Lesson plan organization

Ever since I started having more than 7 students a week, I had to create a system for all the lesson plans I made for each student.  So far I've tried to simply memorize what I've covered with each student and continue off that at their next lesson.  However, that just took up too much brain power and it just wasn't working.  So I tried another system.  I bought a 3-pack of Steno notebooks and a set of colored pens.

I would write out the lesson plan using a different colored pen for each student (just to distinguish between the lesson plans).  As the weeks went by, I used a small binder clip to help me keep my place in the notebook.  This system seemed to work for a while for me.  I liked the fact that I had my lesson plan written down and I could take notes of what I was able to cover with the student, what needs improvement, and what I didn't cover.  After a few months of using this system, I started to dread doing lesson plans because I would have to re-write the lesson plan from the previous week, often with just a few minor changes.  It just became time consuming and cumbersome. So, I came up with my current plan.

I now create my lesson plans in a word processing program on the computer.  I save the file as the date of the lesson plan (e.g., "05.01.08.doc").  I then file it under the day of the week.  For example, May 1 was on a Thursday so I would put that lesson plan into the Thursday folder on my hard drive.  When I've completed making the lesson plan, I would print it out for easier access during the lesson, make notes during or after the lesson, then file the printed copy in a 7-pocket folder -- each pocket for a day of the week.

So far, this system seems to work out nicely. It is more efficient in the word processor with the copy and paste functions.  I won't have to re-write a lesson plan by hand ever again. Also, I can quickly retrieve a student's plan by going to the day of the week their lesson is held. No more flipping through the Steno notebook for previous lesson plans.