Top teaching "hacks"?

[2slicesoftoast]

I know I'm crazy. it's not even half way through the holidays here and I'm already thinking about the classroom BUT I came across a great tip on another thread that is inspired.... a school that punches holes in exercise books and worksheets and the pupils use treasury tags to keep them in place. I love it!
I'll add one of mine. My pupils sit in groups so I name each group and label the books with a sticker corresponding to the group name (Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, Empire State Building....). Makes handing our books so quick and the start of lessons much slicker.
Any one willing to share their time saving Ideas?

Simple timesaver for marking ... train your class(es) to stack their exercise books open at that day's page. Close the whole stack as one. When you come to mark them, you have to riffle though only the middle book to find the right page.

Agree with a PP about putting coloured tape or labels on the spine for groups.

Only laminate what absolutely MUST be laminated! Displays do not need laminating.

Display lettering - create the letters you need in Powerpoint (and use the Text Fill options to fill with images or patterns to fit topics). Add a max thickness black outline to avoid double mounting.

Clipboards or cheap photo frames for displaying work: again avoids mounting.

Another vote for trying to mark in class. Our kids have to respond to teacher marking in green pen so last year, I trained them from the first lesson to respond in green if I write on their work. It was well worth the effort!

I also try to mark more frequently - school policy is every 2 weeks but I see my classes 4 or 5 times a week so 2 weeks worth of work is a lot and takes ages. If I mark more frequently, it takes far less time and the feedback is more meaningful to pupils. I create a marking schedule each year which I try to stick to so that marking doesn't build up.

I also try to plan all of the lessons for each topic before term starts, so for example, in September, my first topic with Y11 is Forces, so I have planned all of the forces lessons. I may tweak bits but essentially the planning is done - saves time during term and I can slowly work on planning the next topics.

Sharing resources is another good one. We have become quite good at this in my department and it is really helpful. Only thing that irks me is the (experienced) colleague who happily uses everyone else's resources so that she doesn't need to plan but never shared anything

Display hack - get your 6 foot 7 husband in during the holidays to back all your display boards (and lend him out around the other classrooms) - no balancing on chairs, tables or playing "hunt the health and safety approved stepladders".

With the amount he breaks stuff in the house with his size and clumsiness - he got to have a day of glory being a smug git walking along just stapling the top of boards that would have been a pain in the arse for midget me to manage to do in penance!

Oral feedback - it’s instant and takes less work. Only write stuff if it will make a tangible difference.

I teach drama. I video a lot - we use google drive so I video a rehearsal (for example) upload it to the drive and share it with the students so they can refer to it for evaluations. Also great evidence for assessment and shows progress.

I also have pens, bright sparkly pens, with "stolen from Ms X" on them.
Great idea sashh where did you buy them or did you make them?

@5000KallaxHoles "Display hack - get your 6 foot 7 husband in during the holidays to back all your display boards"

But mine's only 5'8" 😩 But I find trainees and 6th formers are always up for doing displays!

@EvilTwins "Oral feedback - it’s instant and takes less work. Only write stuff if it will make a tangible difference."

But how will SLT know that feedback has been given? Don't you know it doesn't count if it's not written down?

I have two stamps, one says 'verbal feedback given', the other 'live marked by missmarples'

They are lifesavers. The second gets used during work where I might ask them to add three reasons why, explain how etc. I'll scribble it into the work and stamp it.

MissMarple I was given a verbal feedback stamp. Used it precisely 0 times. I refuse to waste time proving that I’m doing my job.

Actually my best teaching hack is to be a grumpy sod and refuse to do anything that doesn’t have a direct impact on the students’ progress.

Evil, sounds like a plan.
Working to rule would probably be the best hack ever.

Though some of these ideas are good, especially the free ones!

For oral feedback, when I record students, I keep the recording running and give instant feedback there and then. Kids need to copy it up as part of their h/w. I store the recording securely.

SLT did a learning walk last year and came into a lesson where I was playing back recordings and feedback from the previous lesson. They loved it!

Yellow Box Marking- I found this really useful.

Using a highlighter I draw a box around the section of work that the student needs to redraft. It's then a starter activity or homework to respond to all yellow boxes with a redraft. Sometimes they're a paragraph, sometimes a few lines. Sometimes I give clear guidance and sometimes they have to use marking sheets to work out how to improve it. It's saved me a lot of time as I can skim read improved paragraphs, and it's really easy to do in lesson, too.

@sashh can you recommend any logic puzzle cards? Thanks!

I don't sit in ability groups, so never did colour coding, and my seating plan changes often. Then one day I broke and just colour-coded books by the alphabet. Just split the class list into 4 sections by first name. Got the list on the board and had the kids group the books which was easy reassured them that the colours weren't related to ability.

It made marking SO much easier, because we have to do a 'deep' mark once a week, and I could do one set at lunch and then know exactly which books I've done. Of course if your seating plan is stable then it's easier to just do it by table!

When I mark a piece of work, I type the name and feedback (www and ebi) onto a sticker template. I can then copy and paste and personalise comments very quickly.
I also have a record for following years and can use similar feedback.

@Heartshapedfairylights how do you print stickers?

Hi chick. I download the correct template and then print onto sticker sheets. I think they’re probably envelope labels that I buy from the local stationery shop.

Great idea - thank you :)

Primary
We have 5 colours book boxes and the children sit on the corresponding mixed ability table colour.
All blue table books English maths handwriting and spellings are all in the blue box. V easy for us and the kids to access.
Also we provide the children with a plastic poppered envelope for their reading book and record.
We have a box in the classroom where they bring it in each day. First few weeks TA (me) checking them off a list and reminding children who have forgotten them but it means that guided reading or daily readers is swift and efficient no riffling in bags to find they haven’t got their book today.

iheartfriday

I just got a set in a tin from a toy shop, you could make your own the puzzles on them are pretty much the same

eg

A diesel train leaves London at 9.02 am, it is travelling North, the wind is blowing due west, what direction does the smoke blow?

Romeo and Juliet were found dead on the floor. there was water and glass on the floor the only other things in the room are a bookshelf and a bed.

How did they die?

I suppose they could be put on a PowerPoint too.

I used to have a game called 'mind trap' which was about solving puzzles, it was fun but as I bought it in Australia it had some that don't work in the UK eg, 'Julie was born in December, but celebrates her birthday every winter, how can this be?'

Another 'hack' that isn't really and most people know but not everyone, have the date on your powerpoints update automatically to the day you are teaching.

Sashh - how do you get the date to update? I’ve seen some PowerPoints with this but never got round to investigating how to do it!
Thanks.

Heart

Open the ppt, click where you want the date, open the 'insert' tab. Click on 'time and date' and when the date menu pops up tick 'update automatically'

See the red rings in the screen print

Oh brilliant! Thank you!

Lots learned the hard way for managing marking, including some already mentioned:-

YY to carrying a pen and marking as you go. If you have a TA, get them to do the same; even if you add comments afterwards it helps.

Get children to hand in books open at the correct page. Have three boxes/ trays (Red, Amber, Green) so children can RAG-rate how they well feel they understood the task. Priories marking the Reds and Ambers at lunchtime.

Take a handful of exercise books with you to after-school meetings. There will nearly always be a dead few minutes whilst everyone arrives and sets up that you can use for marking.

When marking tests, mark the same double-page for everyone, then the next double-page. Much quicker as you can hold the correct answers in your head, especially where response A is allowed but very-slightly-different response B is not, and you can see more easily if the same errors are arising.