Tips for Teaching in a Departmentalized Classroom (EP5)

Tips for Teaching in a Departmentalized Classroom

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Elementary Math Chat. This is episode five in our back-to-school series, and I actually did not have this topic included when I first planned out this series. But I noticed that the same question was coming up in a lot of Facebook groups that I’m part of, and the questions were always along the lines of how to stay organized and handle everything that comes along with being a departmentalized teacher.

So, because of that, I decided to add this to our back-to-school series and share everything I learned when I was a departmentalized teacher.

One of the keys in handling everything that comes along with being departmentalized is you want to keep things simple, and you’ll hear me say this often. This might be the first time your students are switching classes. So, for things to run smoothly, they need to be simple.

Another key to staying organized with multiple classes is finding the right storage for both your supplies, because you’re going to have more of them with more than one class, and their supplies as well because they are going back and forth between classes. So, it’s really important for them to stay organized. So, I’ll also be sharing my favorite organization tips today.

All right, well, let’s start out with how I kept track of student papers. If you are departmentalized, then having a system for this is essential. I know I mentioned this before, but when I first started out in fifth grade, I had four and sometimes five classes a day. And this was before the days of technology, so we didn’t have any digital assignments. It was all paper-pencil. So, I had a lot of student papers to keep track of.

I realized early on that I needed a system desperately to help me stay organized, and I was really lucky because not only did I find a system that worked, but it worked so well that I used this system for the rest of my time in the classroom. 

This system can be used with two classes, three classes, four classes, as many as you have. But I’m going to explain how I used it with two classes. I think most of you are probably departmentalized that way, but again, it will work with any number of classes.

I’ll start with how I kept track of student work. I had one folder for each class that I taught. So, that was two math folders and two science folders. Within the folders, I kept a class spreadsheet for assignments on the left, and papers that needed to be graded on the right.

As soon as they were graded, I put them in a separate place, and I’ll talk about that later. That way the folder didn’t get too full. Also, the spreadsheet I mentioned. This was a simple table that I made in Word, so it was easy to make and easy to update each year.

Then when it was time to check for homework completion, I walked around with my folder, and I made any notes of students who didn’t have their homework done. So, I never had them tear their workbook pages out and turn them in. That would just be too much to keep track of, and it’s really not necessary. I just walked around and did a quick check and made notes of anyone who didn’t have it done. 

I will share later how I dealt with missing assignments because that is a whole other topic on its own.

Of course, there were times I collected their work. I always collected their choice boards, and I always collected their assessments. So, when I needed to take these papers home to grade, all I needed were my folders because I put all of those papers inside the folder, and that helped me keep everything organized.

I also did have an extra folder for my homeroom, and I used that one to keep track of homeroom-related things like field trip forms, behavior, notes, things like that. So, that takes care of organizing student papers and student work.

Let’s move on and talk about keeping track of grades and missing assignments. This is probably the most challenging and overwhelming part about being departmentalized. My advice once again is to keep it simple. 

First of all, you do not have to take a grade on every single assignment and every single classwork activity. When I first started teaching, I felt like I had to do this, but I quickly realized how overwhelming that is, and it’s just not necessary.

So for me, I assigned homework one to two times a week, and I did keep track of who didn’t turn their homework in, but it was manageable with the little homework that I gave. Also, not all of these assignments went in the gradebook. I would usually enter one homework and one classwork grade per week. That’s it. So, keep assignments simple and manageable.

With my folder system, assignments were also easy to keep track of. Again, I had a grade sheet for each class in the folder, and I put the name of the assignment at the top, along with the date it was assigned. That way, if something was late or missing, I knew how long it had been.

For me, the less writing on this grade sheet the better. So, if a student completed their homework, I left it blank. If they did not complete their homework, I circled the box, and then later when it was turned in, I would put a checkmark inside. If the student was absent, I wrote a B inside the box, and that helped me remember to check in with them later. Of course, if it was an assessment, I wrote the actual score down.

I would also highlight the name of the assignment on my paper copy as soon as I entered the scores online, and that helped me stay organized with what had been entered and what still needed to go in. So, that’s another helpful tip.

Let’s move on and talk about how to keep track of missing assignments between you and your partner teacher or teachers. This is important because most likely you are the one communicating missing work to parents. So, you need to know what’s going on in each other’s classes.

This question has come up a lot in Facebook groups, and I’ve seen some teachers share that they write the names of missing work on the board, and I have done that too. But I steered away from that for several reasons.

One was because I needed space on my board for other purposes, and the other was that I wanted to make sure a student didn’t feel called out. That was not my intention. It was purely to help me remember to check in with them. But I wanted to be considerate if students felt that way. I think about if I were a kid, and my teacher wrote my name on the board, I’m not sure how I would have felt about that.

So, here’s what I did. Instead, every class in our school from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade had a behavior binder that traveled with them throughout the day. Within the binder, we had a missing assignment sheet, and that’s where we would record missing assignments.

