Before beginning Long-Term Sub (Jan 2022):
Prior to starting my long-term substitute assignment, I met with the teacher and discussed where the teacher will be leaving lessons off and what the expectations are for the students to have completed/learned by the end of the semester. We coordinated with lessons and discussed student behaviors and her behavior management. I was lucky that she has similar behavior management, so it was easier to transition the students when it was time for me to take over.
Since I have only taught High School Science classes full-time, it was definitely going to be a challenge to create lesson plans and a curriculum for 5th grade where I had to teach all subjects. To better prepare myself, I started curriculum mapping what I needed to complete by the end of my long-term substitute assignment. I had borrowed the books they use for 5th-grade instruction and started creating the lesson plans for the first 2-3 weeks. I felt that the better I know the content, the better I can relay the lessons to the students. As we got closer to the transition date, I came to the class to observe and also to let the students familiarize themselves with me.
Long-Term Sub Assignment (First week of February - End of April 2022):
The transition went smoothly. Since we hade very similar classroom management, it helped me and the students develop a routine quickly. The only difference was that since I had never taught multiple subjects in one day and relied on timed class periods, I stuck to using timers to transition us from one subject to the next. This way, the students always knew how long we were going to cover a subject.
Some of the classroom management that helped me with teaching 5th grade were having colored bins in the front of the room. On the white board in the front, I made sure to label what assignments were due in which colored bin. In addition, I placed important due dates and test/quiz dates on the front board. On the side board, I had split into two section: the first section had our daily homework written on it; and the second section had our unit KUDs (Know, Understand, and be able to do) and lessons. This gave students an idea of what we were expected to do for the unit.
To also keep things orderly, I assigned specific duties to students like someone in charge of getting ipads from the cart and returning them; paper distributors and collectors; stamper; and office messenger. As far as returning graded paper assignments, I had two pocket hangers that I labeled 1-22. Each student had a number and I would return their assignments into their numbered pocket. I would remind the students to empty out their pockets periodically.
I graded assignments as soon as they were submitted and returned within 7 days either to their pockets or on Google Classroom. I remained in communication with the students on Google Classroom on questions they had outside of the classroom. I also kept open communication with parents by emailing them when there were any concerns or responded to their emails when they had concerns/questions.
At the end of my long-term substitute assignment, I met up with the teacher to cover what we had completed so that she may teach for the last month of school. We communicated about each student and the overall class progress.
Post Long-Term Sub Assignment thoughts:
It was a very challenging and humbling experience to teach at an elementary school level. As I had grown comfortable and confident with my teaching skills at the high school level teaching science, this experience made me rethink and readjust some of my classroom management techniques. It also made me reach into subjects that I had never taught before, like writing and reading comprehension. I will say that Social Studies and teaching history reminded me of when I would teach the history of Science, so this brought me joy to teach history.
One of my biggest challenge was creating a differentiated learning environment for 5th grade. I have been used to doing this for single course subjects, but since I was brought out of my comfort zone with some subjects, I felt that I had to revisit some of the differentiated textbooks and lecture notes from the conference I took. One of the biggest things that made this task more challenging was creating the differentiated tasks for writing and reading, as I was very inexperienced with teaching this content. As I grew confident with teaching writing and reading, I also improved on differentiating tasks.
There were things that did work for me and that the students responded to well, especially collaborative work. I have always been a big proponent of collaborative work and community learning. There were certain units I would assign groups and give out tasks. This worked well for science and social studies. Many of the chapters I would have them work as a group to read; individually write Cornell Notes; and then gave them differentiated questions/tasks. For example, each group was assigned an A, B, C, or D letter. After reading and taking notes, I had all the A's, all the B's, all the C's and all the D's sit in a group. I would assign each letter a question based on their level of comprehension. Each letter would come up with the answers as a group. After the specified amount of time, I would have them return to their original group and discuss the questions and answers that they had just gone over with their letter group. At this point, all students will write down the questions and the answers in their own words for all 8 questions.
Overall, this was a great learning experience for me. It has shown me a different aspect of classroom management that I had to adapt to and I may apply to future classes that I will teach. This experience has also reinforced my passions for teaching. After a hiatus from teaching because of moving across the country, taking care of a small child, and then COVID lockdown, being in a classroom was just like being at home. Interacting with young minds, creating relationships, and enriching their minds is what I love to do. I am grateful for having been given this opportunity to be in a classroom again.