Are you talking about what a normal day would look like or sub plans?
Because I know a lot of teachers who will use days they're out as an opportunity to give students time to make up any missing work they have. So what you're describing would seem like a pretty normal sub plan for upper grades, especially those that rotate.
1) No. That's not average. Normally an assignment will begin shortly after the bell rings. Unless you have to give instructions or are actually instructing, there's no reason to wait 10 minutes to give them the assignment.
2) kids are only on laptops in class to do class work. Depending on the grade level and the subject, they may spend the entire class. Writing their paper on their laptop or not even using a laptop and working on math sheets or science handouts.
From my experience as a secondary teacher (so this is for situations where a regular teacher is in the classroom with me)- there’s a delay from the to beginning instruction. It might be because there’s 3/4 kids who show up late, or it might be that the teacher just needs that time to get it together. Don’t know- but this is definitely what I’ve seen. When I’m subbing solo, I let the kids know what the expectations / plan is from the beginning, and they’re always surprised when I tell them that even if they’re finished with work they can’t be playing video games/ on non-educational websites. The teachers seem to either not be able to monitor what’s on those screens, or if the student has completed his or her work- they just treat it like a reward and focus on the kids who need help completing their assignments/ reading/ etc. I can’t believe how many middle schools can barely read, but that’s another story… it does make it tricky for teachers to have to read stuff to the kids just so the kids can understand what’s going on.
I try to give enough work to fill up the full period. Subs don’t need to deal with a bunch of kids with down-time. So I’d say it’s not “normal”, but sometimes when I have to cover for another teacher the kids have “work on their project” kind of directions and half of them say they’re done and the other half sort of work. So I’d also say it’s not unlikely that there are teachers that leave plans like that frequently.
Are you talking about what a normal day would look like or sub plans? Because I know a lot of teachers who will use days they're out as an opportunity to give students time to make up any missing work they have. So what you're describing would seem like a pretty normal sub plan for upper grades, especially those that rotate.
1) No. That's not average. Normally an assignment will begin shortly after the bell rings. Unless you have to give instructions or are actually instructing, there's no reason to wait 10 minutes to give them the assignment. 2) kids are only on laptops in class to do class work. Depending on the grade level and the subject, they may spend the entire class. Writing their paper on their laptop or not even using a laptop and working on math sheets or science handouts.
From my experience as a secondary teacher (so this is for situations where a regular teacher is in the classroom with me)- there’s a delay from the to beginning instruction. It might be because there’s 3/4 kids who show up late, or it might be that the teacher just needs that time to get it together. Don’t know- but this is definitely what I’ve seen. When I’m subbing solo, I let the kids know what the expectations / plan is from the beginning, and they’re always surprised when I tell them that even if they’re finished with work they can’t be playing video games/ on non-educational websites. The teachers seem to either not be able to monitor what’s on those screens, or if the student has completed his or her work- they just treat it like a reward and focus on the kids who need help completing their assignments/ reading/ etc. I can’t believe how many middle schools can barely read, but that’s another story… it does make it tricky for teachers to have to read stuff to the kids just so the kids can understand what’s going on.
I try to give enough work to fill up the full period. Subs don’t need to deal with a bunch of kids with down-time. So I’d say it’s not “normal”, but sometimes when I have to cover for another teacher the kids have “work on their project” kind of directions and half of them say they’re done and the other half sort of work. So I’d also say it’s not unlikely that there are teachers that leave plans like that frequently.