7 Spectacular Student Organization Tools

Do your students frequently forget their homework or miss important deadlines? If so, a few student organization tools may be just what the doctor ordered.

Student Organization Tools
Stressed kid frustrated with homework.

Your students want to do well. It’s just that they struggle to organize their work and their ideas.

Many schools require children to use student organization tools such as student binders. However, little time is spent teaching students how to strengthen organization skills.

Why do children struggle with student organization skills?

Many elementary and middle school students struggle with organization. This is because their growing brains are still developing executive functioning skills.

Executive functioning skills help us remember and retain information, focus on different tasks, and self-regulate. Children with poor executive functioning skills struggle with organization.

You can help students develop executive functioning skills with a student planner. You just need to get your hands on the “right” few sheets of paper and a 3-ring binder.
Student Organization Tools

What are the signs that your children would benefit from some spectacular student organization tools?

Here are 9 signs that your child or student may need some student organization tools:

  1. Forget or misplace homework tasks
  2. Are unable to focus
  3. Struggle to retain and memorize information
  4. Fail to manage time effectively
  5. Become easily distracted
  6. Require more time to switch focus to new tasks
  7. Act impulsively
  8. Misplace belongings
  9. Arrive late to class or activities

When students struggle with basic organization, working memory, and self-regulation, their confidence can be impacted.

Child Mind Institute suggests that children with poor organization skills use a student planner.

Here are 7 spectacular tools to increase student organization skills:

1.Make organization fun
2.Personalize student learning with unique “I Can” statements
3.Help students manage their schedule with cool tools
4.Give students ​tools to track progress
5.Empower students to ​set and reflect on their goals
6.Give students tools to strengthen ​Growth Mindset
7.Strengthen communication

This article will show you how to:

  • make organization fun,
  • motivate students using personalized learning,
  • help students manage their own schedule,
  • show you tools that help students track their own progress,
  • set goals, develop a growth mindset, and
  • strengthen communication.

Students thrive when classroom structures help them get organized. As a result of strong organization, students can focus, make plans, and develop confidence.

The​ SMART Student Binder​ is simple, yet highly effective, student organization tool.

Student Organization Tool #1

A good student binder has cool covers and forms that your students will love.

For teachers and parents who want to print in black and white, there are a variety of options.

Check out ​this video​ to see the SMART Student Binder in action.

Student Organization Tool #2

Motivate through Personalized Learning

Personalized learning increases confidence and student achievement

Ferlazzo, 2017

The SMART Student Binder makes personalized learning easy by promoting relationships and providing choices.

The SMART Student Binder includes individual “All About Me” pages, so ​students can take ownership and feel personally invested in their work. ​These pages contribute to a personalized learning environment by prompting conversations that build relationships with the teacher and other students.

Student Organization Tools

The “All About Me” pages are just the beginning! This cool school binder for students includes forms that set the foundations for personalized learning, such as:

  • Individual Weekly Schedules
  • Short Term Goal Setting
  • Long Term Goal Setting
  • First-Then-Next Planners
  • “I Am Working For…” Reminders
  • “My Profile” Page
  • “I Can” Effort Forms

Browse through the templates and forms ​here​ to see how you can use the SMART Student Binder to help students to make choices. The binder helps students reflect on their choices, and set goals.

Student Organization Tool #3

Teach Students to Manage their Schedules

Student organization is about learning to plan effectively. Students become more independent as they learn to regularly update their daily, weekly, and monthly schedules.

Student Organization Tools

The SMART student binder​ includes cute and easy-to-use calendars to enter monthly events, important dates, and deadlines. Students add their daily schedules to the binder, and they use weekly schedules to record goals, homework, and activities.

Check out the template choices for calendars and weekly planners ​here​.

Student Organization Tool #4

Track Progress

Student Organization Tools

Ultimately, we want our students to become ​intrinsically motivated​. A powerful strategy to intrinsic motivation is a set of tools that help students track their progress.

The SMART Student Binder includes these forms that will help develop intrinsic motivation:
●Grade Graphs
●Grade Trackers
●Progress Reports
●Test Score Effort Trackers

Tracking progress helps ​students develop self-monitoring skills.​ This helps them to reflect on their learning and plan for the future. A set of tools to develop intrinsic motivation is one the many reasons the SMART Student Binder is the best binder for middle school and primary school students.

Student Organization Tool #5

Set Goals and Reflect

Beyond tracking their progress in different subjects, students use the SMART Student Binder to develop their executive functioning skills by regularly setting goals and reflecting on their achievements​. In addition to calendars (already updated to 2023) and weekly student agendas to plan and make short-term goals, this school binder also includes long term goal
setting forms.

Your students will use these features in their binders to practice setting specific, measurable, and realistic goals to achieve success.

Student Organization Tools

Check out all of the forms, like these goal setting forms, through the “downloadable preview” on the ​SMART Student Binder​.

Student Organization Tool #6

Promote Growth Mindset

Few things are worse than when your students don’t believe in themselves. This is why it is essential to ​shape a positive perspective on the learning process.​ Research (e.g. ​Dweck​) over the past several decades has highlighted the importance of fostering a growth mindset.

This binder includes a homework planner feature, much like other school planners. ​The Smart Student binder includes a place to write “I Can” statements at the top of each agenda page to help students to maintain a positive growth mindset.

The weekly planner helps students organize their homework in one place! The “I Can” feature allows students reflect on their progress. Anytime we reflect on something, we feel encouraged to grow even more.

Student Organization Tool #7

Strengthen Communication

You can use the forms to ​improve communication between you and your students​. Your students’ goals, their progress trackers, and their reflections are opportunities for discussion during individual conferences in the classroom.

You can also use the forms to strengthen communication between school and home.

Think of the Smart Student binder forms as ways for students to discuss their learning with their parents. This helps parents become more attuned to their children’s academic needs and goals. In the end, this will help you too because students will take more initiative after talking with their parents about specific things.

Why wait to transform your classroom?

School binders are essential student organization tools. When you get the Smart Student Binder you are giving your students more than an organizational tool. You are helping them to gain organizational skills that their growing minds need.

There is no better time to transform your classroom and your students’ attitudes toward learning than now. Grab your copy of the ​SMART Student Binder​ to start seeing results in your classroom.

​From layout to subject headings to calendar details, ​the forms in this binder are​ ​customizable​, so you can edit the forms. Organization can be fun for you too!

Also, you can personalize the calendars, school planners, and forms to fit your students’ interests. Check out the themes in the SMART student binder:

●Star Wars
●Wonder Woman
●Science
●Art
●Sports

Smart student binder

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