Classroom Organization Tips: Flexible Solutions

Classroom organization makes every task go more smoothly, and teachers have no excuses.In this article, you'll look at the different areas of the classroom - from student supplies and files, to your own desk - and explore ways to organize and maintain each one with readily available products.Specifics may vary; however, the following includes helpful guidelines from which everyone can benefit.

Flexibile Solutions: Organize Other Classroom Areas
If your classroom is home to several work areas, you need a plan for each one.
For example, a classroom library should have some sort of system for keeping track of books.A printed notes folder offers an easy way for students to sign things out; students can file book reports, essays, questions, and worksheets inside the folder for you to review later.
You can also set up activity centers using file folders with info pockets.They offer plenty of space for filing worksheets, and they have an outside pocket where you can store tools your students need for their activities -- protractors, vocabulary flash cards, scissors, photos, and other materials.If you store everything in a single folder, students can simply grab it and go, and then you all get more done in less time.

Label absolutely everything.Make it easy for you, your students, and any substitute teachers in your classroom to find items quickly and easily.

Use your color-coded system in computer workstations to store worksheets corresponding to different subjects or classes.Students can remove only the folders they need, or file their completed work when they've finished.

For labs and other group projects, hanging files with dividers work well; each partner can use half the folder.2-in-1 poly folders make it easy for students to store files in a hanging file cabinet in the classroom; the hanging tabs retract so that folders and other papers aren't damaged if students take them home.

Expanding file pockets are terrific for yearlong projects that students will constantly add to.Label one for each student, and show students how individual folders can be stored inside.Designate specific filing cabinets for each subject or class, and teach your students how to store their materials at the end of each work session.

Create a Mobile Office
Even if you have your own classroom, you sometimes have to stand in for a different teacher.
And if your schedule requires that you constantly move around your campus, you don't ever have the luxury of a permanent desk.You need a mobile office that you can pack up and take with you at a moment's notice.

Start with a vertical file -- you can hang it wherever you land for easy access to important files; when you're on the go, the file folds up to a portable size.The file carrier is another innovative solution for teachers who constantly move around.Open your hanging file cabinet, pull out just the folders you need, and store them in the carrier.Its elastic closure keeps your papers from falling out when you're racing through the hallways, and the professional look means you'll never confuse your documents with your students' work.

Each time you arrive in a new classroom, hang your vertical file immediately.That way, you can reach in and retrieve worksheets as you need them.Keep your file carrier close at hand for easy access to those papers.Stock your file carrier with folders that do double duty, such as the hot pocket file folders and the printed notes folders.You'll maximize the information you can carry around without breaking your back.

Regular filing is even more critical if you're constantly moving around.Take two 5-minute breaks daily to make sure papers aren't getting lost in the shuffle.Designate one folder to yourself that will hold your notes.If students ask you questions or you need to look up information, write it on a full-size sheet of paper and file it in your notes folder.At the end of the day, review everything in that folder, answer any questions, and re-file your papers to prepare for the next day.

About the Author

Sharon Mann is President of the I Hate Filing Club, a group of nearly 100,000 office professionals who hate filing but love finding new ways to become more organized.

Here are some great classroom organization products that will help keep all of their activities in order.Visit our site for details.

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Honesty Is The Best Policy

Some of the UK's largest insurers have introduced some attractive policies for 17-29 year olds to help them with their No-claims bonuses.For example.a rapid bonus scheme whereby you insure the car for nine months, at the end of which you are credited with a full year's no-claims bonus.The advantage of this sort of policy is that you can build up a full five-year bonus in less than four years.

Earlier in 2008 one large insurer introduced a "Pay-As-You-Go"insurance initiative which was reliant on GPS systems installed in drivers cars.Unfortunately, this has been withdrawn from the market.On this scheme, the insurance premium was worked out by assessing the mileage and times of day the car was driven.So, if a motorist did more miles at off peak periods where the risk of an accident was lower, they would pay less for their car insurance.

A representative from the insurance company said, "The scheme was open to young drivers and we were able to cut their premiums.We saw a 30 per cent fall in accident rates as people thought about their car use.We had hoped, though, that the car manufacturers would start offering the GPS boxes as standard.Ultimately, the expense meant we had to call a pause."

