Here are some techniques for organizing your course.

Planning Schedule

If you seek a simple, incremental way to improve your own course organization, try planning your course schedule day by day with a spreadsheet like this template for Spring 2023. Adapt the template to meet your own needs. Or if you prefer paper, print out a calendar (Microsoft Word has templates) and write on it. With that day-by-day schedule, it’s easy for you and your TAs to stay oriented: to know what lectures and assignments are coming up, and to prioritize teaching tasks. If the thought of filling it out all at once seems daunting — then don’t! Instead, the first semester you use it, treat it as a log in which you or a TA write down what actually happened. Then the next semester you teach that course, use the log as a planning tool. A simplified version can be posted to your class: perhaps a big-picture summary in the syllabus, and more details as each module of the course begins. Students will be better equipped to manage their own learning efforts, and should appreciate your efforts at course organization.

Weekly Welcome Announcement

Write a weekly welcome announcement, perhaps in Canvas or Ed Discussions. Post it at the beginning of the week to remind students what topics you will cover that week, what readings they should do, what assignments are due, and anything out of the ordinary happening in the course that week. That written information, available in a predictable time and place each week, will help students be more successful in your course. As a bonus, it will also keep you on top of course organization, continue building rapport, and even save you time by helping you to prioritize your teaching effort for that week.