Over the years, Sami has tried to use a variety of classroom routines to help students know what is coming: taped areas on the whiteboard, paper signs at the door, verbal reminders, folders with classwork, and more to help students be more organized throughout the year. For the past few years, she has consistently been using agenda slides and has found that they help in several ways. Read on for the top 5 reasons she continues using them in her class daily.
Reason #1: Answers the question, “Teacher, what are we doing today?”
How many times are you asked in a period what the plan is for the day? Sami finds that having an agenda posted and encouraging students to answer their own questions helps to reduce the number of times she is asked about what the plan is for the class that day. But in addition, it has created students who ask more specific questions. Instead of “what are we doing today?” students ask, “how are we going to do vocabulary today?” or “why are we doing pairs before a big group discussion?” Students are more aware and curious about the WHY than the WHAT.
Reason #2: Creates a resting spot for the daily attendance question
A few weeks ago, Sami wrote about the power of daily attendance questions, linked here. Using agenda slides gives the attendance question a home where students know to find it daily. It creates more routine for students to know where things are and what they are expected to do. Every day, students are expected to check on the agenda what the question of the day is and are reminded to do their do now.
Reason #3: Acts as a Tier 1 Intervention
If you’re unsure, a Tier 1 intervention in education is an action taken to help all students access the general curriculum. Giving ALL students an agenda and a preview of what is to come helps students prepare their materials and their mindset. For our students who need more support with schedules, an agenda slide gives a safe non-alienating way to give them what they need while not singling them out to the rest of the class.
Reason #4: A reference point when a student is absent
Each agenda slide that Sami creates is also posted in her digital classroom. When using Google Classroom, it becomes a daily announcement, and when using Canvas, it is posted under each day’s lesson. Students have the ability to check what they missed. They then are encouraged to ask more specific questions when needing help. Like reason number one, it has students ask more specific questions instead of “what did you do when I was absent?”
Reason #5: Gives a visual reminder of what she has to do today
Finally, posting a daily agenda helps Sami know what comes next. Teaching multiple different classes a day, sometimes she loses track of what class is doing – so having a posted agenda slide helps keep her on track for the day. Each week, she creates all the agenda slides and schedules them to post ahead of time so that she does not need to worry later about what’s coming up. In addition, Sami works at a school that requires standards and SWBAT statements to be posted daily; creating the daily agenda slides at the beginning of the week takes one thing off her plate later.
You can find a copy of what Sami uses in her classroom here. Just make a copy and make it your own. If you are looking to adjust the grade level, here is a link to the Canva template for the background. You can find notes on how to adjust the Google Slide in the notes section on the Google Slide.