Another insurer offers a similar scheme.

Here, cheaper premiums are offered to 17 - 22 year olds who agree not to drive between 11pm and 6am.The scheme uses GPS technology to check whether the car is used during "curfew".If it is driven during the curfew, they incur a 25 pounds penalty.This means that people can still drive at night but they have to pay for the privilege.

"We are trying to understand the dynamics of the young driver market and see what technology can do for us and the policyholder.The big idea is to price more accurately, so responsible younger drivers can avoid very high premiums" says a representative from the insurer.It is estimated that it cost 250 pounds to install the GPS technology but, for many young drivers, it is worth it.

Of course, there are conventional ways to reduce premiums.For example, look at taking the Pass Plus driving course.This advanced qualification can bring discounts of 10 per cent on premiums.

Careful consideration when choosing a car make and model can make a difference to insurance cost.Go for a smaller car in a low insurance group.And consider if you should go with third party, fire and theft cover rather than fully comprehensive, and whether you need the car for commuting or just leisure driving.

Or, voluntary excess is another recommendation.Younger drivers will have an excess imposed, but by agreeing to a slightly larger one, the premiums can be cut.

The message from all insurers is to not be tempted into what is called "fronting".This is where the car is insured by one driver but mostly driven by someone else.One of the first things insurers check when a claim comes in, is whether there has been any fronting.So it's not a wise move.

Unintentional Fronting

Kev O'Sullivan, 26, unintentionally fronted, "I had a Fiesta insured in the name of my parents but I took it to university with me.

It was only afterwards that I realised I had been fronting.The campus is quite out of town, so lots of students drive and all the ones I knew were insured in the name of their mothers or fathers.It was the only way that premiums were even remotely affordable.Why would any 18-year-old buy car insurance?"

About the Author

Get great deals on Car insurance from The Car planner.

Please visit our site for helpful articles on Car insurance.Visit Brokers Online to benefit from its extensive article library covering most areas of uk finance.They also offer Car Insurance Quotes, Mortgage Quotes and much much more all online.

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What Insurance Do You Need To Protct Your Family? - Part 2

Andrew Merricks, head of investments at Brighton-based financial adviser Skerritt Consultants, warns that it is very short-sighted of people not to have Life Assurance and/or Critical Illness Insurance as he insists that life has two main risks - either living too long and dying too soon."It's absolutely crucial to have some cover in place - particularly if you've got a young family," he says."These days you need to build your own little welfare state because no one else is going to do it for you."

Matt Morris at LifeSearch says now is the ideal time to buy such policies as there are some very competitive premiums around due to the fierce vying for business within the industry.

"The cost of life cover has fallen - dropping about 40 per cent in five years.It has never been cheaper," he adds."The critical illness industry paid out on 84 per cent of claims in 2006 - up from 81 per cent the previous year."

Always check what insurance cover you already have before you take out any more.

Do you already have investment policies or does your employment pension fund give you any cover?

The best way to calculate how much cover you need is to work out how much you would need to provide the same standard of living over a year and then times it by 25 years.The minimum amount needed should pay off any outstanding debt and provide a lump sum for all your dependants.

Getting the best deals

When choosing your policy it is essential that you read the guide that many insurers have of the conditions and illnesses that they cover.

It will list everything and should be very clear and easy to understand.You will also want to see the documentation of the key features of the policy which will include all benefits and exclusions.

When someone takes on the responsibility of a mortgage they are usually advised to take out critical illness protection but should shop around and not just take the first policy offered.

If you start paying these premiums when you are younger they are considerably cheaper unlike if it is left until you are older when cover increases quite markedly.

Insurance premiums can also be cut by stopping smoking cigarettes.Fiona Jackson, head of protection at Co-operative Insurance says "Giving up smoking can save people a significant amount of money as well as hopefully bringing a longer and better quality of life,"

If you stop smoking you can knock as much as a third off life, critical illness and income protection insurance premiums because the evidence that we now have proves that smoking can cause serious illness and exacerbates any other existing medical conditions.

