organizing teaching notes

I am trying something new this semester to keep track of my class plans. I am using the Outlook calendar notes to type in what starts as a “to do list” for each class. Sometimes the list stays in list format, and sometimes I flesh out the plan to remind myself of an activity I want students to do or a handout I want to give. After—or sometimes during—a class meeting, I go in and type in a few notes to remind myself of what we didn’t get to or any changes I ended up making to the plan.

In past semesters I’ve jotted down handwritten notes about what I want to do in classes on notebook paper. What tended to happen, though, is that I’d want to review what I was doing in a class at home and the notebook paper would be at work or vice versa. Keeping my class planning notes in Outlook allows me to access them from home and work.

When I have notes written in Outlook for a class I put two asterisks after the name of the appointment (I’ve been using ** to designate that I have notes on an appointment for years; I even got Amy to start doing it.) 

 

Sometimes I print out the notes and bring them to class; other times I bring my laptop to class and just refer to the notes on it.

tags: organizing  teaching  

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