Classroom Organization Tip: Use a Daily Agenda Template
“I just need to do my boards.”
We’re pretty sure we’ve said some variation of this statement to one another well over 1,000 times. (Because of course we left campus together most days . . . leave no wo(man) behind!)
We adore classroom organization here at Three Heads. To be perfectly honest, if we could travel around the country setting up classrooms, Clea-and-Joanna-style, we’d be living our best lives. Whether we’re talking strategies, detailed sub plans, unit planning, supplies, digital resources, Canvas weekly agendas, or back-to-school shopping lists, we will happily spend hours going down classroom organization rabbit holes or designing the perfect labels with perfectly selected fonts and color palettes.
Some of you may read this and think, Yes. These are my people. Others of you, however, may be itching to click out of the website immediately: I need a quick fix, not a classroom organization system that takes hours to set up. Get me out of here!
Don’t click out yet. One of the easiest ways you can up your classroom organization game is with a daily agenda template, and because we happily put in the hours designing it to be just right, all you have to do is fill in the details, a task that only takes a couple minutes but makes a big difference in your day-to-day classroom experience.
Classroom Organization 101: Why You Need a Daily Agenda Template
1
It anticipates students’ favorite (and your least favorite) question.
“What are we doing today?”
If your students are anything like ours, you hear this question at least 20 times a day. And we get it. We like to know what we’re doing each day, too, mentally preparing ourselves as necessary. Now to be fair, your students will probably still ask (habits are hard to break, after all), but when you post your daily agenda, you can direct students’ attention there instead of answering the same question over and over.
2
It helps your students stay organized.
We’re all for creating solutions to minimize annoying questions from our students, but we do believe daily agendas have value far beyond that.
Organization is an essential skill our students need to learn, and it’s one that will serve them for years, long after they’ve forgotten the books we read or the vocabulary words they memorized. And yet this is a skill that is really hard and definitely not intuitive for many of our students.
By beginning class each day with a schedule and reminders, we establish a classroom routine, highlight for our students the value of staying organized, and reinforce the necessity of creating and recording reminders and other important information.
Once we switched to a flipped classroom model, our students had some freedom in the way they chose to work through their assignments. Our self-starters could take a quick glance at the agenda and get right to work. Some students, however, need a little bit more guidance. We could use the agenda to post suggestions about where to start or pacing to help them stay on track.
3
It sets clear expectations for your students from the moment they enter your classroom.
High school students move through 6–7 different classrooms each day, each one headed by a teacher with a different personality and different routines. Posting your agenda at the beginning of class each day helps students shift gears to your classroom. It tells them what materials to get out and helps them get into the mindset for what’s to come. The fact that it’s posted (and designed with care) tells students that organization is important to you, that this is a classroom where you take time seriously.
When you post regular reminders, you’re also showing your students when you expect them to start working on long-term assignments. Instead of a far-off due date on the white board or an occasional reminder as the date approaches, you can provide daily suggestions and reminders to work on larger assignments over time.
The way you set up your daily agenda can also help your students stay more connected to you and the school. Not only are they in the loop about what’s going on in your classroom, but you can add reminders about school events and timelines that remind your students they are part of a larger community.
4
It frees up board space and saves you time.
If we’re being perfectly honest, this is the reason we started using Google Slides for our daily agendas. We always hand wrote an agenda, upcoming due dates, and reminders on our boards, but these can overwhelm your boards quickly, especially if you teach multiple sections. Information gets lost in the text overload and your whiteboard just becomes a forgettable part of your classroom decor. And you have to rewrite the same assignments over and over as they move up the list.
Not to mention, most of us rely on projectors, whether they project directly onto the whiteboard or we cover the whiteboard with a screen. Because of this, we only have limited board space available, and we have to prioritize. There are also, believe it or not, times when we need to use our whiteboard for instruction or an activity. Offloading your daily agenda onto Google Slides frees up
5
It makes it easy to communicate with absent students and families.
We know many teachers who post their daily agenda slides on their website or their LMS. This makes it easy for students to see what they missed when they were absent (or, even better, to keep up with the work when they’re absent) and for families to see what their students are working on and what due dates are coming up.
