What is “Notion”? This week in my new video, I’m walking you through how I now use Notion instead of Google Drive for my lesson planning. If you’re a die-hard Google Drive fan, then Notion might make you think twice about what you use for your lesson planning!
“Notion” is something I came across one day while I was scrolling through TikTok. You know, the best way to discover things! I love watching people’s study videos and productivity tips and I came across this on my “For You” page. When I saw it I immediately wondered if I could somehow use this for my lesson planning!
“Notion.so” is a project management website that is completely free to use, and it can connect to your pre-existing Google account. It’s very customizable to your style preferences and allows you to create multiple calendars with one account.
When you first open Notion, it’s completely blank and ready for you to customize. You can create to-do lists and set priority levels for different tasks. I add which lesson plans I still need to prepare, and I like to add emojis that match the tasks I still need to complete! You can also set due dates for your tasks to make sure you finish them on time.
My FAVORITE thing about using Notion is the “board view” database which allows me to see my lessons broken down into my rotations and my grade levels. I can mark which lesson plans are finished, which are in progress, and which ones aren’t started yet. I like to color code my grades just for an extra level of organization. You can link in documents and videos which keeps all of your lesson materials all in one place, and you can also link files that are located in your Google Drive! It’s so easy to use.
Another great feature is creating an activity database which lets you create databases based on concepts. It makes it so simple to find the activities that match the concepts we’re working on. For example, I have an entire database just for “High/Low” so those lessons are always easy to find and ready to go. I can also check which activities in that database we’ve already done!
Since switching my lesson planning over to Notion, I find that I’m spending way less time on the more mundane tasks and more time purposefully planning and mapping out my lessons. This week’s video is definitely a little different from my others, however it’s really great information if you’re rethinking how you do your lesson planning.’
Do you prefer to do lesson planning in a written book OR electronically? Leave me a comment and tell me your best lesson planning strategies, and be sure to follow me on Instagram as well!
Have a great week!
