I don’t know about you, but I DO NOT like being away from my classroom.  I love my job, and I miss not being there to guide the students to mastery of a certain topic. But another reason for not wanting to be absent is the dreaded SUBSTITUTE plans.  The tedious task of writing detailed descriptions of everything I want the substitute to know and do is always daunting to me. Some teachers focus their entire attention on the lesson plans and leave the substitute teacher in a bind when it comes to their classroom procedures. In my opinion, the substitute teacher would have a greater amount of success in a classroom knowing the classroom procedures and having to “wing it” through the lesson over knowing the lesson and having to “wing it” with classroom procedures. As I wrote in an earlier post, the greatest amount of my frustration as a teacher comes from when the students have not been taught my expectations.

At the beginning of this year, I knew I would have to be absent from my classroom for several weeks at a time because both my daughter and daughter-in-law were expecting my first grandbabies. Also knowing that babies are rarely born on their due date, I knew I would have to be ready to leave the classroom at a moments notice.  To prepare, I made sure all my lesson plans were placed in Moodle for the students to access.  All the substitute had to do was direct them to the correct lesson. I videoed my classroom procedures and uploaded them to my Youtube account. Then I created QR codes at kaywa. I left the substitute with an iPod equipped with the i-nigma reader app and the codes.

As anticipated, my first grandson was born three weeks early.  I could “skip town” with peace of mind because I knew the substitute was well equipped to successfully lead my class.