There may be times when a substitute teacher will need to altar the teacher's lesson plans. Let's discuss.
There may be times when a substitute teacher will need to altar the teacher's lesson plans. Let's discuss.
Greg Colin substitute teachers lounge, doggone it, I've been substitute teaching for five years now. And if I want to change the teachers lesson plans, I'm going to do it. Is that what we're talking about today? All right, it is February 5 2023. Again, I'm Greg Collins. You know, it seems like every episode now, something happens during my week. That makes me want to do this episode, and I'll share with you today. No, I'm not gonna be as bold as to say that I feel like I've got the right after substitute teaching for five years to change the teacher lessons plans whenever I want to. Now I'm not going to do that. But there are some things that I will change on the fly. Because I think things will work out better in another method is probably going to be more method related than subject related. But there are ways that as you get experience, you could and should tweak and change the lesson plans that the substitute that the teacher left you as the substitute teacher, so that your day progresses. Well. Now, this past week, two of the days, I actually recording this on a Thursday, so I'm gonna substitute teaching tomorrow for a math class I'm looking forward to that I was supposed to teach yesterday, but we had a snow day in this area of Kentucky, I think a lot of you may have had some weather related things too, because I know I was watching a basketball game down in where was it Mississippi a couple of nights ago, and they were having ice issues down there. So there was a whole big storm thing that came up. So I didn't get to teach this class. But I will brag about this teacher that I was going to teach for him. It was a social studies class, which isn't necessarily my strong point. But it's not my strong point at all. But she actually I love teachers like this, she actually put an attachment on frontline. With the absence to show it was actually the document the PDF, I could read the sub plans that normally I don't get to read until the next day sitting on the desk. So that was outstanding. It involved a quizzes review, it involved a video and involve them, the students reviewing the video, if I had wanted to, I didn't watch some of it, but it was an hour long the video, I would have been able to just watch it and be totally familiar familiar with what I was going to do in that class. So I love teachers that are organized enough to do that for you. Now, having said that, I'm going to that's not the first thing I'm going to mention. But I'm going to tell you how I had already planned to tweak her lesson plans just a bit for what I thought would make the day selfishly, I guess, go better for me or keep the students more involved for more time. But first of all, let me tell you this, here's what's going to happen to you. If you take your substitute teaching job seriously, not just as somebody that goes in and sits down and listens to music or reads a book and your baby could just basically just baby sitting, if you're that kind of substitute teacher tune out if you want to, if you're the kind on the other hand that likes to be involved with the students that likes to motivate the students that likes to actually see them learn and likes to do their best for the teachers so that they get asked back, here's what's going to happen, you're going to gain a reputation of somebody that can be trusted, that somebody that gets the job done. I've had there was I'm gonna get to it here in just a moment. There was one class and I've mentioned this before, there's one class that I taught a couple of years ago that the I guess it was a student teacher or somebody I help her maybe just to help her because it was a student teacher, she would probably actually be teaching it. It was some kind of helper that was in the class, she text the teacher while I was teaching the class and said you need to get this guy back. He's pretty good. Now that's the ultimate comment when somebody just says that to you, because they've just met you like 15 minutes ago, but they saw how you're interacting with the students. And I say all that to say this. Once you get that reputation, here's what's going to happen. You're going to have teachers calling you to substitute teach, and they're going to say, here's the lesson plan for today but tweak the methods however you want to change my Lesson Plan. If you think you have some tools, or some methods that may get the point across even better, or you know, a lot of them will just tell me if you want to play a game with them. If you think that'll be more effective, feel free to use your own ideas. Now, that's the ultimate compliment when the teacher trust you enough that they're basically giving you permission to change the lesson plans as necessary. So that's what you're going to strive for. Now, let me tell you what I was going to do in this teacher's class. This past Wednesday, didn't get to do it. Maybe by the time I this is this is published, I will have done it in the other class. But here's the light lesson plans basically said this, the students are going to do about