Substitute Plan Strategies

Substitute Plan Strategies

As an educator, being absent from the classroom for even a single day can disrupt the planned instructional sequence and impact student learning. However, by utilizing a high-quality curriculum that is widely adopted, one can tap into a collaborative network to co-create resources that support students effectively. This guide offers crowd-sourced substitute plans and strategies gathered from educators globally who utilize OpenSciEd materials in their teaching. These suggestions serve as potential approaches or sources of inspiration for crafting new and creative ideas. We are grateful to these educators for generously sharing their expertise and work with us and others. The names of the contributing educators can be found throughout this document.

An educator's options regarding substitute lesson plans can vary greatly, depending on where students are in a unit and when the teacher will miss a day. Sometimes, it is possible to leave a lesson plan for the substitute that continues the unit learning or moves it forward a little. Other times, it would be too difficult to leave the unit learning to the substitute, such as when there is a complicated lesson or the absence is an unplanned emergency. The following guide has three main categories:

● Strategies that continue moving the unit learning forward

● Strategies that have students organize their thinking about the current unit

● Strategies that support general science and engineering learning not necessarily connected to the current unit

Substitute Plan Strategies

Strategies that continue moving the unit learning forward

Strategy

Recorded video of the lesson

Description

Use Screencastify, or a similar application, to record yourself teaching the lesson with a prompt to “pause video here” for students to stop and discuss in small groups. Then say, “you should have heard… when you talked in your small group” after the pause.

Ask students to answer some of the important questions in exit ticket format after the recorded lesson.

Pre-Recorded Lesson: Substitute Plan Strategies

From Lisa Camponeschi, Pilgrim Park Middle School

Modify slides adding substitute and student instructions

Modify the lesson slides with added prompts or callouts to guide both the substitute teacher and the students. Focus on just a few you want to intentionally draw student attention to.

These could be used synchronously by the substitute or asynchronously by students individually or in small groups if one-to-one devices are available.

Slides with Guidance: Substitute Plan Strategies

From Rachel Kagan, Paradise High School, CA

Create an interactive set of slides

Create an interactive set of slides for the students to engage with as they continue their learning.

These could be used asynchronously by students individually or in small groups if one-to-one devices are available.

Rich Pause with Interactive Slides: Substitute Plan Strategie

From Carolyn

Kielma,

Bristol Public Schools, Bristol, CT

Substitute Plan Strategies

Have students facilitate the learning

Select two capable students to lead a focal discussion from the upcoming lesson (or one student per table group). Provide these students with a small number of slides that you have modified to help them lead the discussion. These slides can call out specific prompts for students to ask, “listen fors” to guide the student leaders, and chart or tables to document ideas on. Provide a worksheet with questions for each student to answer individually during or after the discussion.

Consider including a post-discussion piece where students rate and reflect on their use of the classroom norms and contribution to the discussion during the lesson

From Colleen Fowle, North Polk High School, Alleman, IA

Substitute Plan Strategies

Strategies that have students organize their thinking about the current unit

Strategy Description

Create One-Pagers

Choice Boards

Take stock of the Driving Question Board

A One-Pager is a creative assignment that asks students to reflect on the learning they have done so far in a unit. Students gather images, words, questions, and concepts from the unit and create a “One-Pager” that compiles their current ideas and lingering questions in one space.

A One-Pager allows students to respond imaginatively while being brief and concise in making connections between words and images

One-Pager: Substitute Plan Strategies

From Lisa Camponeschi, Pilgrim Park Middle School

The teacher creates and provides a choice board based on previous learning Students can explore the items on the choice board and complete a reflection tool

In most cases, the same choice board could be used multiple times throughout a unit since students may not explore every item. The teacher can add additional elements to the choice board as needed.

Choice Boards: Substitute Plan Strategies

From Gretchen Brinza from Louisville Middle School, Louisville, CO

Ask students to take stock of the learning they have done in the unit so far and what questions on the Driving Question Board (DQB) can be answered. Students can use this handout to guide their reflection.

Consider providing a picture of the DQB so students can access easily on a device independently or in small groups.

Reviewing the DQB: Substitute Plan Strategies

From Dominique Poncelet from Oklahoma City Public Schools

Substitute Plan Strategies

Science Notebook Quiz

Provide students an opportunity to open up their science notebooks and take stock of current learning and previous investigations.

In this example notebook quiz for the middle school unit 6.1 Light & Matter, students are asked a variety of questions from specific to open-ended. A more general version of a notebook quiz could also be created to use with any unit in the case of an emergency absence.

Substitute Plan Strategies

Strategies that support general science and engineering learning not necessarily connected to the current unit

Strategy

Meet a Scientist

Science News Summary (SNS)

Description

Getting to know a scientist’s challenges, successes, and insights can help humanize scientists for students and help them understand the ins and outs of real world science careers.

In this sample activity and set of slides from “I am a Scientist”, students “meet” scientists in these free resources

Students select a science article of their choice and write a Science News Summary about the article This strategy is most effective when students have practice doing this as a class before it is assigned as independent work.

Consider providing a curated set of articles for students to select from either related to the current unit of study or not!

Science News Summary: Substitute Plan Strategies

From Colt Nickel from the American Embassy School New Delhi India

Science Podcast Analysis

Students listen to a science podcast and reflect on the different parts of the podcast, such as: what the reporter shared, what was shared by experts, and what primary sources were shared. Students then reflect on the podcast as a whole.

Here is a list of sample podcasts related to OpenSciEd’s High School Chemistry course and a slide deck assignment.

From Whitney McWilliams from Knoxville Community School District and inspired by Jeff Glade at Iowa's Heartland AEA