Reflection #7: Excel Planners for Middle Schoolers

What?
Recently, our Classroom Management class has got me thinking about practical procedures. One particular procedure that has made my life so much easier in many areas and I believe would also be essential for my future middle school students is following a planner. For students, this could be an old-fashioned spiral notebook with a calendar OR it could be a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet!  I'd like to share a few thoughts about how Excel planners would be a marvelous use of technology in middle school classrooms.

So What? and Now What?
I am so excited about Excel spreadsheets because they are efficient and work well for all kinds of environments and purposes.  If students keep Excel planners, they can tailor them to their own schedules. Each class would be listed along with the dates of that Semester/Quarter/ Year. Blank boxes that correspond to each class and date would be filled in with exams, homework, assemblies, orchestra concerts, sports competitions, school breaks, classmates’ birthdays, reminders, and more.

Keeping a planner is particularly essential for Middle school students to learn in preparation for high school and college. At this age, teachers have a task of instilling excellent habits into their students. Effective planning would help middle school kids not only in their studies, but in their personal lives. If they are involved in Sports or Music, it will help them to set goals that anticipate future events such as performances. Someday in the future, when they plan a wedding or start a family, continuing this routine would help them be successful adults. I’d like to note though, that there is a tremendous difference between simply keeping a general planner and keeping one that is personalized, detailed, organized, and long-term. A personalized planner means just what it sounds: it is created to fit the student’s life. A detailed planner includes specific tasks to specific classes for specific days. It can be color-coded, font-coded, symbol-coded in a way that will most effectively help students be organized. For instance, Exams could be labeled in bright red whereas special events could be labeled in blue so when students look at the next week, they immediately note that there is something very important to do.  It would be terrific if I could teach my students how to use different features on Excel to design their planners. I might model to them a planner that I kept for myself.

This utilization of technology is one that makes students more accountable, responsible, and successful - characteristics that would hopefully continue beyond middle school!