Live By Your Calendar

If you do not yet keep a calendar, now is the time to start! Student teachers should consider learning how to use an electronic or phone calendar (google, outlook, oracle, etc) buying a paper calendar/agenda book, or buying a calendar app to help keep them organized and to help with time management. Not only will student teachers need to keep track of their semeseter and daily schedule for their own purposes, but student teachers need to keep their University Supervisor in the loop about their school schedules.

Once student teachers get a calendar, they need to USE it. It should travel everywhere with them and they should be updating it constantly. Here is my advice on how to use a calendar:

1) Once you get the syllabus from your University, add all project due dates to your calendar and block out time each week for your weekly seminar meetings and readings/homework. Make a note (I like to use stick notes) of all the assignments that do not have defined due dates (e.g., supervisor and mentor teacher observations). You will have to add these to your calendar as you schedule them. Don't forget!
2) Next, look at your school schedule and note holidays, early dismissals, conferences, after-school meetings, professional development, etc. on your calendar.
3) Now, add in any personal events or appointments that you already have scheduled (doctor, dentist, work, etc.).

**If you have conflicts, you need to resolve them before student teaching begins. Student teachers are expected to be at school every day!**

Update this calendar every week. Use it to help yourself with time management. For example, I like to add personal reminders, or motivators, to my calendar to help me remember to get started on projects well before they are due. Once you have all of your projects and school events posted on the calendar, do some thinking about when you should begin your projects and write a kind reminder to yourself to GET STARTED!!
I like to start projects at least 2-3 weeks in advance if possible. For major projects, I like to divide the project into parts (for example your Teaching Unit or Final Portfolio are huge and have mini components) and give myself due dates for each part. That way I am not doing everything at the last minute!

This calendar will give you a "big picture" or your semester and will help you stay on top of all assignments and events at your school.

In addition to this "Big Picture" calendar that you keep, you will most likely be responsible for sending a detailed weekly schedule to your University Supervisor. My advice would be to keep this schedule in a word document on the computer. Create a table with five columns (Monday-Friday) and write in the schedule underneath each day. Modify the table each week as needed.

One of the best gifts you can give yourself or a friend who is student teaching is the gift of time management skills. Student teachers must have good time management to balance all aspects of their lives during the student teaching semester. The key to time managment is to think ahead. Schedule time before your semester starts to start your calendar.

If you are like me, you need to get excited about keeping a calendar! I love to take an annual trip to the bookstore to pick out an agenda for the new year. The more colorful and creative the agenda, the more likely I am to want to use it. But, that is just me - you need to figure out what works for you.

Here is a link to the "best" agendas/planners for 2012: http://www.squidoo.com/unique-calendars-planners