Getting Organized

TIPS & TECHNIQUES FOR THE INCLUSIVE SECONDARY CLASSROOM

Organization is the key to success for middle school and high school students on a good day, as well as an important life skill they will carry into adulthood. For students with special needs or in special education classes, organization is essential to learning. As students enter the secondary grades, they must keep track of locker combinations, class schedules, homework assignments, and extracurricular activities. Many students feel pressured to stay organized or flounder, and even more so for youth and teens that are struggling learners.

Students who have attention problems, learning differences, or autism often have an especially difficult time keeping up with all their activities. They need your expertise on being a solution builder specific to their special needs. Special educators such as inclusion teachers, content mastery center teachers, and self-contained classroom teachers can help these students achieve success. By providing them with their own daily planner and instructions to use it, a writing journal or a graphic organizer, you can also help develop basic life skills, such as writing skills, critical thinking, and communication skills.

To begin with, make sure to list the agenda for the day, homework, long-term assignments, and test dates in a visible place in your classroom. It takes little time to write these things on the board or on an overhead projector. You can even type your agenda on a PowerPoint slide and post it on a classroom computer.

There are a variety of teacher resources and special education materials to use for your students to see and write down important class information. This will also reinforce their organization and writing skills.

Having a visible agenda for your special ed students does two things. It allows them to anticipate what is going to happen in your classroom that day, and it also gives them a better chance at keeping up with their daily assignments.  It will also helps them think about the resources they need for the day or will need for upcoming assignments or tests.

As soon as students come into your classroom each period, instruct them to write the agenda and homework assignment in their planner. For example, they might write, “In class: paragraph practice worksheet. Homework: Write multi-paragraphs on dream vacation in word bank journal.”  Instruct them to do this in each of their classes. Have students get into the habit of writing in the planner at the beginning of each class period. At the end of the day, they can look in their planner and engage critical thinking skills to decide which books need to be taken home to complete their homework assignments.

You can also build communication skills between students with parents through the planner and get them involved in their child’s success. Set up an arrangement where parents check their child’s planner each night and make sure assignments are completed. They can then write notes to you in the planner, or simply sign next to that date to let you know they have seen everything. Thus, the student is held accountable at home and at school and develops successful life skills for their future.

Using a planner not only helps students stay organized and keep from falling behind in school, it instills a lifelong method for organization and journal writing that will help them as they enter college and the  workplace.
For more information on study skills such as organization and comprehension skills, take a look at the comprehensive study skills program, Teaching Study Strategies, on PCI Education’s website.

There are teacher resources available in a variety of formats to assist your struggling learners. You can choose from reproducible binders, student workbooks, software programs, curriculum guides, and more. You may also request a PCI catalog on-line for the most current special education materials available in math, history, reading, language arts, science, communication, and assistive technology, as well as educational materials for nonreaders and autism resources.