Designing Effective Professional Development for Substitute Teachers

Download or read book Designing Effective Professional Development for Substitute Teachers written by Thomas Kristian King and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Substitute teachers are brought into a classroom in the absence of the permanent teacher to ensure continuous instruction occurs and students are afforded a safe learning environment. Most substitute teachers must immediately ask themselves two questions when they walk into the classroom: "Do I have control?" and "What am I supposed to do?" Unfortunately, maintaining instructional continuity is not always possible simply due to the challenges substitute teachers must face in this position as a temporary teacher. The purpose of this study was to create an online orientation course to identify what instructional topics best prepare substitute teacher candidates to enter a K-12 public classroom. Data were collected from the literature and participants to identify the skills they believed were needed to prepare substitute teachers for the classrooom. The data collected guided the development of an online instructional intervention administerered to 13 substitute teachers in a rural Mississippi high school. The results of the study aligned with the existing research and identified a need for continous professional development in classroom management and teaching strategies to further develop and equip quality substitute teachers.