Do you struggle with the organization of paper work in your classroom? Does your desk have multiple stacks of student work, late work, absent work, evaluations, advisory activities, permission slips, budget requests, receipts, etc all over it at the end of the day? Even as an organized person, I have struggled with both keeping track of paper work. The first few years of teaching were the worst. In my first year, I just didn’t know what to expect and wasn’t prepared to have to keep track of so many physical papers, and then as the years continued and I more classes were added to my teaching load, the problem just got worse. I now teach in a school that is 1:1 with laptops and I have fewer classes to teach so the paper work is much less, but I still find that I have many papers to keep track of. Additionally, I do not have my own classroom and I move from room to room with a cart and the chance of losing and misplacing papers is huge! That being said, I’ve tried to come up with a system that gives all paperwork its own place to reduce clutter and keep my life organized.
The organization of paperwork many seem like an insignificant thing to some, but I think that it is an extremely important part of my classroom procedures. When I am the throws of a busy day, having all my papers organized in the proper places takes some of the mental work out of finding what I need for the day. Personally, I also find that a clean and organized desk takes some of the mentally clutter and stress away during a hard teaching day.
First, I keep this black paper holder/drawer on my desk. This is where Iput papers that need to be dealt with today. If I need to grade or organize something that day or first thing the next morning, it goes there. When I had my own classroom, this is where I put all my papers. Anything I collected from students or was given to me by another teacher or when students needed to turn something in while I was busy doing something
else, it went there. Then at the end of the day, I would go through and organize papers into the places they needed to go.
From the black paper holder, papers can go in a number of places. If the papers are homework, quizzes, or something else I collected form the whole class I need to grade, I put them in this expanding file folder that I can easily take home if I need to.
If the paper is late or absent work from a student, I put in a separate folder for late and absent work. I also keep all the hard copy keys and my paper grade book here.
If the papers are something I need to take home, I put them in the front pocket my teaching binder which is basically my plan book. If the papers are other things like advisory activities or permission slips, I keep those in separate folders that I keep on or in my desk.
I also keep another set of paper holders on my desk. On the top file I will put any hard copies of papers I need to copy for class later. On the second file, I put work that is already graded and needs to be handed back to students. (As you can see, I did a lot of graded on this day!) On the third, I put any papers I need to recycle. (I don’t have a recycling bin in my office and need to take recyclables to the classroom across the hallway) The fourth file is empty right now. And the 5thI use to put any hard copies of things I want to file into binders.
To return work to students using hanging files in a milk crate. Each student has their own file and they are organized alphabetically by last name. However, I now teach semester classes and I will gain and lose many different students when the first semester ends, so I may go to a number system instead of using last names. I like this system for graded work, because I can just take this crate out and students can get their graded work while I do something else like take attendance or set up a lab or help another student.
Next, I keep hanging files in my desk to store copies of things I will use in my class later in the week. For example, I give my students a short quiz every Friday, so if I’m planning ahead and make copies of the quiz on Wednesday, I put those copies in the hanging file for Friday so they are out of the way and not just sitting in a pile on my desk. When I had my own classroom, I kept files in an upright file holders like the one pictured on the right. I had one file holder for each day of the week and each class had a file in each holder. I would keep my copies for the week there and then I could just pull out the files in the morning and I had all my copies for my classes organized in a place where I could easily grab them.
As I said before, I travel from classroom to classroom with a cart this year so I use this fold holder on my chart to keep papers organized. The front file is where I put copies of papers to give to students and then the files behind are for each section of that class. So on Fridays I will take quizzes out of the first file and then when I collect them for my period A class, they will go in the A file to be taken back to my office for grading.
As teachers, we make so many little decision during the day that when combined can become exhausting. Don’t let finding and keeping track of paper work take up any more mental space in your busy teacher brain! This is how I combat mental and paper clutter, but you can come up with a system that works for you that gives every paper it’s proper place.
Teaching Science IRL 