This also allows your absent students and families to see important reminders you shared in class or changes to the weekly schedule, announcements we don’t always remember to share when they connect with us upon their return to the classroom.
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6
It’s an easy way to record your lesson plans.
Whether you need to share lesson plans with your administration or just want your own records, digital agendas are perfect. You can look back and see exactly how much time you spent on a lesson the previous year, and you can make a copy of the agenda and modify it instead of starting from scratch.
7
It allows you to add some personality or create an atmosphere.
Sure, you could just use a basic slides template, but daily agenda templates can also be a fun way to let your students know a little bit about you or make your agendas part of your classroom decor. Most of our daily agenda templates heavily featured coffee and pastries: it made us feel right at home and made our students feel a little more connected to us as people.
We were also partial to the “coffee shop” vibes because they created a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere for work days, especially with some quiet instrumental music playing in the background. We all felt less like we were stuck in a classroom and more like we were studying at our local Starbucks.
You can also add a graphic to your daily agenda where you share a “Quote of the Day” or what you’re “Currently Reading.” These, again, help your students to connect with you and offer inspiration amidst the daily grind. When you share what you’re currently reading with your students, you remind them that you value reading and set an example for them, possibly even inspiring them to pick up the same book. (Need suggestions? We’ve got you covered.)
Coastal Chic Vibes
Change Up Your Vibes
Bookish hipster Vibes
8
It’s easy to be cohesive across periods (or even across Professional Learning Communities)
We all can relate to that end-of-the-day fog when we have no idea what information we shared in what period because it’s all just blending together. Using the same daily agenda slide, with its space for reminders, each period allows us to ensure all of our students get the same information from us.
We worked closely in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at our site, and it was easy to share our daily agenda slides so that we all stayed on pace and communicated the same information to our students. We would leave notes for one another in the “Speaker Notes” section, and if the day’s lesson required a classroom or testing code, we could easily make a copy of the day’s slide for each teacher.
Practical Tips for Using a Daily Agenda Template
How We Set Up the Slides in Our Daily Agenda Template
Agenda
The largest box on each slide is where we put our daily agenda. We listed out, in order, our lesson plan for the day, along with any suggestions about where to start or reminders about assignment directions. We displayed the agenda as students walked into class, and then we reviewed it before doing anything else, encouraging students to record the information in their personal agendas.
Upcoming Due Dates
Initially, this was our “homework” box, but as we moved toward a homework-free classroom, this was more of a list of upcoming due dates so students would know when assignments were due, what they should work on if they finished early, and what they needed to complete at home if they had fallen behind. We included both short-term and long-term assignments here.
Reminders
We usually included a small graphic for quick “FYIs” or “Reminders.” Depending on how much room we had in the other boxes, this could be a due date or test date, but we also used it to remind students to bring specific materials, meet in an alternate location, or be aware of a school event.
When You’re Ready to Shop
Each of our daily agenda templates includes an example daily agenda (taken directly from a daily agenda from our classroom), five preset daily agenda templates (for variety but also so you can tell at a glance which day it is), and a variety of graphics.
We have five different themes, with varying levels of customizability. Helpful Hint: If you’re looking for something quick and easy, we recommend one of the first three options. If you’re looking for more freedom to customize, we recommend the last two options.
We’ve included separate pieces and customizable text boxes so you can set up the agenda in the way that works best for you. The shapes in each set can be resized to meet your needs, and if there’s a banner or shape missing that you just have to have, let us know and we can add it for you!
We found a Google Slides daily agenda template to be a gamechanger for our classroom organization. We, and our students, felt more organized, we got our board space back (and saved valuable time each day), and we loved the atmosphere it created in our classrooms. If you’re looking for a simple way to make things run just a little more smoothly in your classroom, transitioning to daily agenda slides is a quick and easy way to start.
If you’d like readymade templates that you can start using today, check out our five templates above. If you have multiple class periods (or just can’t decide on your favorite theme), we’ve bundled our Coffee, Book, and Desktop Flat Lay themes to give you plenty of variety with just one click. Interested in what you see but need some modifications to make it work for you? Reach out to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @threeheads.works. We’re happy to help!