a 10 minute review on their own of the material that they will be tested in, or tested for, I should say, tomorrow, the day that the teacher gets back, so they need to do this, then please show them this video and tell them that they need to write down 12 things from the video that they learned, okay, well, I know enough kids, and I've been in enough substitute teaching situations that I knew all right. Now I'm going to have some students, maybe even more than half of the students will write down the video is about 45 minutes long, we'll write down 12 things as fast as they hear them just so they don't have to watch the rest of the video. So I had already formulated that in my head that that probably would happen. So I'm thinking, Alright, how can I do this a bit differently? How can I tweak or change These lesson plans to make things flow more smoothly, and to keep the students involved throughout the entire class. Now, there's two approaches, one of which I never use. And that's the crack the whip approach, where you just yell and scream at them to stay involved, I don't like that I like coming up with ways to actually keep them physically involved. So here's what I had planned on doing. Had I been in the class, I was going to tell them this. Alright, class, we are going to watch a video, it's roughly 45 minutes long, your teacher wants you to listen carefully to the video, watch the video, carefully paying attention and then write down 12 things that you learned from the video, you can write them as you go. But keep in mind that if you write down 12 things real quickly, from the first five minutes of the video, that teachers are going to the teachers are going to know what you're doing there, she's going to know that you just did that. So you can tune out, I would recommend every five minutes, put down something that you just learned from the previous five minutes write it down, then you'll have plenty of time by the end of the class to have one or her more thorough papers that she receives. I don't know how she's going to grade you. I don't know if it's strictly going to be participation. Or it may be you get nine for participation and 10. If you do really well. So don't write down 12 things quickly. Try to space it out, write down 12 things throughout the video and stay involved the whole class time. That's something to the effect of what I would have told him. Now the teacher didn't suggest that so in effect, you aren't kind of changing the method of delivery of the lesson plans. But yet that keeps them involved through the entire class, there's still classes that you're going to have to you're going to have students that you still have to continually tell them what they should be doing. But anytime I see a situation where I know I've got a potential for students, some students to do the least amount that can the quickest they can so that they can tune out as quick as they can. I'm going to see if I can put some things in place to remedy that. So that's the first thing I would suggest you about tweaking a teacher's lesson plans. You know, it's funny, I'm just noticing for some reason, when I talk, you know, I talk fast when I when I talk through this, I say lesson plans quickly and it comes out lessons plans, so you can probably play a game to see how I'm not going to go back and change them all because it's happened more than once and I don't know I get my tongue tied. But that's okay. Life Life is going to it's still a great thing and it's everything's going to be fine. Now, here's what I would say that the teacher does not put in lesson plans. I mean, you very rarely A teacher put in their lesson plans, their substitute teacher, do something in the first five minutes that lets the students get to know you. Okay. But I think that's such a great idea. So almost every time now, I'll do something, the first five minutes of class that's outside of the lesson plans. That's just a way to get them to know you. Now, some of you aren't this mode, but there's been some classes where I just say ask me five questions. And I promise you, I'll answer them asked me five questions about me. What do you want to know about me, you're gonna get some off the wall question and just be prepared for that. But one thing I really like to do, and especially if I've got access to the video, and especially right now, since I just came back from that cruise, I was in Roatan Honduras for one excursion in which you got to hold a sloth. And you've got to go into a area where monkeys tame monkeys were roaming around, but they like to jump on people's shoulders, on their heads, take things out of their pockets. And it was so cool. And we got great pictures and video. So I think it's so fun to at the beginning of the class, let the class get to know you. Even though the teacher didn't say anything about it in the lesson plans, let those class get to know you, I like to show a picture I have now that sloth hugging me watching his head, I have to do this video for him. Of course, it is funny, while I'm telling you this I'm moving my head. So that's pretty ridiculous. But the sloth just moved his head so slow back and forth that it actually looked like it was slow motion that was hilarious to me, I have another picture