As teachers, our time is often sucked up by ‘non-teaching’ tasks. In this blog series I’ll cover some effective ways to ‘hack’ your lesson planning to help you be more efficient a manage your time for other ‘teaching’ tasks.
Tip #3: Leverage “the cloud”
If your school system is currently using a cloud based storage platform like Google Drive or Microsoft 365 , then you should most certainly be utilizing the sharing functions of these powerful cloud based platforms.
If your administrators will allow it, you should not even have to print out any lesson plans on paper. I know that in my particular situation I am still required to print out lesson plans on a weekly basis to have a physical copy in my classroom for when there is a walk through or administrators are present.
Whenever you create a document either in Google drive or Microsoft OneDrive you always have the option of sharing the document with collaborators. This process is different depending on which platform you’re using, but essentially you’ll be adding your administrators as an author who can see your “live” documents.
This is a powerful function because you could essentially share your long range planner and your lesson plan templates with your principals, who can then have live access to these documents. Additionally you should share your lesson plan folders with your admin so that every time you ad a plan, they will be able to see the new documents.
By using a ‘live’ document, your lesson plans are submitted every time you amend the document. Again, if you are so lucky that your principles will allow you to simply share the document and you are not required to submit physical lesson plans , this simple solution should save you hours of planning time.
Click here for Instructions on file/folder sharing in OneDrive
Click here for instructions on file/folder sharing in Google Drive
Hack your lesson planning like a pro, Enroll in the Busy Band Director Teachable Online Course.
The Busy Band Director lesson plan generator templates and tutorials course is LIVE! Here are some of the reviews:
“⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – My lesson planning will never be the same!”
– Bill P. Band Director, TX
“WOW! My principal is going to LOVE this!” – Joan K. Music Teacher, KS
Hack Your Lesson Plans – The Full Solution
I am happy to announce the launch of the Busy Band Director Teachable Online Course. The course includes:
- 6 Lessons with over an hour of tutorial videos
- Step-by-step PDF guides for each lesson
- The Lesson Plan Generator Form Template
- The Lesson Plan Merge Template
- The Long Range Planner (Excel & Google Sheets)
In addition to these resources, you’ll also get incredible time saving lesson planning hacks and tricks to use once you’ve set up your own lesson plan generator.
There are a limited number of spots available at the introductory rate ($35). Once the slots are full, a new session will be started at the regular rate ($59).
