The following is a guest post from Dr. Jacie Maslyk.
Uh-Oh! You glanced at your calendar and noticed an upcoming dentist appointment that you completely forgot about. You are going to be out this Friday and need to prepare for a substitute teacher.
In some classes, this may be simpler than in others. In a STEM class, with all the hands-on learning that is required and the classroom management that goes into running a STEM space — this is critical.
Planning for a sub is definitely a challenge. You may have some of these worries:
“How can I possibly have the students complete that experiment when I’m not in school that day?”
“There’s no way I can put out the hot glue guns and soldering irons with a sub coming in!”
“Will the students be able to continue their projects if I’m not there to assist?”
Things will not be perfect while you are out, but that is OK. There are some steps you can take to anticipate your absence in the hopes that your substitute will have a successful experience.
This post will share some simple no-prep/low prep ideas for classroom teachers and STEM teachers to use with a sub.
Build a STEM Mindset
If you have worked with your students and cultivated a STEM mindset in the classroom, your absence won’t detract them from their mission to create, collaborate, and solve problems in the STEM classroom.
Start from the beginning of the year instilling important learning dispositions within your students.
Share stories and examples of perseverance and bouncing back from failures.
Offer opportunities for students to engage in challenging problem-solving tasks that don’t have a clear solution.
Build up student stamina to engage in the “hard” parts of STEM learning. If you prepare them early on in the school year, when you need to be out of school, they will be able to successfully navigate STEM learning on their own.
Stay True to STEM Learning
Just because a substitute teacher is coming in doesn’t mean that the true heart of STEM learning needs to go away.
Stay focused on the hands-on nature of STEM. That’s likely a huge part of why students love your class. Don’t resort to STEM worksheets, losing sight of what is really important within the integration of science, technology, engineering, and math.
Continue with collaboration. This is more of a challenge when students are learning virtually, but you can still embed opportunities for students to brainstorm their designs in a collaborative way and get feedback on their projects.
Embrace the engineering and design process. If you have nurtured a STEM mindset with your students, then they can move through the engineering and design cycle, even in your absence.
Encourage students to brainstorm, design, and iterate new projects or even revisit a previous project. Returning to a design that was created a month or two ago might allow student designers to look at it with a new perspective--which is a part of what engineers and designers do!
Plan Ahead
Organizing sub plans ahead of time is something that may help you to feel more comfortable when an absence arises. These sub lessons don’t have to fit in exactly with what you are working on this week, but they can be lessons that can contribute to the overall STEM experience that you are trying to create.
If you create a few “extra” lessons to have in your bag of tricks, subs will be able to implement these without any background or preparation.
Create some backup sub plans that can always be used at the drop of a hat. This might be in the form of some videos of STEM read alouds that can be pushed out virtually or shared with your sub. Here are some ideas to get you started.
You might include a lesson with a STEM challenge that students can complete with little assistance from the teacher. Need ideas for something simple that your sub can do virtually? Check out these STEM challenges for individual students.
While you are out of the classroom, the substitute can also offer students some opportunities to engage in basic coding. Here’s a post with great coding resources from educator, author, and speaker Jorge Valenzuela.
If you plan ahead and have a few lessons ready to go, hopefully, it will reduce the stress that we all know can come when we are missing school, even if only for a day or two.
Keep It Simple
Think of some simple STEM tasks that students might be able to complete in your absence.
Design a few engineering challenges that can also be a part of your “sub stash.” These can be used in your absence to support STEM learning through engineering. Build towers with plastic straws and some tape. Measure how tall your tower stands.
Design a marble maze with a shoebox lid, cardboard, and tape. Set a timer and see how fast you can get the marble through the maze. Try out some different paper airplane models. Have students create the longest paper chain using 2 pieces of paper and 12 inches of tape.
Sketch your ideas and record the results in an engineering notebook.
Planning for a substitute is a difficult task for all teachers. If you plan ahead and prepare some simple STEM tasks, it won’t feel quite as stressful being out of the classroom. Build the STEM mindset early on in the school year.
Support your students as they plan, design, build, fail, and try again. This learning process will help them to grow and develop as learners and help them to find success no matter who is facilitating learning within the classroom.
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