Organization, Motivation, and Simple Time-Saving Strategies
One of the reasons why we procrastinate is disorganization. When we know where things are, have a plan, and are motivated, we do not want to procrastinate.
There are a number of ways to make teaching life easy and simple if we can come up with SIMPLE strategies that will allow us to complete important routine tasks (grading papers, preparing grade rosters, creating tests, etc.) in no time to get them out of the way so we can work on other important things like continuing education, professional development--like MAX KNOWLEDGE--or just enjoy free time.
By creating reusable templates for everything, we are taking out a big chunk of the same work for the next time we have to prepare same.
Teaching students time-management and sticking to deadlines are very important, too. By allowing ourselves to wait for students after the deadline date, not only are we encouraging laziness, we are also giving ourselves an excuse to put things off, whether or not we want to.
It is a very good feeling to realize the rewards of having time for ourselves; but when we procrastinate, we just punish ourselves unnecessarily.
One time-saving strategy that I've found to be effective is for grading papers. I lay all of the quizzes/exams/etc. out on a table and grade one question at a time, but for all papers. This is more time-efficient than grading each paper individually. In the individual paper grading scenario, you have to "load" each question into your short-term memory, "access" those memory files from long-term memory that are relevant for assessment, and then "dump" everything from short-term memory to prepare for the next question. With 20 students and a 5 item short answer quiz, you will before this task 100 times.
In my time-saving scenario, I load, access and dump short-term memory a total of only 5 times. I read the question and then grade all 20 answers. And, as we all know, a correct answer takes an infinitesimally smaller amount of time to grade than an incorrect one.
Setting aside an amount of time every day to get what work need to be done is as important as setting time for all the other demands on your life. With a set time in mind get to the have to list first. The should do and could do can come later.
I am a big fan of organization, being organized means you are more prepared to handle any task at hand. I have found that being organized helps you to stay on top of grading papers, creating test, developing lesson plans, etc.
By helping our students to develop good organization skills with their class work and time, we will prepare them to not only be better students but also better employees.
The projects that get the best results are the ones broken into sections and goals for each week. If I do not make due various sections of the projects, the students will procrastinate and in the end forget something or make a very weak addendum to the already completed project.
