Amphitheater Public Schools

• Facilitate a smooth transition for the students as well as yourself - try to greet the students at the door. Begin by letting the class know your name, that you will be replacing their regular teacher during their absence, and that the material which will be covered was prepared by their regular teacher.
• Quickly establishing a rapport with the students will help them understand that you are in control of the class. Approach the students with a firm but fair attitude. Remember, they have become accustomed to doing things a certain way. To ensure a relationship of mutual respect, be sincere and patient in your methods.
• Please follow the attendance/lunch count instructions given to you by the school at which you're subbing.
• Assume the same responsibilities and duties of the regular teacher, as we expect learning to continue. Please do not attend to personal business during your assignment.
• If you need work to keep the class busy, ask the office for assistance.
• If the name of the teacher you are replacing is on the “extra duties” list, contact the school office for further directions.
• If there is a student teacher teaching the class, you are expected to help but not interfere with the student teacher’s lesson.
• If you are substituting on a long-term basis, it may become necessary for you to develop lesson plans and attend department or faculty meetings.

• You will be expected to cover the material outlined in the teacher's lesson plans. Here are several techniques developed for presenting lesson plan instructions that can lead the way to covering the materials in a positive and creative discussion:

  Lesson plan 1

  Have the students read a chapter and answer questions:

  • Pre-test and post-test
    • Ask students to guess what will be covered before they start reading. Share ideas aloud or write down 5 fact/idea predictions. Afterward, conduct a post-test by checking the accuracy of their predictions.
  • Group effort
    • Divide the class into groups and ask each one to report on part of the reading later on. This method is best-used with material that does not require continuity to be meaningful.
  • Quiz board
    • Give the assignment and tell the students that you will stop 15 minutes before the end of class and establish a quiz board. Appoint 3-5 students or select volunteers to be members of the board. The rest of the students pose questions to the quiz board about the day's reading. After a certain number of questions have been answered, a new board may be selected. This technique works well for review, with an added advantage that you need not know the subject well in order to handle it.

  Lesson plan 2

  Have the class write a composition about XYZ. The best way to begin is to make the start interesting, challenging, and fun:

  • To make a topic more meaningful, encourage the student to relate to it personally. One way is to write sentence starters that use the student's natural speech patterns, such as:
    • I wish ___
    • I like ___
    • I'm glad I'm allowed to ___
  • If the students are assigned a story to write, suggest that they first all decide on a cast of characters, a setting, a time, etc. By doing the ground work together, the students will be into the story even before they lift their pencils!
  • If the assignment is an essay, consider using the "buzz group" technique. Ask the students to say whatever comes to mind about the topic and write their ideas on the board in some quick abbreviated form. When everyone has had a chance to study the list, students can begin to write using whatever "buzzing" ideas they wish.
  • Whatever the topic, propose that the students write free association word lists about it. Tell them to start with the given word, such as freedom, pets, or winter and add up to ten other words that immediately come to mind about the key word. Then the students can write their own compositions.

Lesson plan 3

Discuss topics X, Y, and Z with the class. This can be challenging - the students might have been dealing with a topic that you have not. You can still lead the discussion constructively by:

• Having a student/students lead the discussion
• Have the class spill out all sorts of ideas related to the discussion topic. Don't judge the ideas - anything goes! Just encourage the students to speak their minds. After a few minutes, start the discussion again, this time arranging their ideas in a more orderly fashion.
• If the topic is controversial, divide the class into sections, each representing a special-interest group. During the discussion, each group will give its point of view on the subject.
   

Lesson plan 4

Show the video, then discuss. Once the lights are off, this type of assignment can be a disaster, but you can develop it into a delight! To heighten student interest in audiovisual materials, use the same pre-test and post-test techniques mentioned above.

Introduce the exercise with a comment such as, “If you were making a movie about tooth brushing, or earthquakes, or China, what would you include?”  As they watch, have students check their list against the film. How does the film compare to the student’s expectations?

Keep in mind that with audiovisual materials it is crucial to get the students to be active, not passive, viewers.

If you have covered all the material with time to spare, how about:

• A word game in a French class, or an intriguing number puzzle in math?
• A math activity in social studies based on a trip that you have taken? 
• Teaching a few words in Spanish or Chinese? Teaching the alphabet in sign language?
• Conducting a poll among students on some topic of current interest?
• A specimen of sea-life found on a weekend trip for a science class?
• A guitar-playing substitute who knows some folk songs?