Nozbe users come from all professions and backgrounds. So far, we have presented you with solutions for doctors, real-estate agents, [lawyers] law and students. This article is intended for elementary and high school teachers.
The background
My experience has lead me to believe that planning by teachers can be difficult. It is a very complex issue, as it depends greatly on many factors. That’s one of the reasons why I have decided to divide the post into consecutive two: teachers and professors.
Teachers in pre-schools, elementary or even high-schools have essentially the same student body to deal with, the same mixture of those who want and those who don’t, the same level of stress and the same amount of paper work, though the composition thereof changes as one moves from one end of the scale to the other.
Teacher’s life in a pill
As a teacher your ultimate goal is to pass your knowledge using different type of materials to your students. You will usually have a given from above outline of what your classes should include and what is expected of your students at the end of semester/year.
So, though you might be very creative within the limits of this plan, you still need to stick to it and make your best to help students grasp it to the best of their capabilities. In lower grades you are free to play with them, but it is highly advisable the playing is educative. The higher you go, the less of the play, but educative part stays on (but none says you can’t still teach them by play, it is a question of what kind of games are used).
Projects and labels
I imagine most effective use of labels in the lower pre-school and early elementary would be the subjects one has to teach, as in most systems of schooling - for grades 1-3 one teacher teaches all the subjects.
Such teacher needs to collect handsome collection of interactive and creative ideas to develop the young minds under his/her care, thus I would definitely add “tests”, “creative ideas”, “games/activities” as some extra labels.
Now for projects, I think specific chunks of material would do well, as I could plan each lesson as an action with materials attached directly to it. This structure would make things easy and fast to find.
On the other hand the higher grades, from 4th onto 12th, are divided per classroom and teacher. Most often there is one teacher who teaches just one subject, less often - two. He or she has many groups of students of different age.
Though some labels from the above descriptions would still be useful, like: “tests”, “creative ideas” or “activities”, most would be replaced by the specific group of students.
Here-again projects would be specific areas of material that needs to be explained to pupils e.g. if I were a math teachers I would perhaps have “geometry”, “algebra”, “functions” or some similar aspects on my plate. Those would serve well as my projects. The explaining thereof is never a one-hour class that one could tick off and forget about it. It usually takes several meetings, and it requires some practice afterwards.
Categories
What possible use would categories be of to teachers?
Simple. They can come in really handy if we want to get some extra material for particular student, or via specific tool such as “Internet”, “computer” or even “phone”. This way they also can speed up and help organize your day. You can also use them to help you out in administrative tasks you might have as buying materials or doing reports for the principal.
Summary
Some food for thoughts? I certainly hope so. This article is as usual just a spring-board. The possibilities are pretty close to limitless and I hope that some of you will be kind to share them here for benefit of others.
Written by Delfina (Nozbe Support - CHO - Chief Happiness Officer)
