive," advised Humphries. "With a positive attitude, you will have a good experience as a floating teacher." Humphries created A Guide to Successful Teaching 'A La Cart' for floaters, host teachers, and administrators. "I tell my teachers to make copies of the guide and give one to each of the teachers whose rooms they use so they will understand better how to be a teaching partner with the floater," Humphries told Education World. "I also send a copy of the guide to each principal, assistant principal, and curriculum coordinator."

"I believe it is a total effort," added Humphries. "The floating teacher cannot do it alone."

"Joke about your cart-- call it your 'RV,' " Beverly Maddox suggested. "Put a bell or bicycle horn on it and use it in the halls! Floating can force you to be a better teacher if you let it. You will also develop what my Great Aunt Chat called 'legs like a government mule'!"

Leslie Bulion
Education World®
Copyright © 2000, 2015 Education World

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The Pains and Pleasures of the 'Floating' Teacher

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Remember that old saying "If life hands you lemons ... "? "Floating teachers" -- teachers who work from carts, not classrooms -- make their own brand of lemonade! Today, five floaters talk about the pains and the perks of teaching from a cart. They prove that you can't sink a good floater!

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Floating teachers have to be extremely organized. Learn their secrets to staying efficient and traveling light.

Stock Up for Everything

Former mobile teacher Jennifer Mitchell, a National Writing Project Teacher-Consultant and English Language Learner teacher at Dublin Scioto High School in Ohio, advises to not let the cart limit the teacher or the teaching.

"Imagine that you do have a room and figure out what are the must-have things that you would really need in order to run your classroom and then find a way to make it happen on the cart," she says.

"I always had extra pencils. I had turn-in trays so students could turn in their work, accordion folders and a folder for each day where I would keep extra handouts," says Mitchell, who also had a sign-out clip board, hall passes, prizes, and clear bins to stash handouts and games. A section of her cart was dedicated to books and practice activities used at the end of class. Mitchell included personal supplies too, including dry erase markers and erasers, her laptop, a water bottle, tissues, and band aids.

"I [also] brought this big tri-fold board, our Daily Routine board, where we would do days of the week and the date and little activities on it. I had my own dry erase board that I would use as my homework board just like I would if I had my own classroom. I had speakers so I could play music," Mitchell says, who also advises teachers to bring magnets. "If you feel that you really need a poster or some kind of visual and if you have magnets, then you can just put them up temporarily."

Keep It Together and Organized

Jeremy Cusick, a Biology and Chemistry teacher at Kenowa Hills High School in Michigan, carried a turn-in tray and large bins holding different colors of paper, pens, pencils, scissors and glue sticks. Drawers containing supplies for students faced outward while drawers for Cusick faced inward. Organization was essential for a successful and stress-free day as he traveled to each classroom.

Binder clips were essential to keeping track of students' work. Cusick wrote different hours and days on different binder clips with a paint pen and clipped student work together with its corresponding clip. "You couldn't pack papers in a pile and get to them later. You would lose them because you had to move to the next classroom," he says. "You had to be neat and organized so that you didn't have a flutter of papers falling behind you as you traveled down the hallway."

Cusick made it through two years without losing a single student's paper. "All I can say is, binder clips are your friend."

Prepare Ahead of Time

High School English Teacher Elizabeth Randall wrote The Floating Teacher: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving to help other mobile teachers succeed during the school day. The key to being a floating teacher, she says, is to plan everything out ahead of time and ensure that your materials are organized and handy at a moment's notice.

"The real challenge for floating is preparing for the next day," Randall says. "You have to prepare for maybe six different classrooms. So, at the end of the day I'd spent about 5 minutes going to each classroom making sure I had everything I needed lined up."

For Randall, this meant double-checking her classroom supplies and working with the homeroom teacher to prepare her own lessons. Oftentimes, she'd check with the teacher to see if she could write anything on the blackboard ahead of time if she was using the room for a morning class.

Randall also worked with the homeroom teacher to establish a classroom space-whether a corner or a shelf-where she could keep some of her supplies. While Randall and the majority of her teaching materials moved from classroom to classroom, having an established class-specific box of goodies allowed her to always be prepared and organized for whatever might happen.

"The main thing that helped me was to go to every single classroom and set up a file box where I could keep old handouts, emergency forms, referral forms, and things like tissues and glue and other things that you may need for class."

Collaborate with Colleagues

Randall says that working with homeroom teachers from the start of the year is an essential component in ensuring a productive school year.

"It's very important, right off the bat, to set up a really good relationship with the host teacher, and really just bend over backwards to get her on your side," she says.

Teachers can be a little uneasy about another teacher using their space, so Randall would allay their concerns by introducing herself to the homeroom teachers during the first week of school.

"I would meet them and I'd ask them how they'd like things done, because all teachers are different and some different concerns about requirements," says Randall.

Working with homeroom teachers to respect their space can have a positive long-term affect on floating teachers. For Mitchell, one of the benefits of sharing classrooms with other educators was the opportunity to develop good working relationships. As a new teacher, she could receive immediate feedback from her colleagues when she felt something was not going well.

