An Organized Classroom

Being organized is probably one of the things I am best at. I'm not sure when I became super organized, but basically life doesn't make sense to me if it's not organized. Like right now I'm sitting here looking at our DVD case and the DVDs are OBVIOUSLY in alphabetical order...to me that just makes sense, why wouldn't you put your DVDs in alphabetical order?? I know plenty of people that don't, but I wonder how they find the DVD they're looking for without having to look throughout the entire case. Which basically leads me to why I am organized and why I enjoy (need?) to be organized...I like to know where things are because in the end it saves me time and effort. It's that simple.

Being a super (obsessive?) organized person transfers into my classroom as well. My students ALWAYS comment about how organized I am and my hope is that a little bit of that rubs off on them. The way I keep organized in my classroom basically comes down to three things: 1. EVERYTHING needs/has a home (which is also labeled), 2. color coding and 3. making lists.

In my classroom there isn't anything that doesn't have a permanent "home" and I make the effort to make sure everything gets put back where it belongs. By doing so I never have to wonder where something is and I hardly ever misplace things because I know where it belongs and it's there. A lot of my organization has developed based on a need for a "home" for something. Before I started teaching I don't think I could have imagined most of the things I would need to have a place for, but as the need arises I create it or I give it a home. For example, I have two vinyl (vinyl because they are more durable and they take a beating throughout the school year) folders for work that needs to be corrected and work that needs to be entered into the grade book. I made those folders because those papers needed a home and I didn't want to lose papers.

I LOVE to use color to help keep me organized as well. Each year I assign each of my preps a color and then each of my classes for that prep an associated color. For example this year Geometry is green, Honors PreCalc is purple and Algebra 2 is orange. For my one Geometry class I use green, for one Honors PreCalc class I use purple and for the other I use blue, and for one Algebra 2 class I use yellow and for the other I use orange. Each of these classes has a colored folder (this year I made 4 pocket folders!) that I use for attendance, homework, seating charts, etc.. I also obsessively use colored paper clips for everything. Again, anything associated with a certain class gets "their color" paper clip. I use them in my "to get corrected" folder to keep different classes and assignments separated. I also use them in a folder that I keep for work that needs to be made up.

Lists also play an important part in keeping me organized. I like keeping a running "to do" list so that I don't forget something. It also helps to keep my mind freed up, prioritize tasks and have a big picture looks at what needs to be done. There is also no better feeling than crossing things off of my to do list :)

I wish I had pictures to help show some of the ways that I organize, but my classroom is still a huge mess and in the process of getting ready for day one. I might update later with pictures once I am more settled in.

Homework Policies

I have tried so many different things in my classes regarding homework and I have finally found strategies and policies that I am currently comfortable with. I am a strong believer in homework. I was always a good student myself when I was in high school, but I really only did my homework because it was expected of me and I didn't want to disappoint. It wasn't until I got to college, where homework was optional, that I finally understood how important it was to my understanding to get some practice with different concepts, mostly because at first I wasn't doing the assigned homework and therefore wasn't doing as well on tests :(

In my classroom I grade homework based solely on completion because I want it to be based on effort. Students can earn a check plus(100), check(80), check minus(60), or zero on each homework assignment. In order to earn a check plus students must have attempted every problem they were assigned. At the beginning of the year, I usually get a lot of flack about this because if a student doesn't do even one problem, they earn a check instead of a check plus and they don't agree with losing 20 points because of one problem. My answer to this is to ask them if they deserve a 100 if they didn't do the entire assignment and they usually agree that they don't. They usually still whine (which is when I just point to my "Be a winner, not a whiner" poster!! haha), but quickly learn that they must put effort into each problem.

My faaaaaaaaaavorite part of my homework policy is how I handle students that don't quite understand the assignment, but are still trying and therefore deserve a check plus (to me it really is all about the effort!). I explain to my students at the beginning of the year that their homework assignments are meant to help them learn and that I still want it to be of value even if they were struggling. If they don't understand a part or parts of their homework assignment I ask them to write a meaningful question  for each problem they struggled with (none of this "I didn't get it" or "I don't know" stuff is allowed...1) because those aren't questions and 2) because in order to help them "get it" I need to know what about "it" they don't get). This year I am going to use an idea I saw for smart questions on pinterest this summer.

I really really love this because it gets them thinking about what parts of the concept/topic they aren't understanding and serves as a reminder for them in class when we're going over the assignment what they were struggling with. Now during class, I (or one of their peers) can help to answer their questions as if I (or they) had been sitting next to them while they were doing their homework and doesn't make the assignment a complete waste for them. This also allows me to differentiate the true "I didn't get the homework" and the "I didn't get the homework" that really means "I didn't do my homework".

Other key pieces to my homework policy:
1) I do not allow homework to be handed in late. Immediately after checking their homework we go over it as a class. I explain to the kids that I'm not going to accept an assignment after they have just been given all of the answers during homework review. Sometimes this makes me feel bad for the students that would truly complete the assignment late, but I have yet to come up with a way to be able to tell who completes their assignment during homework review and who does it at a different time.

2) Once a student has missed three homework assignments in a quarter (consecutive or not) I contact home. I think this is so important because many times a parent isn't even aware that their child isn't completing their homework so I like to keep them in the loop and they are usually very grateful. I keep track of missing assignments by highlighting each missed assignment with a different color. The first zero is yellow, the second is orange, and the third is pink (my department members make fun of me because I'm so crazy about color coding things).