The More “Unusual” Substitute Teacher Tricks

Remember the last time the classroom Wi-Fi went out, leaving you in a tech-free panic? I've been there, and in this episode, I'm sharing the teacher-tested tactics that saved the day. We're talking no-fail strategies for substitute teachers to keep the learning engine running, even when digital lesson plans are a no-go. You'll get a peek at how a stack of index cards can transform into an engaging review session, the clever use of personal data to bring online resources back to life, and the timeless effectiveness of a well-prepared PowerPoint presentation. Plus, I'm dishing out my own plans to spice up the usual Q&A with a random selection process that keeps students on their toes and ready to dive into the material.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Greg Collins, episode 259 of Substitute Teacher's Lounge podcast. It is May 7th 2024. Today I'm going to it's going to be kind of a mishmash a little bit. I'm going to tell you what happened the day the Wi-Fi went down and then we're going to get into what you need to be thinking about doing if something like this happens in the future. What do you need to have ready If your teacher's electronic lesson plans aren't there? We're going to go from some simple ideas to some absolutely ridiculous ideas. That I don't think I would do, but I have seen other teachers that were very good at it. So let's think about what we're going to do the day the Wi-Fi goes down.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Substitute Teachers Loud. All right, now, I don't know about you. I guess it's different school systems. Some of you might already be out. We have 13 more days in the school system. I'm in. I'm subbing for all of those. Some of those are actually test days. Like five of those are test days. So we really only have what is that? Eight days of actual classroom situations and let's face it, especially in middle school, once testing is over, you don't get a whole lot more out of those kids. So maybe you got to throw in a few celebration days, but I thought this would be another good wind down type of topic that we can talk about, because I made some observations this week, seen some things on videos and various different situations, and it all started because last week, one day, the Wi-Fi went down.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Now I don't know about you, but subbing high school and some middle school too, I'm going to guess 80% of the time my directions now say that the kids' assignments are on Google Classroom. So well, what's that mean? That means, if they can't get to their Google Classroom on a Chromebook through Wi-Fi, then all of a sudden we've got a situation, don't we? Sometimes they can pull it up on their phone, but even then, I mean, their Wi-Fi would go through their phone too. So if they don't have it there, then they're using their own data plan. Everybody's different in that regard, so it can end up being a mess. So I want you, as the school year is winding down, to be thinking about some things that you can prepare over the summer. I'm going to save the most complicated ones to the end, because they're actually going to take some planning and some detail and some definite setup time. Tell you what, though? If you go through with it. You might be the teacher that every student remembers, even when you see them after they've graduated 10 years later. So here's the first thing I want to mention to you, and I think I'm going to start doing this.

Speaker 1: 3:35

It's such a simple concept. I saw one teacher doing it. He basically, since they couldn't get to the Wi-Fi. He basically, since they couldn't get to the Wi-Fi. I guess every day he always has a set of index cards with the students' names on them for each class, and then non-Wi-Fi day, he just did a review over things that they had talked about up to that point in time. He also did some work on the screen. Keep in mind, if you prepare a PowerPoint, you could possibly project that. If that's just on your hard drive, you don't need Wi-Fi. You could project that onto the screen. So if you're in a situation where you can log in and you can get to that, you can still throw something on PowerPoint up there. That's what he did. I told him afterwards.

Speaker 1: 4:29

I thought his teaching session was very good, but the concept I like was his cards. He would shuffle the cards, pull out a name and then that student had to answer a question and he got through about five or six before a student just said I don't have that one. It kind of set up a situation where the student was a little embarrassed that they didn't know the question. So what's going to happen? They don't want to be embarrassed. In the future, their study level is probably going to want to increase because every time they get their name called, if they just always say and I saw this girl that didn't get it correct and said she didn't have it, I'll be honest, I've had her in some classes. She could be better prepared. Hopefully that situation helps her be better prepared.

Speaker 1: 5:26

Now let's transfer that idea over to substitute teachers. I'll tell you what I'm going to do this summer. I'm going to get me a stack of cards, index cards. All I have to do is number them 1 through 30, and I can accomplish the same thing. If I walk in and I see that the Wi-Fi is down and I see that the teacher has left substitute plans that depended on the Wi-Fi being up, well, what I'll try to do is kind of look around, see what they've been studying. Hopefully their lesson plans are at least detailed enough that it doesn't just say have the kids get on Google Classroom. It says here's the subject that we're studying on Google Classroom ancient archaeology or something like that, so that you've at least got an idea what's going on. Then if you have no other resort, you're going to have to do this. I would Google through your data plan, of course, because you don't have Wi-Fi. You're going to have to Google a topic and maybe you'll type in freshman and you'll get some questions on that topic and you can spend your day setting up a competition where you can.

Speaker 1: 6:45

I don't know if you want to number the rosters one through 30, mix up your cards and then split them up into two or four teams. Draw a card and then that random classmate has to answer a question that you pulled from the internet. That's a pretty good way. I like this teacher's system of doing that in his classroom and I'm going to start doing that as well. You get your team split up, I draw number seven, I look at number seven on my roster and whoever that happens to be get the first question. Now you can make it as fun as you want it to. You can make it jeopardy style, where if they miss it, they go backwards. If you have the ability to get to maybe candy that the teacher has in their drawer to hand out to students. You could, you know, have some prizes at end, but I think that is a pretty nice, unique way of learning concepts in the classroom. I'm definitely going to prepare some of those over the summer and do that next time. I might do it some whether the internet's down or not, but I think that's a good idea for us to be thinking about Now.