For example, if someone in my class had a missing assignment and reading, my partner teacher would write this in my binder, and that way, I would know. I would do the same thing for her as well. If a student in her class had a missing assignment for me in math or science, I would write that in her binder, and that way she knew about it.

I usually waited until it had been two or more days before I put it in her binder. By that point, they had had multiple reminders from me. So, if it had been two days, then it was considered missing. If and when the assignment was turned in, I would cross it off of her list. That way this info was private and just between teachers, and it also helped us fill out our behavior notes each week, since we included missing assignments on those notes.

Let’s move on and talk about how you can help your students stay organized. This is a big one because chances are this is the first time they are switching classes, and they are going to need a simple way to organize their papers. 

I know a lot of teachers use the expandables, and we tried that one year, but I gotta tell you, I hated them. I just think it gives them way too many options of where to put papers. They just kind of shove them in there. So, we only did that one year.

Instead of the expandable, we gave students two folders and that is it. They kept these inside of a zipper binder. So, not a binder like a teacher binder we use. It had a full zipper on it, and it was a great way to stay organized because they could fit a lot of things in there.

I also recommend using plastic folders. They tend to hold up a lot better than paper folders do. We used the ones from Target that were already three-hole-punched, and one folder was labeled “Work in Progress”, and the other folder was labeled “Take Home”. We used to call it a homework folder, but some things weren’t homework that needed to go in this folder. So, we renamed it Take Home.

With only having two folders, this meant that everything went in one of those two places. Anything that they needed to keep, like a choice board or a study guide stayed in the Work in Progress folder. We also had them labeled the inside of this folder with “Block 1” and “Block 2”, so any of their papers from their morning block would go on that side, and any papers from their afternoon block would go on the other side.

So, anything in this Work in Progress folder was super important and should not be thrown away, and we told parents that as well. Don’t clean out that folder. Let us take care of that.

Now the other folder contained items that could go home and stay home. This included any graded papers that were ready to go home. It could be a field trip form. It could be a flyer that came from the front office that needs to go home. On the inside of the Take Home folder, we even labeled one side “Return to School” and the other side “Keep at Home”.

So, a flyer that needed to go home went on the Keep at Home side. If it was a behavior note or a field trip form that needed to be returned, that went on the Return to School side. You will need to be really intentional about telling students where to put their papers, especially in the beginning when they’re learning this new system. But I would say after a few weeks, they’ll get the hang of it, and you won’t necessarily have to say “Put this in your take-home folder on the return to school side.” They’ll know where it goes.

One other thing I want to mention is that we did go through this with parents during our Meet the Teacher night, and we even had a sample binder to show them. I think it was really helpful for parents to understand from the beginning how everything worked. So, I recommend doing that if you can. 

The next thing I want to share with you is how I collected student supplies. We did this on the very first day of school. So, they came with all of their supplies, and we collected and organized them on that first day.

I took maybe 10 or so laundry baskets, and I put them in the front of the room and labeled them with the supplies that we would be collecting as a class. I started by collecting the large items just to get them out of the way because they took up a lot of room. So, things like tissue boxes, disinfectant wipes, paper towels, things like that we did those first. So, I just called one table at a time, and they went up and put their items in these baskets.

They did get full after two or three tables had gone up. When that happened, I had some helpers help me put them away in my storage cabinets, and then we just continued until everyone had turned in their materials. I also had them working on something during this time. So, when it wasn’t their turn to come up and bring their supplies, they were working on an All About Me page, and that kept them busy.

Once we took care of the larger items, then we moved on to the smaller items like the pencils, highlighters, and glue sticks, and I actually did not collect these items. So, we did not share supplies between classes.

We started this system during the pandemic when we weren’t able to share supplies. But we found that we liked it better, so we never went back to sharing supplies. So, here’s how we handle the smaller items.

First, we organized the pencil pouch that would go inside of their binder. I had students put their scissors in there along with five pencils, two Expo markers, and two glue sticks. Now in the past, I would have them take everything leftover, like all of their extra markers or glue sticks or pencils, and they would put them in community buckets that we would share as a class. But here’s what we did instead that worked a lot better.

I gave each student a gallon-size Ziploc bag with their name on it, and they put everything they had left in this bag. So, every pencil, marker, glue stick, everything extra went in this Ziploc bag, and they kept these in their cubby or their backpack. I let them choose because some of them felt like if they kept it in the cubby, other people might take something of theirs. So, I let them choose.

Whenever they needed a pencil. let’s say their pencil pouch ran out and they needed to get a new one, instead of getting it from the community bucket, they went to their cubby and got one of their own. So, we did not share these supplies between classes. They kept track of their own.

