Even though I adjuncted when I was teaching high school full time and taught two classes a semester during my PhD program last year was my first year in a tenure track job. As someone who depends on routines and organizational systems I have struggled with how to juggle everything I need to do this job. There are a lot of service committments so I need a calendar where I can track things months out so things don't get scheduled that conflict. I teach a 4/4 load, often with an overload or independent study so I need a way to keep track of attendance, work, lessons, materials. Then there is my own scholarship and work. I also need to keep track of what I need to do, appointments and events and dates, although these are non-existent this past year and in the upcoming year.
When I was teaching high school I adored Jim Burke's The Teacher's Daybook. It had everything I needed for teaching- a calendar to track all year, space to plan lessons. It also came in a spiral book so it was usable. Everything about it worked and Burke made updates based on feedback each year. It was clearly a well-workshopped tool created by a teacher. I loved it. When I cleaned out a bunch of high school teaching stuff I had a ton of them, each a snapshot of a year teaching. Sadly, when I returned to high school teaching I learned that they no longer made them, only offered PDFs of the pages online. I tried to use these, printing them to make my own book but it just didn't work.
When I was working on my PhD Passion Planners first came out and I was an early adopter. I know a lot of PhD students were. I did not like the hard bound, how stuffed it seemed as soon as you started adding stuff, and wasn't a big fan of the planning or focus spaces I felt like a loser if I didn't fill.
I used to use a version of The Everything Notebook. I loved the organization. I loved that everything was in one place. It was easy for me to convert how I was using my Writer's Notebook as a focus on product, making things, and less a diary/journal for this.
My notebooks still tend to look very scrapbook-y with me constantly printing things out and gluing them in, printing things on Avery stickers and putting them in. I did add an index because it was easy to find things especially in multiple notebooks, because one thing I did notice was I went through a LOT of notebooks using this approach. I ended up using composition notebooks because it didn't seem to make sense to spend a lot of money on a notebook that might last a little over a month before I had to switch to a new one. With this approach every month or so with a new notebook I had to redo the common pages (budget, scholarly work/ideas, goals, etc.) and sometimes that was cool and allowed me to revisit and sometimes it was just a pain in the ass. I did really like the time each week to build and draw my weekly schedule and incorporated a lot of the artsy stuff from The Bullet Journal although I find the system of dash, box, check, whatever way to fussy and not compatible with my brain.
But as much as I loved my jumble notebook and having everything in one place, when I went back to teaching high school my notebook always sat out on my desk, open to that week, all day, as a way for me to "see" what I was doing. I loved it, but as I became unhappy, and wrote more and more in my notebook about being unhappy, I felt less and less comfortable having that sit out on my desk. So I started separating my writer's notebook from my planner again. When I started last year, this was one thing I struggled with because there is so much to schedule as a professor that I couldn't have two separate calendars because I'd end up scheduling a personal thing against a professional committment.
Last year I tried out several calendars and settled on a large 8.5 x 11 one that had monthly and weekly spreads and was an academic year set up so it fit well with planning my year. I finally gave up that I would ever be a Working Girl with her dayplanner.
I've gone from a single notebook that has everything to a handful of notebooks. Last year I had a notebook just for meeting minutes. I had another to track teaching ideas and plan classes. I had my writer's notebook. For a while I had a notebook for each class because I was trying to show my students how to keep writer's notebooks (I continue to try and fail to get this to catch). Then I had a planner. Then folders for classes for print outs and sign in sheets and grade spreadsheets. Then I tried going back to my Ward gradebook.
It was/is all too much. It's a jumble. While the parts on their own work okay most of the time I find that when things get hectic or I get stressed, the juggling becomes a source of anxiety and stress.
One thing I struggle with in all this that I've written about before is the lesson planning. In high school there are very strict guidelines about what a lesson plan has to look like. In my last year teaching high school, this was the lesson plan I had to submit for observation.
There are no such requirements for college. Few recommendations. In fact, while there is a lot about teaching at the college level there seems to be little about what it actually looks like, what systems people use, how they stay organized.
My syllabus/class ideas tend to start on Twitter and/or my writer's notebook. Then I flesh them out on a live Google Doc. This gets shared with students so they always have the most up to date information and I never have to worry about changes. I plan the big assignment/skill I want them to get to then work backward using the Understanding By Design principles. There's a pre assessment so I can see where my students are, and a lot of choice, they choose what to engage in, explore, what they'll write about. The syllabus tends to have a framework but a loose one since so much depends on the students in front of me. Last year I mimicked what I'd done in high school, providing detailed class notes via Google Slides that students had access to. I liked the accessibility. I disliked that I noticed the students not working through things because it was on the slide. I tried a Google Doc of class notes that they made and contributed to last semester but meh. There were similar issues. I like using Essential Questions to frame my syllabus, but trying to build response to them don't seem to work out. Attempts to get students to keep writer's notebooks have not worked. I've spend a lot of the last year and a half picking up things and putting them down.
Last semester, I had a very pared down approach. Part of this was the closer move to ungrading. A lot was everything going on. I ended up with the live Google Doc syllabus, but also duplicated that information and supplemented it on Google Site. This semester I'm using the Google Site for general information but not duplicating work. Last semester I had a folder for class that I kept sign in sheets, printed materials in. Each weekend I wrote out long hand my lessons, building on the syllabus, what I needed to expand on based on the week before, things to add, clarify, based on class discussions. Notes to put on the board. This then worked with my annotated copies of whatever article or book we were discussion. I modeled a lot of this to students, walking them through how I annotated, then went back through annotations to see themes, make notes. I *think* this is the best way for me and lessons.
I don't think enough conversations about teaching tell you how much of it is experimentation. I think so many of the discussions are about compliance, checking boxes, "best practices" and not about WHY we do those things, what works, what doesn't and why. How we adapt on the fly and why that flexibility is more important than anything else.
Part of the reason why I'm sticking to a more pared down approach this semester is it took me weeks to recover from last semester and I was stressed and anxious and frazzled all last semester. I realized, once I'd had some time to recover and rest, that while I had designed a semester that placed the care and consideration of my colleagues, students, majors, at its center, I had not done the same for myself. I had not built in care and time and rest for me. In fact the opposite, I had created a lot more work for myself. I had over planned, I had built lots of things to consider every possible approach the semester might need. It was a lot, it was too much, and with no rest time built in, in fact all the breaks taken away, I was working week after week, month after month, seven days a week. Fried doesn't even come close to describing it.
I'm not alone in this. Every teacher and professor I know was in this boat, K-12 teachers especially. Added to all this was the stress so many of us had teaching face to face.
So this semester I'm focusing on the content. The material. What are the basic building blocks for each course? The readings, the skills, the practice? Just this last week I pared down more. I can always add things later if I need them. But I don't need to make more work for myself before we've even started. Already our calendar has changed, wellness days off added, our start date pushed back. Everything I build is something I may potentially have to change or redo later. So I'm looking at what is needed and trying to remind myself to stick to that.
Asking myself what is the least amount I can X with applies to my planners and notebooks too. I wish I felt comfortable going back to the one notebook for everything. It was the easiest. But I think I may have found the next best thing.
So The Happy Planner is a bit of a Frankenstein monster. I dislike the Pinterest aspect of it, the have to buy our product, STUFF parts. BUT here's what I really like. You add or take out pages as you want or need them. I got a "classic" planner and a nice leather holder (I seriously can't let go of my Working Girl day runner dreams).
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