If your circumstances change you may have to alter your policy.

Never think that once you have bought your policy that you can just carry on with your life and forget about it.Always be very aware of the cover you have and be sure that if for any reason your circumstances change, or, are going to change your policy must accommodate these changes.Obvious examples are changing jobs, or do you intend to have more children; regularly consider anything that may increase your costs to live and will need to be covered if you are unable to work.

About the Author

Get great deals on Life insurance from The Insurance-Incentive.

Please visit our site for helpful articles on Medical Insurance.Visit Brokers Online to benefit from its extensive article library covering most areas of uk finance.They also offer Life Insurance Quotes, Mortgage Quotes and much much more all online.

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Small Business Coaches As Business Planning Coordinators

Small business coaches have become a critical member of the business planning team.In the 21st Century we will see their role expand exponentially in importance, especially among the members of successful family owned companies.

Successful family owned companies, those whose decisions are often - probably too often, driven by non-business issues make up the vast majority of all companies.Companies with less than 500 employees, 90% of the businesses across North America, are overwhelmingly family owned or privately held by people who, whether they are actually related or not, act like it.

Family feelings, mixed messages, long held grudges, lack of trust, envy, respect, grievances, love, and every other human emotion possible conspire to muddle otherwise straightforward business decisions.Someone has to help them sort it out.And not someone who is deemed to be, accurately or not, on the side of one group, person, faction, or another.

Business coaches, those not brought in by one group or another - each looking for an outsider to validate their position, do not have any baggage when they begin the engagement.Depending on the reason they were hired and the degree of conflict, or misunderstanding, or disagreement - often business coaches have their first meeting with all the principles together.

That first meeting is the time and place to clear the air.Everybody will end up knowing what everybody else knows and when the decision to hire the business coach is made - everybody will be on record.Getting agreement on the way forward right from the start is vital if this is to be a successful engagement from either the coach's or the business owner's point of view.

Business coaches are not motivated to make a sale.This is important, but not in the way you probably expect.For some reason, maybe it's their over-developed BS detectors working overtime, business owners think that their lawyer and accountant are just trying to create more work for themselves and run up their fee.Some feel that their insurance agent is motivated only to sell a policy and make a commission.Generally this is not true in either case.

Business owners often confuse the value of the advice, council, and professional insights with the way their advisors get paid.If you have a trusting relationship with a professional advisor, you really need to get over that.If you don't have a trusting relationship with your advisors, get rid of them.

In any case, because business coaches are not selling anything, it's one less thing for the business owner to concern themselves about.Successful well respected business coaches enter every engagement with the objective of working themselves out of a job.Ask your business coach what I mean by that and if they agree with that assessment or not.Typically they do not want to be part of your overhead forever - they want to help you by enhancing your ability, your capability to work things out for yourself.

Business coaches arrive on the scene with no previous advice to protect.If there is any single reason why it is so hard to get your advisors to cooperate and work together on your behalf, it's because instead of working to create the future you want, your advisors are scrambling around trying to justify the work they've done for you in the past.

Business owners seldom mandate that their advisors cooperate and work together as a team.So each provides their best advice in a vacuum or at least a partial vacuum.Years pass and either you or they are too busy to keep the plans they created or the insurance you purchased up to date.Each of them was sure, based on what they could find out from you about your plans for the future, that their recommendations made perfect sense - then.

Now, it's all going to come out.They may feel that you will blame them if things have to be re-drafted or re-organized, even though they may have tried endlessly to get you to sit down and review it.They may feel that they will have to justify the advice they provided years ago in front of your other advisors, who may be all too willing to second guess them.

There is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on when advisors get together as a group - when they each have been providing their services to you for years without their benefit of knowing what your other advisors know.

You should have had a real team of professionals working together seamlessly for you since you started.But that didn't happen.There is an old old saying that the best time to plant an oak tree was twenty years ago, the next best time is today.

The ideal way to begin is with the appointment of a planning coordinator, someone who is formally put in charge of expediting things, making things move, and getting things done.Without someone to coordinate things planning eventually grinds to a halt.

