Use a Running Agenda

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by Tracey Brown, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist

Do you frequently post an agenda in your Brightspace course(s) to allow students to look ahead at what they will do today, tomorrow, or all week? Do you feel like you spend too much time posting a new agenda each day, or posting it across all of your classes, or reposting it if you make revisions? Then the Running Agenda is the solution for you!

The biggest issue that I hear from teachers regarding sharing an agenda involves how far in advance they are completely planned. In a perfect world I would know exactly what I am going to do everyday of this week. But the reality is, we usually know exactly what we will do today, have a pretty firm idea for tomorrow, then the next day is a little fuzzy since it depends on getting everything accomplished for today and tomorrow. This planning on-the-fly impacts our ability to share an agenda far in advance. The result is often that teachers list today’s agenda on the front of their Brightspace unit. Then they sometimes have to copy this across multiple classes, and post it every day as they add their new lesson materials and assignments. A running agenda allows more flexibility and less work on your part.


A Running Agenda is a living document. It could be created in a Google app like Docs or Slides, or a Microsoft 365 app such as Word or PP. The important part is that it lives online and you share it view only with your students so that you can continue to add to it as the week goes by. 

With the running agenda, you would add the information and assignments for Monday, maybe even Tuesday if you are fully planned. Then you would embed or link the agenda in your courses. As the week progresses and you solidify your plan for each day, you go in and add that information and assignments to the rows dedicated to each day. Because it is a living document each time a student opens it, they see the most up to date version.


The benefit to you is you only have to post the agenda once for the week, if you teach multiple sections of the same class, you can even post the same agenda across all of your classes, and when you update the document, it is updated across all courses. You can even keep the same agenda document running from one week to the next eliminating even that once per week posting! Make sure the current week is always at the top, or the first slide so students don’t have to scroll. This allows absent students or those who have fallen behind easy access to last week’s work in the same place they will find their current assignments. The running agenda is convenient for you and your students. You can even cross post your agenda in the Activity Feed so parents can look ahead at what their students will be working on this week. Make sure you let them know that you will be adding to the document daily so they should check back for updates.


If you are interested in getting started with a running agenda, we have some templates on the Teacher Intro to Digital Tools site under Class Agendas, Checklists & Calendars. You will find more on our Digital Takeout site under the Keeping in Touch page.

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