As educators, it can often feel like there isn’t enough time in the day. While we can’t give you any extra hours, we do have time-saving tips you can start using to make things feel just a little bit easier.
Set Yourself Up for Success
The better you can use your time, the more of it you’ll have!
1. Plan Your Prep Time
To make the most of your limited daily prep day, create a plan and stick to it. Set realistic goals for yourself about how much you can get done, and use the self-imposed deadline to help you avoid unwanted interruptions.
2. Leverage Classroom Routines
Just like your prep time, your instructional time is sacred. Whether it’s how to transition from whole group instruction to centers, or who they are meant to work with in small groups, investing the time up-front in routines will give you that time back, and more, in the long run.
3. Reuse Resources
Don’t reinvent the wheel! Whether it’s a rubric, worksheet, or homework assignment, save the things you create so you can reuse them.
4. Don’t Start From Scratch
Unit and lesson planning and take up a huge chunk of your time as a teacher. Not to mention the intellectual prep that has to happen once you’ve made the plans. So, instead of starting from scratch, why not start with a highly-rated, engaging curriculum like Fishtank Learning?
5. Take Advantage of Tech
Tech has tons of time saving opportunities for you and your classroom. If all students have access to computers, you can save time by assigning tasks directly to students’ computers rather than printing materials. Curriculum options like Fishtank Learning that offer Google Classroom integration make this even easier.
Let Your Students Help You!
Whether they're in elementary, middle, or high school, students love having a job. By strategically assigning tasks to students, you can save yourself some time. Throughout the year, remember to change students’ jobs and ensure every student has the opportunity to hold a role.
6. Attendance Monitor
How many times have you forgotten to take attendance at the beginning of class and had to stop mid-lesson just to do it? Instead, assign this task to a student. You will want to provide a printed roster for them to check off and ensure they know where to deliver the attendance sheet.
7. Materials Manager
Instead of taking class time to find and pass out materials, allow a student to help out. This might be a student that passes out computers, passes out materials, or is responsible for ensuring every student has their class text for the day. The age and individual needs of your students will influence what this role looks like.
8. Whiteboard Writer
At the beginning of class, it can often be helpful to have lesson objectives and other relevant information for the day on the board. This too can be a student job! This will, of course, depend on your students’ age as hand-writing could be an impediment so this might be better for upper elementary, middle, and high school classrooms.
9. Teacher’s Assistant
If you have a student that is highly trustworthy and interested in more classroom responsibilities, why not elevate them to a teacher’s assistant. This student can support with quick checks of homework or multiple choice assignments if given a set of criteria to look for. Not only can this save you time, but it also validates the hard work you’ve seen from the student.
10. Clean-Up Crew
At the end of the school day or simply the end of your class period, there are tons of little tasks to handle. Students can help with this too. Whether it’s sharpening pencils for the next day, rearranging desks, or reorganizing the classroom library, assigned students can take ownership over their physical space and work together to set the classroom up for the next day.
Want more tips to make the most of your time this school year? Create your Fishtank Learning account to unlock access to thousands of highly-rated, engaging, lesson plans for k-12 ELA and math—for free. You can also find some more of our favorite instructional strategies right here on the Fishtank Blog.
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