Wow, it has been a tough two and a half weeks. My kiddos are VERY BUSY!!! With new kiddos and new staff, I feel like my head is spinning with just teaching procedures. I'm finding that now I have to write out specific step by step instructions for my para's on how to deal with student behavior, how to implement reinforcement systems, etc. I guess I took for granted how knowledgeable my staff was last year!!
Anyway, my top priority has been setting schedules, both for students and staff.
To ensure schedules are most effective, here are the steps I take:
1. Set up a excel document with 15 minute segments down and each student's name across the top. (once I get some things set up, I change the times to match things like bells, etc)
2. Fill in the non-negotiables (lunch, gened, etc).
3. Set up group times
4. Fill in rotations
5. Assign staff to specific rotations and students
To make it all work correctly, this year I had to do NINE drafts of this!! I kept having to rework groups, ensure that kids who needed extra assistance were assigned 1 staff who supervised others while at independent.
Here are three versions of the schedule, just so you can see the progression. I know that there will still be a few changes, and I still have a couple of spots that need to be filled, but at day 13, I'm feeling pretty confident!
Version 1: Made before I actually knew my students and staff very well. In this one, I set non-negotiables and groups and then just blindly filled in students based on that information I had. . . We used this for 2 whole days!
Here is version 4. . . I had already made multiple changes. In this schedule, I created a couple of new stations, took out some stations, and began to assign staff more appropriately. . .
This is the current schedule. . . In this one, every student is accounted for with staff members. Students are either working with staff directly or supervised (when in parenthesis). Yellow table is where I work with students, at the blue table my stronger para works on reading, fluency, and the red table is where students play a game of some sort and work on turn taking and social skills. I am really enjoying this schedule so far, but you can see that there are still a couple of ??. These are times that are not filled completely with meaningful activities so I am still determining what to do. If you have any suggestions, I'm more than open!!
Key: MM-morning meeting; cards/Ipad-language master, then Ipad activity; I-independent; WD-work drawers (set of 6 drawers that target IEP objectives in the generalization phase); WB-work boxes (pre-vocational tasks); TT-another time I work with students. . .
So. . . that's the way I make schedules. How are you doing with your schedules?? Anything you think I should try??
