The Secondary Teacher | Elective Teacher Resources, Secondary Teacher Strategies, and Teacher Planning copertina

The Secondary Teacher | Elective Teacher Resources, Secondary Teacher Strategies, and Teacher Planning

The Secondary Teacher | Elective Teacher Resources, Secondary Teacher Strategies, and Teacher Planning

Di: Khristen Massic | Elective Teacher Resources Secondary Teacher Strategies Teacher Planning
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**Are you looking for secondary teacher strategies, elective teacher resources, and teacher planning systems that actually work when you're juggling multiple preps?** Are you drowning in lesson planning and still taking work home every night? Wondering if managing your workload is even possible when every class needs something different? Let's be honest… your planning period disappears fast. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place. This podcast is for overwhelmed secondary teachers—especially elective teachers, CTE teachers, and any multiple prep teacher—who are tired of feeling behind and need practical secondary teacher strategies built for the reality of teaching multiple courses. You'll learn how to simplify teacher planning, build classroom routines that reduce your workload, and find elective teacher resources that help you keep students engaged without creating everything from scratch. Because you don't need a better planner. You need systems that fit the reality of your secondary classroom. Hi, I'm Khristen Massic. I'm a former high school teacher in career technical education who spent 10 years teaching courses like engineering, drafting, robotics, digital media, and more—and at one point, I taught **nine preps in a single school year**. I've also worked as a middle school assistant principal and now support teachers at the district level, so I've seen the teacher workload from multiple angles. And here's what I learned the hard way: It's not that you're bad at teacher planning. It's that most planning systems were never built for teachers juggling this many different classes. I used to overplan, rebuild everything from scratch, and try to make every lesson perfect—until it became completely unsustainable. What changed? I stopped chasing perfect plans and started building simple, repeatable systems. Now I help secondary teachers simplify teacher planning, reuse what already works, and actually finish something during their prep period. Inside this podcast, you'll find: * Secondary teacher strategies for managing multiple preps without constant overwhelm * Teacher planning systems that help you decide what to work on first and actually finish it * Elective teacher resources that save time without sacrificing meaningful learning * Classroom routines that reduce decision fatigue and keep your day running without constant effort * Low-prep classroom games and engaging lessons that support student engagement without hours of prep * Secondary teacher tips for protecting your planning period and getting more work done during the school day * Systems for repurposing lessons across career technical education, electives, and other courses * Practical strategies for CTE teachers, elective teachers, and any multiple prep teacher constantly switching between courses * Teacher productivity strategies that help you reduce your Teacher workload and protect your time * Practical ways to use AI to support teacher planning without turning it into one more thing you have to learn You don't need to do it all. You need systems that work. If you're ready to spend less time reinventing lessons, feel more in control of your planning, protect your evenings, and still show up for your students… **Hit play.** ### Next Steps Grab your free resources to start simplifying your teacher planning right away: 🎯 **2026–2027 Secondary Teacher Editable Unit/Lesson Planning Calendar** https://khristenmassic.com/secondarycalendarpod 🎯 **Planning Period Reset Toolkit** https://khristenmassic.com/reset Find more ready-to-use elective teacher resources in my Teachers Pay Teachers store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/khristen-massic-cte-teacher-coach Learn more at: [www.khristenmassic.com](http://www.khristenmassic.com)Copyright 2026 Khristen Massic | Elective Teacher Resources, Secondary Teacher Strategies, Teacher Planning Istruzione
Episodi
  • Ep 372: Teacher Planning Starts With Protecting Your Planning Period

