Grab the free companion guide with copy-paste AI prompts and step-by-step directions. .

In this episode, I walk through exactly how I use AI to compare my curriculum against my state standards, find the gaps, and combine old and new material when I switch textbooks or grade levels.

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• ChatGPT for Teachers

I was sick in bed Tuesday through Friday last week, and in the middle of it, I'm also downsizing into an apartment. Two things that would normally wreck a teacher's schedule. But I never once worried about what was happening in my classroom.

In this episode, I walk through why that was possible: a classroom website I built once, five years ago, that my students already know how to navigate on their own. I share exactly how it's set up for K through 2 and 3rd through 5th, and why updating it now just means swapping a link, not rebuilding anything.

I also talk about why I'm not afraid of AI replacing my thinking, just teaching me the how, and why it's worth jotting down your own system idea now, even if you don't have time to build it until a break.

Key Takeaways:

A system built once can carry you through the chaos life throws at you

You don't need to know how to build something to start dreaming about what you want the outcome to look like

AI can teach you the how instead of thinking for you

Start small: write the idea down now, build it when you have the time

Resources mentioned:

Free companion guide

Google Sites Made Simple (build your own classroom website)

See my site in action.

This week I'm sharing the system that replaced my old unfinished work folder, the one that lived in each student's desk and disappeared the second I looked away.

Instead, I used plain binder pocket dividers mounted right under the board at the front of my room, one pocket per student. Every day's morning work went in as part of the routine, absent students' missed papers went straight into their pocket instead of getting set aside, and anything left unfinished landed there too. I could see the whole room's status at a glance, no digging, no asking, no guessing.

Key takeaways:

• Give absent and unfinished work one visible place, and you take the guesswork out of it for both you and your students
• It doesn't have to be pockets. It has to be something you can actually see, every day, without extra effort
• If you don't have a self-contained classroom, use this as a brainstorming prompt. Talking with other teachers or seeing how someone else's room is set up doesn't mean copying it, it just gets your own thinking moving

Grab the full companion breakdown in the free PDF, and if you want more support building systems like this one, Teacher Systems Lab GPT is built for exactly that.