What I loved about this system was that when they needed the supplies, they did not have to come and ask me for it. I had too many things going on to be the one that had to give them a pencil or show them where they could find a pencil. Plus I think that they lasted much longer this way. So, I liked this system much better, and I think fourth and fifth grade for sure can handle the responsibility of carrying their own materials. Not sure about third, but definitely fourth and fifth.

All right, we’ve covered student supplies, so let’s move on to teacher supplies. I think almost all of these I purchased from Amazon, and I will have all of these links in the show notes in case you are interested in any of them.

The two main items that helped me stay organized were the 10-drawer rolling cart and the teacher toolbox. I’m probably not the first person to tell you about these. What’s funny is, I did not purchase these until my last year in the classroom. I’m not really sure why it took me so long to get them. The rolling cart is a little pricey, and maybe that’s why I hesitated. But you can get these anywhere. You can get them at Amazon, Walmart, TJ Maxx, so you might want to shop around. I think mine was around $50.

What I love about the rolling cart, though, is that it gave me a place to store all of my copies and any other items I would need throughout the week, all in one place. This was one of the few things I brought home with me, and I still use it at home. It stores all of my colored cardstock.

When I used this in the classroom, I had my 10 drawers labeled with the days of the week, of course, so Monday through Friday took up five of the drawers. Any papers or copies I’d be needing for those days would go in there. I would even put my task cards or any other activity I’d be using for that day in those drawers, or even a supply. If Wednesday I was using rubber bands for science, I would throw them in the Wednesday drawer. The drawers are pretty deep, so they can hold quite a few things.

I also had two separate drawers for my two classes. So, I labeled those Block One and Block Two, and I’d put papers that were graded and ready to go home in there. I had another drawer that I labeled Miscellaneous because you know you always have those papers that you’re scared to throw away, but you’re not really sure what to do with them. So, I always put those in there.

Then the last two drawers were labeled copy and file, although I think I ended up using those last two drawers for copy paper and cardstock instead, but you just label them and use them in the way that works for you.

Now, the teacher toolbox. This is going to help you organize all of your smaller items. And again, I did not get this until my final year. I think I waited so long because I didn’t think I needed it. But it was exactly what I needed to clean out my desk and find a place for everything.

My desk would always start the year organized. I had really good intentions. But as I got busy and the year went on, it just became a dumping ground for all the new supplies I was getting, and I could never find anything without having to take everything out. It was so frustrating.

But now that I had this toolbox, I could show you where every paper clip, every rubber band, every hole puncher, flare pen, you name it. I could find it within seconds, and that was the best feeling. I have the one with 44 drawers, and I think that’s perfect. I believe there are some with 65 drawers and some that have fewer, but I felt like 44 was perfect.

I still use this one today. It’s in my garage as well. So, I highly recommend getting one of these if you don’t have one, especially if you are considering getting rid of your teacher desk. I’ve seen a lot of teachers talk about this to give them more space. If you do that the teacher toolbox will be perfect to store all of those supplies that would normally go in your desk.

All right, we’ve made it to my final recommendation, which is for storing task cards. And no, I am not recommending the small plastic boxes. I’m sure they work well. But I had so many sets of task cards, the boxes just did not make sense to me. So instead, I stored them in two different ways.

Some task cards I put in the pockets of a hanging shoe organizer, and I hung this over my large two-door file cabinet that was behind my desk. The task cards I used for things like Quiz-Quiz-Trade that had the answers on the back or ones that I only needed from time to time I kept in here. I also put flashcards or any matching activities in these pockets, and I had them organized by chapter and put rubber bands around them to keep them separate and easy to find.

That worked really well for these types of activities. But I did something different for the other task cards that I used in my teacher center, or for choice board activities like a gallery walk. I kept these in large envelopes and stored the envelopes in plastic bins that were also labeled and organized by chapter. But I put these on top of my bookshelves, and they looked really nice. I’ll put a few pictures in the show notes so you can see what I mean.

The bins could easily fit 20 to 30 sets of task cards. So, with the amount of task cards that I had, this worked really well for me. Now the other thing I’ll mention is that when I put them in these baskets, I put the cover of the task cards that comes with the TPT download on the front of the envelope and the answer key on the back. That way I knew which was which and it was easy to find and easy to put back when I was finished. I also laminated the envelopes and I recommend you do that because if not, they might get torn up.

So, those are my favorite ways to stay organized as a departmentalized teacher. If you want a quick recap, you can head to the show notes. But since this episode is pretty lengthy, I’m going to skip the recap and go right to today’s teaching tip of the week.

This one is a really quick tip for your student workbooks. Instead of having students write their names on the front cover of the math workbook, have them write their names on the side where the pages are stacked. So, the opposite side of the spine. This serves two purposes. Number one, it’s just easier to see their name this way. And number two, if their cover ever comes off, their name is still visible. So, never again will you find a workbook without a front cover and not know who it belongs to.

Well, that is all for today’s episode. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you feel inspired to get organized for the new school year. Have a great week, and I will see you next Tuesday.