How Teachers Can Delegate Responsibility

Being a teacher is anything but easy. It seems with each passing year the responsibility given to teachers increases while their pay remains practically the same. Today teachers are not only responsible for making lesson plans and teaching, they must complete piles of paperwork, conduct meetings and conferences, analyze and discuss data and worry about test scores. While inevitably there are some things teachers must do themselves there are lots of ways to delegate responsibility to others.

Begin by taking advantage of aids. Depending on the make up of your school you will probably have at least a part time aid. Aids are available to help you. However they can't help you if they don't know what to do. Teachers should give aids the responsibility of running off copies of papers. Aids can also help with grading some papers or doing things within the room. These are the types of things that often take up lots of time but aren't necessarily hard things to do. If you are not fortunate enough to have an aid consider taking help from parents whose students are in your class. Often many parents are more than willing to help if they are needed. You might consider sending home a note to children early in the year asking when and if parents are available.

Your students can also take on lots of responsibility. Of course the older the students the more they will be able to do. I use students to help with classroom cleaning and matinees. Each week I have a list of classroom 'jobs' that are assigned to students. Examples of such jobs might include a classroom custodian, librarian, or runner. These students help to keep clean or organized certain areas of the room. What is amazing is that students often want to help. They love to be given responsibility by their teacher. Also use students to help you grade. There are always minor assignments that students could help grade. Have students swap papers and grade each others. You will save lots of time by doing this.

Collaboration with colleagues can also save you lots of time. If everyone on a particular grade level has to teach the same thing why not divide up the responsibility? Have each teacher make lessons for a particular subject. Then share lessons with each other before the week begins. What is great about doing this is that one, you will save lots of time and two the lessons will probably be much better. With fewer subjects to focus on, you are more likely to develop more detailed and engaging lessons.

Delegating responsibility is a trait that effective teachers have. Learning to do so, will not only save you lots of time but will ultimately give you time to focus on the things that are most important. Ultimately this will make you a much better teacher.