Transcription
Hey guys, the unwavering math teacher here again. So, in this video, I'm going to show you how I utilize my pacing guide template that you have downloaded. If you haven't downloaded it yet, go back to the previous video. There is also a link in that file that you downloaded that shows you how to get it into your Google Drive or how to get the actual template.
So, once I have the template, the first thing I always do is I always go in and I always take and change the date to whatever, whatever year it is. So, I always do that at the top so that I remember. And then you can also change this. So, I might change this to what I'm teaching this year, which is quadratic algebra, to allow me to have that same, like, take the consistency so I can find it. So, then I also will, so after you click, I will that will save. And then I will go ahead and change this school year here and then my course name.
So, um, sometimes, so a couple things that I do if I have more than one course, I actually will put and I'll just duplicate this tab on the bottom. So, I'm also teaching a support class for this. So, if I duplicate this, then I might say 2020. So, I might say support. And then if I look and I go to this tab, I should have all of the same things here. Okay, should have all of the same things. So, when I look at this, so now I have all of my pacing guides in one folder. So, I might also just change this to pacing guides. It just depends on what you are needing and what you're looking for. So, you can make a copy of this to have one separate file for each one or depending on what your system is, or you can have them next to each other. These two courses for me personally, they go together and I'm not holding to a PLC with my support course, so that's why I'm gonna keep it in here.
These are the, this is the colors that I use for different things. You can change these colors. So, I like to say, so end of grading period. The reason why I left that there is because some people do quarters, some people do trimesters, some people do semesters. I personally do trimesters in my class, in my course. And so, and then I might change, like, stretch this out a little bit to get that to be there, but you can play around with it.
So, what I have is I have the day number. So, I like to figure out how many days in each trimester I have, especially as I correlate to the following year. So, I always start marking the days in each unit as well because that helps me with my unit overviews. So, I will put my first date here, which this year is September 7th. Is that Monday? And then if you go ahead and you drag down, it will do all the dates for you, so that makes it super nice.
Now, my day one does not actually start on that Monday because that is Labor Day. So, I always put no school. And then I will fill it. And I actually fill the whole line. I'm kind of weird. And so, I will fill it with that color and that just lets me know, hey, no school this day. And then, in fact, to be completely honest, Tuesday, which normally is our first day of school, is actually not an instruction day. This is what we call, we have our mentor day, or we also call it our freshman orientation day. So, we don't have. So, I also like to change this to them, if I'd scheduled color, mainly because, um, it's, it's not a regular day. It's not an instructional day. We don't teach anything that day. So, our official first day of school is here. So, I will always label that.
Now, in school sheets, if you hit option on a Mac, I'm not sure what it would be on a PC, but option and then enter on a Mac, it'll bring you to the next line in that same cell. So, then this might be a welcome introduction and about me survey. So, I haven't even started unit one yet, so I'm not even putting anything here. I will put day one here because it is a day of instruction. And then I'll go from there. The only thing is, obviously, you have to start here. And so, this is the 14th. I just add seven to that Monday before and then I drag down.
Now, you are welcome to fill this out. So, I often times, this is the first part thing I'll do is I will actually go through and I'll date the entire calendar, or I'll date the entire pacing guide, and then I will go through and I will mark out all of the holidays, teacher workdays, etc. So, on a teacher workday, which normally is ahead, and I filled out my dates to where our first kind of work week is. And so, this is a non-school day for students. And then this happens to be a professional development day. And then this is no school day for students, but it is evening conferences. So, then what I will do is I will go here and I will color code that to be that no school day. Now, if you want a different color to show professional development and those things, I just like to color code for no school. And then this is also no school day for students, day conferences for us. And then this actually is no school, and we call it MEA here in Minnesota. And you might also call it fall break. And then you can also copy down. So, then I go ahead and I put, and I do put this whole week in there because I think it's important for us to know what's coming up. I know some teachers, some people in their pacing guides, they like to just get rid of the week of Christmas and all of those things, but I personally like to keep it there.
So, I also will align my learning targets or my standards here. So, I'll pull those codes off of my standards, or I will also put the student-friendly language learning target on there. And that's just so that it's all in one spot for my PLC and for myself. And then in the notes section, I put anything that we might want to remember for the next year. And that way, then when I copy this, I keep all those notes and then I make those adjustments as I go. So, that's what I do when I start unit one. Usually, we start unit one the second week of school. I will begin by labeling that this is day four. Now, remember, any time that you don't have instruction, you don't count that day. Okay? So, that's not a day.
And that's how I use my pacing guide. It's super easy because if for some reason we had a snow day somewhere or we had something happen, I can just copy and paste and I can move things. So, I'm never actually like worried about erasing, or I never have to spend the time trying to erase everything that I've done. I can fill out, usually I fill out a trimester at a time. And then I will put in, for example, usually our first summative, I would say, is probably right here. We call them summative assessments. So, this might be our unit one test. And then I color that this color so that it stands out to us. Usually, we have a welcome back pep fest. And I also sometimes will change these, this to italics so that I can see that. And then unto italicize it. And then this will be, this might be a digital resources day for us.
But the one thing that, so then I, this is also a modified schedule. And so, I also keep that in there. So, I try to put all the modified schedules in there that I know of so that we're aware of that. And that way, then I know, hey, this day is gonna be a shorter day, so let's plan something like this. And so, we usually plan like some sort of digital resources day or something like that.
So, that's how I use my pacing guide. I hope this was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you need me to make any sort of changes or you have suggestions. I would love to hear your feedback. Other than that, please keep an eye out for any of my other resources. I will be coming out with some unit overview stuff here in a couple of weeks. Thank you again.