Curriculum Rewrite: My "Teacher Binder" Coming Together

Hi there!

We're experiencing quite the heat wave, and since I've clocked more beach time than is deemed healthy for a person as pale as myself, I'm taking a break from summer to continue working on my curriculum rewrite.

This year the goal for our school is to launch standards-based report cards. Whether or not this is truly going to happen as quick as our board of education is hoping is unclear, and I probably won't know until the first day of school (or later.....). We spent all last year breaking down the Common Core standards to more workable and simplified language that parents and students could understand. But, in order to get to the point where we are completely letter grade free I feel like every department should have a complete curriculum rewrite to align with the new Common Core standards, as well as new formative and summative assessments that align with Common Core and the language of the standards-based report card. But, that's just me ;). So, I'm doing it myself, for 8th grade Social Studies anyway. The truth is, we didn't have ANY curriculum aside from some mess of standards and suggestions passed down from the state website last year (my first year teaching) and it was quite stressful.

In order to keep track of all these changes, I'm putting together my "teacher binder". When I was struggling to stay organized last year I spent many hours googling the fascinating science that is teacher binders. All in all, there is no "one size fits all", and since many of the examples I saw were elementary focused, I'm trying my best to adapt those examples to fit 8th grade. My binder will be the place where I keep track of the assignments I give, which standards they assess, and my conferring notes about those assignments (which are mandatory in our building....yes, we have to write down every conversation we have with every student every week, just in case a parent questions a grade). Here's what I have so far:

Here is my working list of units. As it is, I already made a change after uploading this photo, but it was a good start. 

Each unit will have a table of contents page like this one. My goal is to complete at least the first couple of units before the year begins. Since we are going towards inquiry-based learning we will have fewer assignments that require more time and research. Each assignment gets a number that will be used in conferring notes so I know what assignment a student was working on when we had a conversation about their progress.

And finally, this is the spreadsheet for conferring notes. There is a column for the student's name, the assignment number they're working on, and then a key for some shorthand I'll be using. Sometimes to save time I have students write what we decide to record that day while I begin with the next student in their group. This should give me a quicker way to see at a glance how students are doing during a unit and give me enough evidence to justify whatever that student receives on his or her report card. We'll see how it goes!

So! What do you think? Feel free to comment and give advice, borrow some ideas, or give me some other inspiration on what YOU use in your classroom!