"I'd talk to them a little bit after class and say 'hey did you see how that went?'" she says. "They would also know their students better. When I would ask 'is so-and-so getting along with so-and-so?' they would give me feedback...or they would help me field different situations."

As she sought her colleagues' help, they also began to learn from her. A self-proclaimed technology buff, Mitchell was happy to help her colleagues learn how to better incorporate technology into the classroom.

"They would come up to me at the end of the day or they would find me and go 'wow that was a really cool thing you did with your kids. Can you show me how to do that?' It made me into this person who taught other teachers about how to use technology just because they had seen me do it and asked me about it."

Bolster Classroom Learning with Mobile Lessons

While Cusick is no longer a mobile teacher, he still has his cart, which he turned into a lab cart. Teaching from a cart has given him invaluable classroom management skills that he still uses today.

"Figure out a system that works for you and don't lose it [the system] if you do get a classroom. It's made my life a lot easier," says Cusick. "I still use the marked binder clips. When I take papers home to grade it's so convenient; it's easy to move when I need to."

Want More?

Follow Mitchell's adventures in teaching and learning at http://ihabloespanglish.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter at @readwritetech.
--With contributions by Edward Graham

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Lessons à La Cart: Teaching Without a Classroom

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Former mobile teacher Jennifer Mitchell, a National Writing Project Teacher-Consultant and English Language Learner teacher at Dublin Scioto High School in Ohio, advises to not let the cart limit the teacher or the teaching.

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Middle & High School

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Ah, organization. It's a coveted state, that's for sure. But getting there can be far from easy. How do you start? Where do you start? Read on as six Teacher-Authors talk through the methods they employ to keep their middle and high school classrooms super neat and organized.

Eye-Catching Color

"I use color in everything I do. I find color is a quick, visual discernment for the brain so I use color to represent each one of my class periods or subjects. I then use that color throughout my classroom for everything. From student files to reward jars to absentee work, and all the labeling in my room, everything is in that class color. It lets me tell at just a glance who needs a paper, who is late with an assignment, and when a particular class has a project due." - The Colorado Classroom

Phenomenal Plastic Trays

"I must say that my favorite organizational tools are my plastic trays that I use for labs. I'm the only Science teacher in the school, so it does get a bit chaotic when I have a lot of labs planned for one week. I use these trays to set up the equipment and chemicals that each group requires. At the end of the session, it's easy to clean-up and I can bring out the next set of trays for my next group." - The Lab

Lovely Labels

"Put labels on your boxes, tubs, bins, drawers, and more! This way, you'll quickly know what's in it - and you won't have to open every container to find what you're looking for." - Misty Miller

Fantastic File Folders

"I can't live without colored file folders! I used them in several ways when I was a classroom teacher: Students kept their in-progress and finished writing work in them; each grade had a different color. (As an ESL teacher, I taught four to six grade levels every year.) I gave each student one folder to use for homework so assignments wouldn't get lost; students could choose which color they wanted and could decorate their folder however they wished.

I stored ESL forms, papers, and report cards in color-coded folders and kept them in a bookshelf near my desk or in a file cabinet for easy access. I used more folders to store miscellaneous paperwork, notes, and articles of interest; those were either in plastic magazine holders on my desk or in my file cabinet. My desk usually had piles of papers and folders all over it but because the folders were in different colors, I knew exactly what they were and could find them easily. For educators who have to deal with lots of papers - and, let's face it, what educator doesn't? - you can't go wrong with using colored file folders to organize your paperwork! I wrote a blog post about my favorite classroom tools, and the first one I mentioned is file folders. You can read about it and my other essential tools here." - The ESL Nexus

Great Grading Sheets

"As an English teacher, I have to keep the assessment and feedback cycle clear for myself or I won't be as effective (or timely!) for students. I use my grading sheets as a cover page for each assignment to not only track work that is turned in or late, but what steps I need to take to intervene with each student, who deserves a shout-out, or how I'm going to respond next after that assessment. These forms have made a visible improvement in the way I give feedback to student writing!" - Secondary Sara

Amazing "Absent Slips"

"I found myself staying after school late every day, checking my class lists to remind myself who was out and making note of what they needed to make up. It was time-consuming, and I felt disorganized. Then I decided to enlist the help of my students. Here's how it works: I create the 'While You Were Out' bulletin board and absent slips. My students sit in pairs the majority of the time in my classroom so if someone's partner is out, I ask him or her to fill out an absent slip, collect any handouts received in class, and pin the papers to the bulletin board. The absent slip summarizes the objective, agenda, and homework for the day so students know exactly what they missed and what they need to make up. Upon their return to school, students then retrieve the papers from the bulletin board and check in with me only to determine a timeline for completion. This process keeps students who have been absent organized and has been a big time-saver for me. You can read more about it here." - Free to Discover

Here's to great organization and how darn good it makes us feel!

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6 Ways to Keep Your Middle and High School Classroms Organized | The TpT Blog

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Ah, organization. It's a coveted state, that's for sure. But getting there can be far from easy. How do you start? Where do you start? Read on as six Teacher-Authors talk through the methods they employ to keep their middle and high school classrooms super neat and organized.

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9 Best Website for Teaching Online From Home