of one of those small monkeys had just jumped on top of my head and was just sitting there. And kids love seeing that kind of stuff. They think that is hilarious. I've shown it to some of the volleyball coaches and players that I know and they think that's and that's a good icebreaker, you can spend a couple of minutes doing that it's outside the lesson plans. But nevertheless, when the kids get to know you better, your class is going to go more smoothly. Now sometimes in the past teachers on their lesson plans, it was a reading assignment. Now the thing about reading assignments, students read at different speeds. Students, some students don't want to read and they'll just write down whatever they want to write down. What I'll do, and I usually tell the teacher I did this, and most of them think it's great, most of them have actually suggested that I will read to them. So that we're all going at the same speed, it's hard for them to tune out that way. And then they could as we go, I might even say Hint Hint, when I see a question in the reading that they need to write down. And everybody stays involved through the end of class. The other way I've seen doing it that I like is I've seen classes that have like six sided dice, and you throw one it's made out of paper, you throw it across the room, and whoever catches it, or maybe they just pick another student to read. And you'll have a little spinner and maybe it'll say you have to read two paragraphs, you have to you get to pass, you don't have to read this time, figure out a way to get the students involved. Maybe you read some and then they read some that's kind of outside the teacher's lesson plans. But nevertheless, is a another way to keep those students actively involved in your class so that kids don't tune out before the class is over. And it goes quick more quickly for you believe me. Now I had several more things I wanted to mention about tweaking the lesson plans, but I don't want to go too long. So this is probably the best of the bunch. One thing that I do, and it seems like it comes up in math classes more so than any other. You're always going to have some of those super conscientious students that always stay up on their work. But they're not the majority, the majority of the class just does the minimum the teacher tells them to do every time. Now what happens and it seems like this happens in math class more than any other that means there's an imbalance there. So you might go in one day and the lesson plans, say, to have the kids continue working on I'll make up one I excel. They have to do this many and they have to get a grade of this high or a rating of this amount. And they have to do that until they achieve that rating. Well. Some of the students are going to achieve that. Writing very quickly. In fact, I'll be honest, go on my little soapbox here some of these programs, you might get the grading, maybe the teacher wants you to do an 80, get up to an 80. But you get bonus points for getting to a 90. Well guess what, if you miss the next question, after you get an 80, you go back down to below 80. So it's kind of demotivating. So I don't like that about some of those programs. But here's what I'll do. I know that there's people getting finished at different times. So I'll make sure I have a way to get those students involved. In other things, maybe I'll have a little competition. And then maybe it'll motivate some of the students to concentrate and get their work done. So they can be a part of the competition, I told you about password, password might be a little bit distracting. By the way, go back and go back and listen to the past the word episode, it's the most popular episode of the last six months, at least in downloads, in its first six weeks, go back and listen to that one. But do some kind of competition where students maybe can walk up to the whiteboard and compete with each other on problems, that that's for the ones that you know, you can tell them once you get at, you can come up here and be a part of this. Maybe we can even make it a way where it's silent. You write down the answer and they write down, you write down the question and they write down the answer as quickly as they can. Maybe you've got some jolly ranchers in your pocket to give them they love that kind of stuff. But that's another way. It's not in the lesson plan. All the teacher told you was to make sure they get an ad and basically your job's done. Well, I don't want to have to put up with students that have nothing to do for the rest for 30 minutes of the class. So that's the way I would get them involved. So that's just some quick things. There are obviously reasons that you can tweak a lesson plan. Do you ever just ditch a lesson plan? Well, no, you don't. That would be probably not look good on your resume. You probably won't get called back if you do that. But is it okay to go in with plenty of ideas, plenty of methods, plenty of ways to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. Now when I do things like this, I usually tell the teacher about as I tried this, it went really well. So try that next time. It's okay to tweak the teachers lesson plans to make your day go more smoothly and to keep those kids actively involved.