Current triumphs...
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Lately, I've been trying to "streamline" my way of running the guidance & counseling program at my school. I want to to be sure that I cross my t's and dot my i's. One way that I've done this, is by recording appointments in google calendar, as posted last week, and keeping electronic personal notes using Microsoft Access: Issues. This year, I've decided to keep better track of my guidance lessons so I made a master calendar at the beginning of the year which includes each month down the left side, and the grade level across the top. That way I was able to come up with what lessons I wanted to do for each month. This year I have also revamped my lesson plans. It helps me to better organize my thoughts and includes a section to list the ASCA standards being addressed in the lesson. I feel like I am making sure that i'm addressing the standards more purposefully now.
Still in the works...
I'm still planning on reorganizing my notebooks. Right now I have a general binder with lesson plans, but I want to create a "master notebook" that I can put Organize JUST what I'm using for the current year. I hope to have under each grade level, each of the lesson plans in order by month. The thought of this makes my heart sing! Haha nerdy school counselor alert!
As far as small groups, I keep a folder for each current group with my general lesson plans attached. I want to make my groups more purposeful as well, so I plan on coming up with lesson plans for each one including the standards as well.
It's a lot of work, but I feel like this will help make my future planning soooo much easier!!
How do you organize your comprehensive school counseling program? I would love to hear your ideas!
Would love to know where you organize on line, and how. I would love to have something on the computer, instead of all this paper. YUK
ReplyDeleteKim, I simply use google calendar to track my appointments and for keeping notes, I use microsoft access. There is a program on there called "issues" that can be easily manipulated to keep notes. Each child is an "issue" and I keep track of when I see them, phone call information, etc. I save it on a flash drive so it stays "personal."
ReplyDeleteI found the access, I tried to input data, but was having trouble. Is there anyway you could put step by step instructions on your page?
ReplyDeleteI believe I did a search online for the issues template and downloaded that. Then, you should be able to input data. I made each issue a child, assigned to: teacher, opened by: my name, category: grade level; but you can organize it in whatever way makes sense to you. I had to kind of play with it before I really got the hang of it. The nice part about it is that you can password protect it too! Let me know if you have any questions..
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. I finally figured it out. I was wanting to write everything on the spread sheet. I did not realize there was another part to where I needed to write. Thank you for all your ideas. I am a first year counselor, so everything you put our is helpful. Thank you again.
ReplyDeleteoh good! I'm so glad you got it working. I'm glad you enjoy the blog! :)
ReplyDeleteGood Morning,
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you knew of any High School Counselors who have a blog?
I sure don't! Sorry!
ReplyDeleteThanks anyway. Have a great day.
ReplyDeleteI am a school counseling intern right now, and am beginning to get swamped with all of the paperwork involved. I am trying out different ways of organizing student notes but haven't found one particular idea that I am completely sold on. I love your idea of using Access to keep all of your student notes in one place, and I might have to give that a try. I just recently converted hundreds of my counseling resources to PDF files and saved them to a flash drive. Now I can easily search and print them as needed, rather than sorting through an entire file cabinet of papers trying to find one specific thing! Great ideas!
ReplyDelete