How one teacher replaced planning “on an island” with Common Planner to share her planbook, collaborate across buildings, and stay innovative year after year.
Planning and collaboration were fragmented—so teachers relied on flash drives, email attachments, and hallway conversations that didn’t capture the full nuance of instruction.
Theresa centralized her planbook in Common Planner and shared it with colleagues—so collaboration became continuous, searchable, and not dependent on meetings.
Before Common Planner, teaching was done on an island.
"Everything we did in our classroom was on an island. You could share hard copies, walk down the hall and tell someone your great idea, but they could never get the nuances of it."
Theresa remembers the flash drive days all too well.
"I vividly remember taking flash drives to transport things from school to home. And it still only worked if I got the other teacher to email me the file that I could download onto my flash drive."
The isolation meant innovation stalled year after year.
"I believe we weren't innovative from year to year. We tended to get stuck in what we always did because last year was good enough. With technology and Common Planner, nothing's good enough anymore—it always changes from year to year, from day to day."
"She can look ahead as much as she wants"
When Theresa talks about collaboration now, there's a shift in her voice—from isolation to true teamwork.
She shares her plan book with her ELL co-teacher, and the impact is immediate.
"The co-teacher can now look ahead as much as she wants. She's looking for topics, not dates, and she can already work on something we're going to do in December or January."
The real transformation? They understand each other without needing lengthy meetings.
"We got to the point where we could finish one another's sentences, and it wasn't because we ever had conversations that deep together. It was because we were looking at each other's material. I knew what she was talking about when she started talking about the accommodation she was making because I had already seen what she was thinking."
Theresa's collaboration extends across buildings now too. Her district is large—two middle schools, nine teachers in the department—and they're required to have common assessments but no common planning time.
"When am I going to communicate with them aside from my own personal time? It doesn't happen in the school day when we're in two separate buildings and we don't have common planning time."
Common Planner solved this entirely.
"She can say, 'Oh, where's Theresa at today? Where has she written down when she's going to give that test? Let me look.' And she can access it 24/7."
Even a 25-year veteran teacher who recently moved from high school to 6th grade now has Theresa's entire plan book.
"She's feeling like a new teacher, and I'm like, 'Here's my plan book.' When we have PLC time, we're both on the same page. She can ask questions about something in January and I know what she's talking about. We don't have to spend time getting caught up."
"Common Planner was my lesson planning AI before AI existed. The database for that AI was my own material, but I could access it as fast as AI could because it was in one place, in Common Planner."
Theresa especially loves how it keeps her innovative, even after 34 years in the classroom.
"People say to me, 'Why did you spend so much time changing that lesson?' Well, because I can. It's fast. It's easy. There's new stuff everywhere, and maybe it's better than what I already have."
The accessibility extends to everything—resources, standards, and ideas she wants to save for later.
"I can move ahead three months and put something in there because I just found something for MLK and I want to use it. I can put the link right in there, and when I get to that planning, I see it already. I don't have to go dig through any bookmarks or documents."
She pauses, thinking about how far collaboration has come.
"I love Common Planner because it lets me collaborate with colleagues in ways that were impossible before. We're finally planning together in real time without needing to be in the same room. Everything's in one place. That's the magic."
Keep reading
How one teacher replaced cramped paper planners with Common Planner to reuse last year’s planbook, save hours each week, and co-plan seamlessly with SPED.
Charlestown, MA
How one teacher’s planning time went from 4 hours to 30 minutes with Common Planner.
Marietta, GA
How one principal replaced scattered Google folders and turned compliance checks into real instructional coaching.
Baltimore, MD