How to Create a Lesson Plan That Any Substitute Teacher Can Follow

Getting your own planbook in order can be challenging enough. You want to craft engaging lessons that hit all the major points of your curriculum while still leaving time for fun and creativity.

It can be exhausting.

So once you have your long-range plans and your daily lessons in order, you definitely don’t want to see it all fall apart because of a sick day. That’s probably why so many teachers suck it up and head to work sick sometimes. In fact, a study of teachers in Britain found that 43 percent of teachers didn’t use a single sick day in a given school year. Are they healthier than everyone else?

Doubtful. In fact, studies have shown that teachers have more health problems than civilians: About 42 percent of teachers suffer from sinus infections and laryngitis, compared to only about 26 percent of the general population.

So why are they still going to work?

They probably just didn’t want to deal with writing sub plans.

Best Practices for Sub Plans

If you’re lucky enough to work at a school with a dedicated building sub, making sub plans is easy because you can touch base in person about your lessons, and that person probably already knows most — if not all! — of your students by name.

For most of us, though, a substitute teacher is a complete luck-of-the-draw situation, and you never know what you’re going to get. They probably don’t know your students, and they’re likely to be struggling just to find the nearest bathroom at lunch time.

As researcher Raegan T. Miller put it for Education Week,

Almost everyone appreciates at a gut level that what happens in the regular teacher’s absence is not often something to brag about. It’s kind of an underbelly, one of the darker secrets of what happens in public education.

The best you can do as a responsible educator is to make the best darned sub plans you can, so your substitute teacher can handle your curriculum and your students. Here are some crucial best practices to keep in mind as you get started:

• Make Plans for a Layman: Don’t consider asking your sub to do anything that requires specialized knowledge or skills. That means no chemistry lab experiments, Shakespeare read-alouds or material that hasn’t been previously taught.
• Include Lots of Independent Learning Opportunities: Without you there to guide them, the best sub plans will give your students time to practice skills rather than acquire new knowledge. Set them to work on sets of review problems for math, sustained silent reading for ELA, or a fun hypothetical question for an intriguing impromptu mini-essay.
• Rely on Classroom Routines: Spare your sub some hassles by assigning students to take care of attendance and housekeeping duties ahead of time if possible. If you already have a routine in place for vocab study, French listening activities with headphones, or think-pair-share work, make use of them in your sub plans. When students already know what to do, your plans are much more likely to be accomplished.
• Build in Accountability for Students: For older students, make sure that part of the plans include a piece that the sub will collect for you to review. A simple completion grade should suffice to encourage your kids to buckle down and get to work in your absence, and it gives the substitute teacher some leverage for classroom management.

What Every Substitute Needs to Succeed

Substitute teacher Deborah Bouley blogged about her experiences to help other subs know what to expect. Tucked in among her great pieces of advice was this insight into what it’s like to walk into someone else’s classroom for the first time:

The reason for the anxiety is that we do not have a support system and we are not sure of ourselves. When you substitute teach you really and truly are on your own.

Keep this in mind as you prepare those sub plans — being a substitute teacher isn’t easy! Whether you’re planning to share your planbook electronically or are putting together an old-fashioned binder, make sure your substitute has everything she needs to get through the day. Be sure to include all of the following items:

• Crucial Paperwork: Class rosters, current seating charts, instructions for logging attendance, a daily bell schedule and the contact info for a nearby, helpful colleague are all must-haves.
• Detailed Instructions: Spend some time formatting step-by-step instructions for your day or for each class period. Type them up, and don’t be afraid to use bullets, headers and other helpful techniques to make important information stand out.
• Required Materials: Make all necessary photocopies and gather up any special materials (TVs, DVDs, the laptop cart, etc.) ahead of time. There’s no way the sub will find it all by herself in a timely manner.
• Alternative Activities: Include the plans you hope will get done (using the best practices outlined above), and then add one more bonus activity. You never know when your sub will be left with extra time on her hands, so help her be prepared to fill it.

If you’re ready to move beyond filling a clunky three-ring binder with all of your sub plans and materials, give Planbook Plus a try. We’ve got everything you need to keep your daily and weekly lesson plans organized and ready to share online, so you’ll never have to worry about your sub missing something again. Try Planbook Plus for free — your substitute teachers will thank you!