    Ep 372: Teacher Planning Starts With Protecting Your Planning Period
    Oct 6 2026
    Planning period for multiple preps can turn into a daily negotiation with yourself. On The Secondary Teacher Podcast, host Khristen Massic explains why protecting your planning period matters, then takes the next step: deciding how to use that time across every class you teach.Links mentioned in this episode:Grab the Secondary Teacher Systems Toolkit here: https://khristenmassic.thrivecart.com/systemstoolkit/?ref=pod Planning for the next school year? If your day is organized by class period, your planning calendar should be too. Grab my Editable Class Period Calendar here: https://khristenmassic.com/secondarycalendarpodGet the Planning Period Reset Toolkit—a free set of quick-start tools to help you protect your time, focus faster, and finally finish something… even during chaotic school days. https://khristenmassic.com/resetShop my Teachers Pay Teachers store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Khristen-Massic-Cte-Teacher-CoachThe common mistake is easy to recognize. You finally get a quiet block without students, open your laptop, and realize that “planning” could mean almost anything. You could prepare tomorrow’s lesson, start the next unit, finish project materials, make copies, revise something you already taught, or answer the task that happens to be sitting directly in front of you. When every option is waiting for a decision, the first part of your planning period disappears before you’ve done meaningful work.The episode captures that problem with a painfully familiar mailbox detour. There was time available, but no clear answer to the question, “What should I work on right now?” So checking the mailbox became tempting. It was a real task, easy to complete, and satisfying enough to create the feeling of progress. But it wasn’t the work that needed attention every day. The better solution was simple: check it after school, check it once a week, or send a fast finisher to the office with a hall pass. The point isn’t that a mailbox never matters. The point is that an available task shouldn’t automatically control your planning period.For middle and high school teachers, especially those managing several courses, planning period for multiple preps requires a wider view before focused work begins. Look across the day you’re preparing for. Which classes are ready? Which one still needs a lesson? Is one course about to start a new unit? Does a project need materials set up? Is tomorrow handled well enough that you can work ahead instead? This quick scan prevents one class from absorbing all your attention while another class quietly becomes tomorrow night’s emergency.That’s the difference between a deliberate choice and planning in silos. Finishing an entire unit for one course can feel like a major win, and it is real work. But if robotics still needs a lesson tomorrow, the work hasn’t solved the whole teaching day. A multiple prep teacher workload punishes tunnel vision because each completed course doesn’t automatically help the next course. The answer isn’t to plan every class simultaneously. That creates its own kind of chaos. The answer is to check all your preps first, then choose where your attention belongs.Sometimes one prep genuinely needs the full block. Building out a new unit may require sustained thinking, especially when you’re working through what students need to learn, practice, and produce. The key is knowing that this is the choice you’re making after reviewing the rest of your schedule. “Today I’m focusing on this unit because I checked the other classes” is a plan. “I spent the whole block here because this is where I started” is how planning in silos takes over.The conversation also offers a practical way to make the next prep less demanding. Don’t assume every course requires a completely new lesson structure. Look for decisions you can carry forward. An activity format, student practice structure, discussion routine, or feedback process may transfer even when the subject matter changes. The episode uses a bell ringer example to make the distinction clear. The same video didn’t make sense across engineering design and robotics, particularly when students were in both courses. But the structure could stay: students look at something, write what they notice and wonder, and talk with a partner. The content changes. The classroom routines can remain familiar.That approach takes pressure out of planning period for multiple preps. You’re not asking, “How do I invent a brand-new lesson for this class?” You’re asking, “What do I already have that fits, and what still needs to be chosen?” Course-specific content still matters, but you don’t need to rebuild every instructional decision from the ground up. The Unit Planning Lab approach referenced in the episode, using Introduce, Practice, Produce, reinforces that planning can happen through connected decisions rather than a pile of unrelated tasks.The practical ...
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    10 min
  • Ep 373: Teacher Time Management Mistakes That Keep Repeating

    Ep 373: Teacher Time Management Mistakes That Keep Repeating
    Oct 13 2026
    Teacher time management mistakes that keep repeating can quietly steal your planning period, even when you already know how to do the work. On this episode of The Secondary Teacher Podcast, host Khristen Massic explains why the answer isn’t always working faster. Sometimes, the real problem is having to start over.Links mentioned in this episode:Grab the Secondary Teacher Systems Toolkit here: https://khristenmassic.thrivecart.com/systemstoolkit/?ref=pod Planning for the next school year? If your day is organized by class period, your planning calendar should be too. Grab my Editable Class Period Calendar here: https://khristenmassic.com/secondarycalendarpodGet the Planning Period Reset Toolkit—a free set of quick-start tools to help you protect your time, focus faster, and finally finish something… even during chaotic school days. https://khristenmassic.com/resetShop my Teachers Pay Teachers store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Khristen-Massic-Cte-Teacher-CoachFor middle and high school teachers, especially multiple prep teachers, the repeated work can hide in plain sight. You set up a gradebook, configure something in your student information system, organize course materials, or adjust an LMS setting. The task gets done, so you move on. Then the next term arrives, and you’re back at the beginning, hunting through menus and trying to remember which setting you changed last time.That pattern is one of the most common teacher time management mistakes that keep repeating because the task feels finished once it leaves your list. You handled it. You survived it. You may even remember that it worked. But remembering that a task worked isn’t the same as remembering how to complete every step. When the process only happens once a term, once a semester, or once a year, your memory may not be a reliable system.Khristen shares a clear example from her own teaching work. In her district, students may be placed in separate course sections based on whether they’re taking a class for regular high school credit or dual enrollment credit. The students can still sit in the same classroom and learn the same material, but the LMS lists them in different sections. Rather than building and maintaining duplicate course materials, she cross-lists the courses so everything can be managed in one place.The process is genuinely helpful. The problem is that she only needs to cross-list courses once a semester. When the next semester comes around, she knows she has done it before, but she may not remember exactly where the settings are, which menu to open, what order to follow, or which box to check. That creates a frustrating kind of administrative déjà vu. The work isn’t necessarily hard. It’s just infrequent enough that she has to relearn it.The same issue shows up when you set up your gradebook again, configure a district system, or prepare materials for a new semester. These tasks don’t need to be complicated to consume valuable planning time. They only need to have enough steps that you can’t confidently reconstruct them months later. For a teacher managing three or four classes that all need attention, the cost is more than a few clicks. It can be the lesson introduction you didn’t finish, the practice activity you didn’t plan, or the uncertainty you carry home because the planning period disappeared.The better approach is to notice which tasks need a repeatable process before you do them again. Ask yourself two practical questions: Will I need to do this again? Am I likely to remember how to do it when that time comes? If the answer to both questions points toward repetition and relearning, that task is a strong candidate for simple documentation.This is where standard operating procedures, or SOPs, become useful for teachers. The phrase may sound formal, but the idea is not. An SOP can be a basic set of instructions that helps you complete a task without figuring everything out from scratch. It doesn’t need a special template, a polished design, or instructions for every possible situation. It needs to help future you get through the process with less confusion.The key is to document the task while you’re already doing it. Don’t create a giant project out of documenting every classroom routine, every LMS setting, or every administrative process you’ve ever touched. Choose one task you know you’ll repeat. The next time you set up your gradebook or cross-list your courses, open a Google Doc and capture the process as you go.Take a screenshot when you need to open a particular menu. Capture the screen when you change an important setting. Add plain instructions such as, “Step 1, do this. Step 2, click here. Step 3, make this change.” If you need to reference a website or another set of instructions, include the link. That’s enough. You’re not writing a manual for an entire school district. You’re creating a starting point for the next time the task comes around.That ...
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    11 min
  • Ep 374: Teacher Work Life Balance When the School Year Gets Hard

