In-And-Out Systems

One of the great things about being in different classrooms is seeing how different teachers organize their classrooms. As I mentioned previously, different classes of students have different personalities. Obviously, teachers have different personalities as well. What is interesting is the way in which their classrooms represent their personalities. The most visible difference is neat versus cluttered.

Besides the fact that I think of myself as a fairly organized person, coming into the classroom as a sub means that I much prefer an organized classroom. Everything is easy to find as well as to keep organized. When I am in a cluttered classroom I feel less in control and a little frazzled. I need a place for myself, to have space to take roll and keep up with my substitute report to the teacher. Unorganized means everything from not labeling to having papers everywhere (on every teacher desk and not in stacks) to piles of books and papers on the floors and shelves. This seems to work for those teachers; however, I want to have a super organized classroom.

This is all leading up to the point of this post:
I have been compiling some great ideas from different teachers. One of the most important things to organize (for me) is the way students turn in assignments. A place for students to turn in work so that it does not get lost as well as a place for work to go once it has been graded is a necessity. I was in a classroom a few weeks ago with an excellent work turn-in system.

As you can see, there is a large space, labeled for each class period, for students to turn in their work. There is also an out box. I'm not sure how this teacher utilized the out box system. I would assign one student and one back up student to check the out boxes daily for work to be passed back out to the students. I'm not sure what the storage containers on top of the crates are used for. This is the best in-and-out system which I have seen so far.