How to Organize Your Special Education Classwork
July 29, 2008
Choosing to start the school year with an organized classroom will save you time, frustration and headaches in the long term. How do you do this? In this article we’ll look at two areas that can be particularly challenging.
ASSIGNED WORK
I teach middle school students, grades 4-8, with a very wide spectrum of disabilities, ranging from the level of an infant to students capable of doing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade work. Nobody in class is assigned exactly the same work. Each of the programs is extremely individualized. If I didn’t have an organizational plan in place, I’d be in total chaos.
The best method of managing assigned student work is a basic plastic crate and some hanging file folders. I create packets of single subjects, i.e. one packet of adding, one of comprehension, etc. The packets should last two weeks, if not longer. These packets are kept in the file folders. I use a plastic crate because it is portable, unlike a file cabinet. Every day students get to practice making choices about the order in which they want to do their work.
I’ve tried using individual notebooks for student work. This didn’t work too well. Students tended to rush through the work, past what they’d been assigned for the day, and by Friday I would have to figure out something else for them to work on. In addition, every Sunday night I’d be at school copying work and putting it into the notebooks. I didn’t like that.
Ive also tried handing out individual worksheets on a daily basis. This is fine if I only have three or four students; any more than that and its too cumbersome to manage easily. Not to mention, things seem to disappear if they’re not stapled into a packet.
I’d recommend using the crate system over anything else. Its portable and organized. It also gives the student some responsibility, i.e. getting and putting away his or her folder and deciding which order the work will be completed.
COMPLETED WORK
Just thinking about this makes me tired! I used to have piles of corrected student work all over my desk just because I was afraid I’d end up without enough work samples for the state portfolio assessment that’s due in the Spring. I’d save everything until Spring. That amounts to A LOT of paper. Even with trying to get to it every month, I still had too much piled on my desk.
Despite good intentions, I never quite got to picking work to include in the portfolio until at least the middle of the year. I made sure I had the data, but the way in which I went about it was a headache. I decided to do it right–pick days, in advance, on which to collect data for the portfolios. I then keep only that set of work samples. Everything else gets sent home and my desk is clear.
Here’s how it works. To keep this work organized, I get one 3-ring binder and as many 2-pocket folders as there are students. The pocket folders go inside the binder. As the work is completed, I put each students completed work with the pre-printed documentation sheets specific to the portfolio requirements for my state. These packets (one for each goal) are held together by a paperclip and stored in the pocket folder. In the Spring, when all of the data have been collected, I move it all over to a smaller binder for each individual student that is then sent in for evaluation.
What’s my solution for making sure work gets home every day? It’s really basic.
You will need one heavy duty clip magnet for each student. Make sure to get the strong magnets. Put each student’s name on a clip and hang the clips on the whiteboard.
Draw a vertical line about a yard from the end of the white board. At the top write “Work To Go Home”. Put the clips in this area. They are the only things that should be in that area.
As work is returned to students, they put it on their clip. They practice reading, hand strengthening and general responsibility by doing this themselves. Part of the end of school routine is having the students check their clips for things to take home.
Having the clips in a central location also acts as a reminder all day long. And, everyone in the room knows what needs to go home, so if a student forgets to check the clip, any number of people (including other students) will remind him or her.
I’m sure there are many other organizational systems to manage student work: cubby boxes, mailboxes, magazine racks attached to the wall, etc. When it comes down to it, no one organizational system will work for everyone and you’ll have to do a lot of experimenting and tweaking until you find one that fits exactly right for you.
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