Speaker 1: 8:05

The next one is a little bit more bizarre, but I like the idea. And no, this isn't really the complicated one, but it requires you to take your Zumba into. That's not right. Not Zumba to, that's not right. Not zoom, but I mean the exercise room, the room, but the back, the floor back, the automatic floor back that has the sensors.

Speaker 1: 8:31

And what I've seen done with this is that you set cups up around the outside of a table. You set your floor vacuum on the middle of the table, hit the button no-transcript the first cup that it knocks off. Well, that person's number is who answers the first question. Or you could say maybe you've got different colored cups, or you mark them differently and you can say all right, team one, your cup got knocked off. You have to answer this question and that's how you go with that one. I saw that done. I'm thinking now the way I saw it it done. There was actually a square table with colored cups all the way around. Each edge was a different color and whoever the team was that had the last cup standing, they were the winner. But obviously you can go in different directions on this and put it in the classroom as well, of course. I'm I'm sure you want to carry your Roomba in with you everywhere you go, but keep it out in your car and if you find out the Wi-Fi is down, that might be something fun to do for the day. I had two last ones, and they are.

Speaker 1: 9:51

This next one requires the most preparation. There's ample videos out there. You can watch some of these, but obviously it's got to be you. You're going to make a video and you're going to have to edit it and you're going to have to do various things I would search for. I haven't watched the video in a while high school teacher video, something like that because here's what he did.

Speaker 1: 10:21

He acted like he was doing something on the screen and it froze on him. What he had really done is recorded the front of the classroom onto the screen or whatever background he chose. And then he said, well, I've got to figure out how to fix this. He gets behind the screen but yet on the screen you see his real back, just like he has injected himself into the video. And the way he did that, he recorded all this at home, with him working his way out, drawing on the screen, those kind of things. And then he slid back out the side and became a person in the video and of course he recorded that in advance, got his timing down so that he knew about right. Here is where I slide behind the screen. All of a sudden it looks like I have become part of the screen and then I slide back off. That's a pretty cool effect that I really like.

Speaker 1: 11:26

If I try to put one of those together and I might actually try it during the summer it is mind-blowing to the students in your room because they know how you did it, but still your room because they they know how you did it, but still the very fact that you put that together is so cool to them and they want to. You know they they're probably going to want to watch it more than one time, so you're going to have to really be coordinated and you can't forget your moves or your timing. You'll have to practice with the video, but it's pretty cool. It's basically you becoming like you're inside the video that you're showing all just from walking behind the screen. You can put some things below the screen so they can't see your legs, if that adds to the effect, but I thought that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 12:11

The last one might be the wildest thing that I've ever seen a teacher do. This was a teacher. It wasn't a substitute teacher, but you could do it as a substitute teacher, especially if you're already well known in the classroom. You can do this as a sub and you can only do it at a special school. In this particular school he was trying to get the kids' attention and it just happened to be a school where he was subbing on the first floor and the first floor was pretty even with the ground outside. So if you looked out the window and there was somebody standing out there, they would pretty much be eye to eye with you. It was a warm day, so he had opened some of the windows. It was a large window. A lot of schools don't have the large windows anymore, so you can't do it. If that's not the case.

Speaker 1: 13:00

What he did? He acted like he got fed up with the students not listening to what he was saying and he said well, if you're not going to listen anymore, if you're not going to pay attention, I'm just leaving. And instead of walking out the door, he walks over to that. He runs to that window and dives and jumps through the window. Now, my body is not made for diving, so I won't be doing this one. But it shocked the students so much they couldn't believe it and he had already laid padding outside, so he didn't hurt himself, but just the fact that he did something unusual and clever in the classroom. It really got their attention and I'm guessing they listened to him the rest of the class. So here's what we're talking about today Be prepared, be unique, share some things with those students that they've never seen before.

Speaker 1: 14:01

They're tired of seeing the same old teachers, the same old subs, come in and basically just occupy a seat or immediately yell at them whenever they talk. And they want something fresh. They want something fresh, they want something new. You could do things easier inside the classroom. You know one thing that I've done before, and I've told you this story. I've done something similar.

Speaker 1: 14:29

I didn't do this exactly, but this was from a college class. I went in a college class it was a health class and the teacher, after about five minutes, looked down at the girl in the front row. And he, teacher, after about five minutes, looked down at the girl in the front row and he said Miss, did anyone ever tell you that you're extremely ugly? And if you can imagine, it was like a silent roar because people couldn't believe he said that to her. Well, it turns out that he had worked this out with that student before the class. He said this class is going to be about emotions today. Would you mind if I used you in this way? It was obvious that it wasn't obvious. I said it. Just the opposite. Nobody in the classroom realized what had happened. They didn't realize that the teacher had worked it out with the girl before the class and that they were just going to study about what emotions do to you and how you can change somebody's demeanor just by the way you treat them.

Speaker 1: 15:31

So this summer, be thinking about a lot of things that you could put together over the summer that will make you memorable to those students there are. I'd like to say I ran into a student I hadn't seen in two years. I ran into her. She was also a volleyball player, so I saw her multiple times some days and we had a few laughs and you know, it just so happened she played volleyball at the school. I'm assistant coaching now so I made sure to tell her that and I wanted to see her at some of the games, kind of watch his play, and it was really nice to get acquainted with her again. Be thinking about some things that make you memorable. Don't go in there and just be the same old cook, cutter, substitute teacher. Be one that the kids will remember from now on and that you will become famous for.