Great Ideas

Today I covered government and economics classes. I like subbing for this teacher and not just because she has seniors. She's organized. And her classroom is full of interesting ideas. Some of them are kind of brilliant, so I thought I'd share.

Her classroom setup has all the chairs facing the middle of the room with a long aisle down the center. When she passes out handouts, she gives a bunch to the front corner of each side. They pass them back, and whatever is left over goes in a tray marked "extras" that is at the back of the room. This tray is an easy reach for the students who sit back there. Then later, all I have to do is go and collect the extras.

Today's worksheet was of the class set variety. In the top right hand corner, there was an icon of a pencil with the circle and line through it. Under this icon was the statement: "Class set. Do not write on this. Return to teacher at the end of the period."

On one side of the room, there was a station where the students could get any handouts that they might have missed due to an absence. There was a file folder which contained handouts. There was a list of the work that was still outstanding. And there was an inbox for late work.

My favorite thing in the room, though, was the restroom pass setup. She had a timer that was specifically made for restroom passes. Above this was a white board. When a student left the room, he/she wrote his/her name on the white board, and then he/she took the timer with them. The timer counted how long each student was out of the room. And it was very easy to look up and see who was not in the room at the time.

These were only a couple of several clever ideas. I bet these make her days so much easier.