AVID program and organization skills

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For those of you who have kids in upper elementary or middle school, are any of you familiar with the AVID system of organization? It is more than just organization, I know, but that is the part I am asking about.

We are all really terrible with organization, in our house, and because we are homeschooling, it makes it easier for my son not to practice it. I was thinking of using something similar to an AVID binder. I am not going to have a special class for organization, or worse, grade for it. That would be awful. I was wondering, though, if anyone has kids who benefited from getting into a rigid organizational system?

I had to go look that up. And OMG is that rigid.

That said, my middle schooler's school uses a similar binder system, it's just not as hardcore. It's not graded, it doesn't use special note taking paper, but it is essentially a modified AVID system - every class has it's own section with a divider and a pocket, and there's a zipper pouch for pens, etc. It worked very well for my disorganized ASD kid, because it gave him structure and "rules" to follow. I spent $25 on a fancy zip up binder, and S1 loves it. Thankfully, it's still in good enough condition he can reuse it this coming school year.

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Last edited by Odetta on 21 Jul 2014, 8:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

I used to have a really cool humanities teacher who started off all his freshman students with a unit he called "getting things done". It worked very well for my through my highschool experience.

Here's a link to a slideshow that's an overview of the unit: Getting Things Done

He also has various social network accounts that he uses to share his ideas about teaching or the material he gives his students. I've known a lot of English and/or Humanities Teachers who liked the writing prompts he shares on Tumblr. Here's a link to that: Luke Neff's Writing Prompts

This avid binder seems to be for developing the next gen of robot paper pushers instead of flexible thinkers.

Yeah...and this is one of my quandaries.

The class itself sounds like a distinctly awful, new addition to one of Dante's circles of hell. My son not having to take the class, itself, is a definite good thing for us. Our district requires it as a mandatory graded class that would have a profound effect on GPA, up until HS. After that, it is mandatory if you want to take college-bound AP classes and such. Awful.

I would never grade him for that kind of stuff. Not ever. That said, I am worried that if I give him no guidelines for organization it will be an issue later on. That is the only reason I am thinking of introducing the binder (and only the binder---with no grading rubric for organization).

Odetta,

I know that the purpose of having one binder is probably to minimize the possibility of forgetting things, right? The main plus for us, being at home, would be I could more quickly make my son successful at having responsibility for this kind of stuff, which might be good for him.

Back when I was in school, I never liked binders because the rings would always get messed up, get gaps, and get misaligned from the frequent use that kids who have to turn in papers frequently give it. When you use a one-binder-to-rule-them-all system, I would expect the wear and tear to be worse, right? Do you have to get a really expensive binder like that, and if I don't is the quality sufficient to make it through the year?

In college I was happy to do things the way I wanted and I do not want to make my son do something awful. This would be on a let's see how it goes basis. I may or may not suggest Cornell note taking (you don't need special paper --- you can just draw lines on regular paper) First, I am going to try taking notes with that technique when I assign a video or something, to see if it is even a reasonable method. In school, I just scribbled my notes down, and was fine. I don't think I could have managed any kind of speed with this system. My son won't have to take his notes, this year, anyway.

Mainly, right now, I am just trying to figure out if we should shove everything into one binder or not.

Cool, I will check the links out!

I can't comment on the system itself because I looked it up and I don't understand it. That's very strange. But my husband is the most organised person I've ever met and he uses multiple binders. I'm unorganised and used to just shove it all in one binder...and it drove him nuts. He uses an agenda and he writes a million lists of things to do and a list of major events/ due dates Mon-Sun plus a normal calendar with a monthly view. He says multiple binders are more organised and less cluttered.

PS. It boggles my mind that that binder thing is actually a graded course! I think I would have failed that...and my husband wouldn't have liked it because he has a system and he likes his system.

S1's binder held up quite well - so well I'm using it again this year. It's made by CaseIt, and I got it at Staples (office supply store). It has a zip around so things won't fall out. We had one from Target/Walmart that was less expensive and it did not hold up as well. I did not even try one of those plastic binders, because personal experience told me that it would only last a month or so.

And yes, it was mainly so that things didn't get lost. They did not have a class or anything, but they did take some homeroom time one day to set it up and go over how to use it. For being so disorganized with his school papers, he's actually quite rigid in adhering to rules, so the system worked well for him.

S2 also has a binder for his gifted program class. It too has dividers for each section, and a front pocket for a communication sheet between parent and teacher. His notebook, in contrast, is a complete mess even though he was given similar structure and instructions. So I think the usefulness and benefit is going to depend on the child.

Yeah, I would have failed it to. As if unorganized kids don't have enough stacked against them, they have to count an organization class into their GPA being equal to a real class like math or science.

It boggles the mind.

I will have to think about whether we should do multiple binders or one. My son is in 4th grade, so he won't have very many papers. One small binder will be plenty for what he will have. I will see how it goes. If it gets unwieldy, we can always switch to using those poly folders with brads, which is what we had been doing.

I don't trust my judgement on anything with organization. I am a multi-binder kind of person, myself, but I assume if the schools are doing something a more modern way, it must be better.

Thanks Odetta.

I think it probably depends on the child, too. I don't think I could have managed a single binder, which is why I have doubts. I think I will try one binder and see how it goes. (Plus, I can call it The One Binder (that rules them all) and put some LOTR graphics on it. LOL I am such a nerd.)

I am going to buy some poly-folders, too, just in case we need to switch back. Organization is just so not my thing.

I actually think AVID classes can work pretty well with children with ASD, provided they are taught correctly. The Cornell notes structure can be really helpful in teaching kids with ASD how to organize notes to find information later. The skills taught in class-- flexible thinking strategies (lecture part of class) and structured approaches to solving problems (during the tutorial portion of class) -- are helpful in giving structure to otherwise unstructured attempts to problem solve, particularly with difficult areas like inference types of questions. Lessons also are designed to teach debate skills, how to have discussions, and strategies to be a good student. I think the explicit nature of this teaching is actually ideally suited for kids on the spectrum.

My son's school offers an AVID class, but it certainly isn't mandatory for all. That's ridiculous. AVID was designed for a very specific population, with some aspects (Cornell notes, binders) applicable to entire schools. My son does have a lot of trouble with the binder, and often fails his binder check. Part of it is just getting the papers into the binder appropriately. They gave him an accommodation of sorts by having him use an accordion file folder as the sections instead of a binder, and that helped a lot. Just getting papers into the holes and looking nice was super challenging for him.

(no, I don't sell AVID, but I have some experience with it)

Tawaki, thank you for the comments.

The main issue I have with it being a class is the fact that is a numerically graded class that is averaged in with other grades. When I was a kid, I was perfectly capable of getting really good grades despite being terribly organized and it would have tanked my GPA. The other issue I have is that evidently after the mandatory years are up, they still mandate it for anyone taking AP classes and the like, again as a numerical grade. So, in the years when class rank and all that matters for colleges, it would again make a significant impact on grades.

Our district has a tendency towards micromanaging, and it's general approach and philosophy is not one that I tend to agree with. The student population is not trusted to be able to make their own decisions about anything, and they try to improve performance through what I perceive as excessive rules and conformity. That is one of many reasons I am not excessively sad about having had to pull my son out of there.

I don't have an issue with teaching organization, but I think the graded aspect while incentivizing compliance, is a disservice to the kids who really need the skills. So I will see if this system can work for us. In our case, I do think some type of organization will need to be expressly taught.

Anyway, we will make a run at using a single binder and see how it goes. I am going to introduce the Cornell notes and attempt to use it myself by scribing some videos we will be using. We will see how it goes.