I am so blessed to work with an amazing, talented, steady, organized and hard working co-teacher. We have a great time working together!
Like all successful partnerships we each bring strengths and weaknesses to the table. One of the things we have in common is that at least in our professional lives we are both morning people. By the afternoon we are D-O-N-E done! We are TIRED! We are ready to go home! When you are tired it’s REALLY REALLY hard to remember what important things need to be done. Most of the time, nothing has to be finished as much as progress needs to be made each day. All too often, at the end of the day we would find ourselves blanked out in front of our email with no task coming to mind. Once in a while that’s fine, but ya’ll know that things go much better and mistakes are avoided when you can take the time to be methodical.
Because we are partners we sometimes have the ability to divide tasks according to our interest and ability. That works out great unless you can’t remember who is doing what, then you might end up doing the same thing twice….. At a previous school with a previous co-teacher we kept one entire whiteboard covered with an ongoing list…. The way our rooms were set up it meant that both of us could easily see our list at all times…. My current situation doesn’t really have a place like that…. BUT we have googledrive!
Within our partnership we have been relying more and more on google drive on our collaborative work, but a couple of months ago we created a shared “To Do” list using Google Sheets.
It has worked REALLY REALLY well…. It changes all the time and there is no real formatting involved but it is a place that we can go to keep our “To Do” list together and available.
We have room to make notes and we have created a sort of short hand…. When there is something that you are working on, you just enter your initial into the cell before the item…. that way my team mate or I can move on….
Now when we get done with dismissal duty and our mind is blank of any idea other than the thought that we should get something (anything) done we have a place to start.When you get ready to create your own collaborative “to do” list, all you have to do is create the spreadsheet and then share it with the people who you want to collaborate with. It is important that everyone on the team of collaborators has the ability to edit. It is a little strange to be working on a document and see another cursor moving around and having letters appear that I am not typing, but it is a very efficient and effective way to share the work that needs doing! Have fun!
