Time Management Ideas to Manage the Classroom Effectively and Efficiently

Although there are scheduled times during the school day for you to teach lessons to your students, it can feel like there aren’t enough hours to get through it all. If the school days and after-school marking and assessing seem overwhelming, these classroom time management ideas can help. Time management is at the core of a successful teaching career, so here are some tips about the importance of time management for teachers, and how our classroom time management tools can help you.

Create Realistic To-Do Lists

Long and extensive to-do lists can make even the most basic activities seem overwhelming, so try to keep your lists smaller and more concise. Work with three to five items at a time to keep you from feeling too burdened and allowing you some time for yourself, as well. The better you balance your time, the better your career longevity.

Make the Most of Small Breaks of Time

During the day, if you find yourself with bonus time (such as if students finish early or are doing independent reading), you can focus on quick, small projects. Use these breaks of time to be efficient and get work done, so you can save more time in the long run.

Rethink Homework Strategies

Sometimes when you give homework to students, it means you’ve got homework to do as well. Take some time to reassess your homework strategies to see if marking work is taking up too much of your day. Consider other options such as weekly homework or making the marking process simpler. For example, if you are issuing simple reading homework, have students get a parental signature that they’ve done the work, instead of asking for a lengthy reading response.

Maximize Lesson Planning & Teaching Time

Non-instructional time accounts for about 30% of the average day in elementary school—sometimes more. This time is dedicated to bathroom breaks, lunch, snack time, recess, and other activities. Some ways you can maximize lesson planning time include:

1. Find out how much teaching time you have
2. Schedule solid blocks of time to teach each day
3. Plan for smooth transitions between lessons
4. Always be prepared for each activity and lessons
5. Assign homework to increase practice time
6. Consider how to best schedule restroom breaks

How TIMESAVERS for TEACHERS Can Help You

With a large classroom of students to look after and a lot of lesson material to cover, it can be challenging to manage your time, as well as keep up with activities, planning, report cards, etc. If you need assistance with creating teaching material or interactive classroom forms, TIMESAVERS for TEACHERS can help. The Time Saving Tools for Teachers Interactive Classroom Forms Collection is a great way to get straight to teaching without spending hours planning. Download these timesaving, essential classroom time management tools and teacher resources such as our report card comments downloadable and our Teacher’s Binder. Want to explore more of our teaching tools and start saving time? Visit our web site to download our classroom forms for teachers!

Photo Credit:  iStock.com/jacoblund