Planning for the future of your business is far too important to be left to chance, to the self-interests and prejudices of others, or the pushes and pulls of personal loyalties.

Your professional advisors want to help, want to be part of the solution.Sometimes they need a nudge from someone who has been tasked into the role of the "nudger" - someone hired by you to help you uncover what's important to the you.As planning coordinators business coaches are uniquely qualified to do that, and then to take what's important to your to your advisors.

Business coaches are also trained to help you figure out what the situation is today, really - what is going on here?When they compile the information from everyone in the business and the family around what's important and what the situation is right now, they are ideally suited to work with your traditional professional advisors to figure out what's possible.

When business coaches operate as planning coordinators for your business, your professional advisors will have the most coordinated and complete input they have ever received from you, putting them in the best position possible to help you manage your business affairs so that your business will be the vehicle that will make your family's dreams come true.

About the Author

Successful business owners understand the importance of developing relationships with competent professional advisers who will work together as a team to insure their long term success.

They also realize the valuable impact that business coaches have on them and their business, sorting out what's important and then working seamlessly with their traditional advisers.

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The Intent Of A Customer Satisfaction Survey

When you receive a customer satisfaction survey, whether it is at a hotel, restaurant, or through the mail, from a company you purchased something from, it is more than just an obligatory management initiative for your inconvenience.Fill it out and it is read and analyzed by the company, having a potential impact on their business as a whole.Companies need to know how to focus their efforts on appealing to customers, and maintaining their loyalty.The more specifics they have, the more resources they can utilize for a new strategy, rather than spend money on campaigns that are not effective in drawing customers.

Customer satisfaction is considered the root of a business's positive image and success.Where do they get them from?Sure, an organization could design one in-house.They can be as simple as a handful of questions on paper.Creating an effective one, though, requires the dedication of distinguished resources.If a company doesn't already have such a department in place, they could outsource to a third party company that specializes in such document preparation.They will have resources such as online affiliations, marketing specialists, and offer a third party evaluation of how the questions and format should be prepared.

Many companies opt to do just that; enlist third-party entities to help with the implementation of these assessments.There are hundreds of organizations that offer these services.Organizations can conduct the questionnaire if a company so desires, and even offers standardized questions.Topics universal to all customer-based companies are covered.Once all the information is acquired, the business can immediately compare it to an average score or score it based on typical high or low scores for that category.

There are many places on the Internet where one can access survey templates.Even individual questions can be accessed, so someone can put together their own and have the appropriate questions gathered.They can be tailored your own way; others are built into websites and can be automatically scored when submitted.The variations are endless.

Look up customer satisfaction surveys on Google, and there are in excess of 5 million page results.Not only can you access the site and services of big name companies, but there are many others.Smaller companies may offer what you need more so than a larger corporation.Prices will vary, so doing your research and price shopping is imperative.Various services are offered as well, available for subscription.You can opt to have one survey prepared, or a whole marketing team to help you determine the venue in which to pursue.

These are just a few examples of how you can put together an assessment by enlisting the services of companies on the Web.With just a simple Web search, there seems to be thousands of such entities.It's almost as if customer satisfaction surveys were part of an industry of their own.On that similar note, the American Customer Satisfaction Index has a website that lists various scores, tabulated by company or industry, comparing the customer satisfaction of each.It even compares the change from the previous year.All data is derived from customer satisfaction surveys.

Also important is the means of getting people to complete the survey.They are usually written in a friendly, thankful manner, making the customer feel important to the organization.They can be found via a link on a website, or included within a product package.They sometimes detail the chance to win something free or to even win money.Many institutions have opted to put information on the receipt detailing how to complete the assessment.

The prevalence of customer satisfaction surveys alone signifies their importance.You have a choice of filling one out or not if you get one, but realize that it is more than just a piece of paper.The company is trying to focus its marketing strategy on the most important thing customers are seeking in their products.This saves time and money, and gives the company a better chance to thrive.

About the Author

Andy West writes for NBRI, a reputable company helping business owners explore venues to implement a customer satisfaction survey.

For more information visit NBRII.com.

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