Time Management

Dear Gayla,
We are so excited to have you as a part of our faculty. You said that you are having some difficulties with time management during your first year teaching. We all struggle with time management, even the most veteran teachers. There is so much to do in the time you have with the students. As far as being able to get everything done in a day, one thing that will help is that you have discussed expectations with your students. Less time will be wasted when they know exactly how things are to go in the classroom. Also, integration is a great way to help out. Try to integrate different subjects into a lesson. Often, you can use Science and Social Studies as your reading lessons. This allows you to teach the concepts of those subjects along with reading concepts. The students can build reading fluency while reading the text that goes along with these two subjects. There are many ways to integrate Math into these other subjects areas, too. Another way to deal with the question of time is to waste as little time as possible on transitions. In the book, Why Didn't I Learn This in College?, you will find some helpful information on Transition Tidbits on pages 230-231. You may also find the Time Templates on pages 228-229 helpful, as well. If you find additional great ways to manage time, please feel free to share them with us. We are always looking for new ideas in this area ourselves.

Good luck,
Teresa