    Ep 374: Teacher Work Life Balance When the School Year Gets Hard
    Oct 20 2026
    Teacher work life balance when the school year changes cannot be solved once in August. On The Secondary Teacher Podcast, host Khristen Massic makes the case for a more honest approach: the routines that work with fresh plans and an empty gradebook may need to change when students need different things, projects run long, and deadlines start piling up.Links mentioned in this episode:Grab the Secondary Teacher Systems Toolkit here: https://khristenmassic.thrivecart.com/systemstoolkit/?ref=pod Planning for the next school year? If your day is organized by class period, your planning calendar should be too. Grab my Editable Class Period Calendar here: https://khristenmassic.com/secondarycalendarpodGet the Planning Period Reset Toolkit—a free set of quick-start tools to help you protect your time, focus faster, and finally finish something… even during chaotic school days. https://khristenmassic.com/resetShop my Teachers Pay Teachers store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Khristen-Massic-Cte-Teacher-CoachThe common mistake is treating a struggling system as proof that you failed. You build a plan, create a routine, and expect it to carry you through May without adjustment. Then October arrives, meetings take over your planning periods, grading expands, and the work starts following you home. When that happens, it’s tempting to throw out the whole approach or decide you simply need to get more organized. But teacher work life balance when the school year changes depends on noticing what shifted, not blaming yourself for it.This episode finishes the 4S framework with “sustain.” Set an order by deciding what belongs in your teaching day. Schedule the work that matters within the time you actually have. Systemize the tasks you repeat so you aren’t solving the same problem from scratch every week. Then sustain those choices by checking whether they still support the work you’re doing now.That final step matters for middle and high school teachers because a secondary classroom rarely stays stable for long. You may teach several preps, manage different pacing across classes, respond to changing student needs, and work around schedules you didn’t choose. A system that feels manageable at the beginning of the year can become too expensive in time later. Sustaining it doesn’t mean preserving every step. It means keeping what helps and adjusting what has started to take over.The grading example makes the point. At Khristen’s school, teachers were expected to enter at least one grade per week so students and parents had current information. That expectation made sense. The problem came when more and more student work began to feel like it needed to be graded and entered. Grading filled the planning period, planning moved home, and more grading came along with it. The workload kept growing, but the feeling of being behind didn’t go away.The better move wasn’t finding a faster way to grade everything. It was becoming more selective about what belonged in the gradebook. Khristen still met the weekly expectation, but stopped trying to formally record every piece of student work. She still gave students work and paid attention to how they were doing. She changed how much of that work became a grade. That adjustment made the workload lighter without requiring her to rebuild every part of her teaching.For multiple prep teachers, this is where protecting your planning period gets practical. If the period is spent grading, answering emails, handling paperwork, or reacting to whichever class is most urgent, planning has been displaced. You may then take planning home and discover that you’ve also taken grading, unfinished decisions, and the pressure to catch up. Before creating a brand-new planning system, look at what is creating friction. The problem may be one process that has quietly expanded beyond the time available.Use three questions when a routine starts feeling difficult. First, what’s working? Maybe your lesson materials are easy to find. Maybe one activity structure works across multiple preps and saves planning time. Maybe students know what to do when they enter class. Those pieces don’t need to be changed just because another part of the week is failing. Keep what helps.Second, what’s creating friction? Look for the work that keeps getting pushed into the evening, the task you repeatedly try to catch up on, or the process you continue because you’ve always done it that way. For Khristen, grading created friction because it took over the planning period and pushed planning into the evening. Your friction point may be different, but it should be specific. “I’m overwhelmed” is a real feeling. “I’m spending my entire planning period entering grades and then planning at home” gives you something you can examine.Third, ask, “What’s one thing I can adjust?” The question is intentionally narrow. You don’t need to fix every prep, every routine, and every ...
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    11 min
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