3 Time Management Hacks For Teachers

3 Time Management Hacks For Teachers

                                                        Photo by JESHOOTS.com from Pexels

Teaching can be quite a challenging task if you're not prepared. You need to ensure that you are well prepared to go ahead and give the best to your students. This will require adequate planning from your end. as well as an investment of both time and resources.

Taking the time to prepare your lessons will require that you understand the needs of your students. This will ensure that you can give them the best lessons possible, whether on quadratic equations or civic Australia. In return, your students will comprehend what you are teaching and fully participate in your classes.

What Time Management Hacks Can You Use In Teaching

Good teaching is more than just passion and talent. Proper planning and time management are essential so that students can be given the attention they require. Good teachers have to stay tuned with educational standards while ensuring that their students are engaged and understanding the content. 

This will require keeping the students involved by making their lessons engaging and fun, challenging the students to think creatively, and encouraging students to actively participate in the lessons. As a result, learning will be more fun for them. Here are three time management hacks that teachers can use.

Action Plan

Your students look up to you, and you can't afford to fail them. You need to understand their needs well enough since this will help you in formulating an action plan. You can't afford to go with the flow since they are unique.

Your action plan should describe what your lessons entail and how they will be delivered. Allocate the amount of time that you will require to accomplish this. You can then time yourself to ensure that you stick with the plan.

This is important because it can be very easy to get drawn into trying to make a perfect lesson plan, or lose hours searching online for better ideas.  Limit your time, focus your efforts, and stick with the plan.  Allocate a certain amount of time and then stick to that. 

Have specific times set aside to go through your emails

There is a lot of valuable information that comes through emails, as well as some things that are time-sensitive. However, if you are teaching, or working on lesson plans, or doing something that needs your attention, it can be very disruptive to constantly stop for every notification.   There is nothing wrong with closing your email or turning off your notifications for an hour to two to focus and utilize your time better to complete a specific task. 

Achievable Deadlines

Give yourself deadlines when it comes to executing your duties. Whether it is going through assignments or planning lessons, have specific deadlines in ensuring that you get them done.  You can also use task managers or to-do lists to help with this. My personal favorite is Todoist because I can quickly and easily enter tasks and access them from any platform. If you are interested, here is a link to check it out

How Does Time Management Make A Teacher Qualified

Most schools face a similar challenge when it comes to getting teachers who can manage their time effectively. If time isn't well organized, the students will be the ones who will pay the ultimate price. They will not be able to cover their lessons or return graded work in a timely fashion which will affect student success and movement from one grade to the next.

However, when a teacher is skilled in managing their time, they will ensure that they allocate proper and sufficient time to their lessons. They will find a way to ensure that the syllabus is completed during the school year. They will do this with a lot of ease. They become an asset to the school because of their impeccable time management skills.

What are your best time management tips? What have you found worked well for you, or where do you struggle? Feel free to leave a comment. 

Helping Your Students Adapt To Online Learning

With such a huge increase in online learning, students are finding it more difficult than ever to cope. A large change in the style of learning is tricky to deal with, as most pupils are used to having a type of support from their teachers that is hard to achieve in a virtual classroom. Helping your students adapt to online learning will benefit their education dramatically, and it couldn't be easier to get started today. So, if you would like to find out more, then read on to uncover some brilliant tips that you can utilize today to show your students how to make the most of online learning now! 

Image Source - Pexels 

Make Yourself Available

One of the most important things that you must always remember when attempting to support your students through online learning is to make yourself available. You can have set times to respond to messages or emails, and set office hours on Zoom, but it is important that your students know how to reach you, and know that they will get a response. Having to work remotely can make it difficult for you to 'be there' for your pupils, as you can't physically stand by their side and talk through any issues they may have. Ensuring that you offer some kind of virtual replacement in the form of an email address or messaging service is essential, as this way your students will be able to get in touch with you at any time. Some kids may struggle when speaking in front of the class which might be the only option when performing an online lesson, so having the choice to virtually step to one side and speak in private (such as via email, messaging, or a Zoom breakout room) can be a real benefit. 

Adapt Your Teaching Style

As the style of learning has changed, so should your teaching. Attempting to follow your old work plan will make things far more complicated than it needs to be. It's going to be much easier to start again with a new way of thinking. Virtual learning requires a different approach, so it's a good idea to perform some research on useful platforms such as an edtech blog for K-12 teachers and administrators or an online learning center that you can use for inspiration. Some schools have been using virtual classrooms well before the pandemic struck, so it's a good idea to look to them in order to learn from past mistakes to avoid encountering any bumps along the way. 

Relieve Some Pressure

Though of course your students must still meet reasonable deadlines, you should aim to relieve a little pressure when performing virtual learning. There are many struggles that a child can face when attempting to learn from home, from an increase in distractions to a lack of support, so it's vital that you don't maintain the same high expectations as you would in any normal school environment. Be lenient, or flexible, when necessary, and always listen to what your students have to say - their issues could be justified, so it's important that you give them the opportunity to shine in their own time. 

Helping your students adapt to online learning has never been so simple when you can take the time to utilize the brilliant tips and tricks detailed above.

The More Organized You Are, The More Your Students Benefit

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As teachers, we spend a lot of our time thinking about the needs of our students. After all, it’s our job to make sure that they receive the style of learning best suited to them. We don’t want children left behind. 

But it turns out that we can help students the most when we focus on improving ourselves - how we do our job. Yes - we all know our subjects inside out. But many of us are lacking in the organization department. And that’s slowing us down, draining our energy, and making us less available to students.

In this post, therefore, we take a look at some of the strategies that you can use to improve how you spend your time and deliver lessons. Here are some of the steps that work for all teachers. 

Add Bins And Buckets To The Classroom

Organizing for one child is a challenge. But when you have thirty in a classroom, it’s a nightmare. 

The solution here for many teachers is to use labeled buckets and bins, arranged on racks. Storage containers allow you to neatly tidy away all of your learning tools and implements, without them cluttering up the classroom or storage cupboards.

How you arrange this is very much up to you. Usually, you can think of overall categories that allow you to make the best use of your available space.

Create Paper Routines

Classrooms have a habit of generating vast quantities of papers. Teachers have papers for teacher reports, students have them for graded tests and homework assignments. And you may even have papers for lesson plans. 

Here’s an idea: create a routine for all your papers by placing them in specific trays. One tray is for tests, another for student work, and another for staff documents you’re working on right now. This way, you can prevent them from getting muddled up and see how much work you need to do before your various deadlines. 

Keep Your Notebook With You At All Times

We can’t emphasize this point enough: keep your notebook with you at all times. It’s critical because it allows you to jot down ideas and record information on the fly, instead of trying to recall it from memory later. 

Sites like https://nottai.com/ show some examples of the types of notebooks that teachers use. Yes - they’re colorful. But they also include handy dividers that allow you to segment information logically. 

Keep Your Lists Nearby

You can either use a notebook for this or a separate piece of paper. But always make sure that you keep your lists nearby. Most people keep their lists next to their computers or desk, according to https://www.mindtools.com.  This way, you always have a record of what you’ve done so far, and what you still need to do. 

Make Sure That Every Item In The Classroom Has A Home

Lastly, you’ll need to ensure that there’s a place for every learning tool in your classroom and that your students know where they are. If things don’t have a home, clutter will quickly build up. 

What are your organization tips? Please comment below and share your best classroom tips!