Oddly enough, I'm at the end of my last week teaching for a while -- and, after Spring Break I'll have substitutes in my classes while I'm recuperating from surgery.

I've found it pretty easy, since my class schedule is detailed. If it were an emergency, things would probably still be ok -- since I often have exams prepared well in advance.

Also, the on-line option is good -- especially since it can help you communicate with your students as a group. In my logic classes, it isn't an option to do on-line instruction -- the course management software just can't deal with the symbols etc.

When I was pregnant, I knew I would be leaving mid-semester but also that I might have to leave at any point. So, before the semester began, I started writing out lecture outlines, discussion questions, and assignments. I kept everything in a 3-ring binder, and I put all of the supplementary tech stuff on a single CD that went into the binder pocket (notes within the lecture outlines alerted a sub to the presence of relevant stuff on the CD). It was a LOT of work, and I actually didn't finish it until nearly midterm, when I was set to leave anyway. Then I handed the whole thing over to my replacements.

I made clear to the students how this transition would work, which I think was important--they needed a sense that what we had started would continue, that expectations were the same, and that the structure of classes would still be familiar.

It was, I think, valuable for them to have my whole course, because they could see not only what they could/should do in my absence, but also what I had done all semester long. Later, when I left that school, I left the binder for the person taking my place in teaching that class (I had done much of the work on a supplementary contract over the summer, so the college legally owned the course). I don't think she still relies on it, but my former chair reported that it was useful for her in her first semester.

I found the exercise so useful that I tried to adopt it in every course I've taught since, but of course I never get everything typed up, coordinated, and filed.

On the other hand, I subbed for a colleague who had to leave halfway through a summer session, and it was a nightmare. His departure was due to a sudden emergency, and while he sent me what he could, I had to wing it a lot with no real sense of what the students had already done, as I had nothing more than the syllabus to go by. It was made worse by the fact that we couldn't know if or when he was returning, and there were two replacements who switched off--so in one summer session, the students had three different professors. I don't think my "course in a box" method would have made that kind of switch successful, but I do think it would have made it at least a little better.

I teach mathematics, so I can try to answer your question about the sciences.

Much of what we do in undergraduate mathematics courses is just straight lecturing on well known topics. If I'm teaching calculus and my planned class on Monday is to be on integration by parts, I would expect any of the faculty members in my department to fill in for me on about 5 minutes notice. With more advanced undergraduate or graduate courses preparing for class can require somewhat more time, but even so, there are several faculty members in my department who could step in and teach any of the undergraduate courses that I teach and even some of my graduate level classes.

In our department, if someone is going to be out for a day or two, we'll typically find another faculty member to handle their lower level undergraduate courses and just cancel the higher level classes for a few days. When someone is going to be out for a few weeks (e.g. when a colleague broke his collar bone and couldn't come in to work for several weeks) we try to make arrangements to cover even the upper level and graduate courses.

I don't expect that someone filling in for me will have the same teaching style, but I do expect that they'll follow the syllabus that I set at the start of the semester- it would be unfair to the students to change expectations in the middle of the course. If I've prepared homework assignments in advance, there don't seem to be many problems at all with this kind of substitute teaching. When the substitute has to start assigning homework or writing exams, it gets to be tricky, because other faculty members really do have different expectations of the students.

Rhonda, what you describe about the summer course is the nightmare scenario that led me to write this post. So far, every substitute situation in which I've been involved has had some notice and clarity, but I know that can't always happen. And you handled your pregnancy exactly the way the women have in my program. Though I could tell the story of the mother of a student in the course of one of our pregnant adjuncts who planned everything perfectly, but the mother screamed at me on the phone about how I should never have hired a woman who was pregnant in the first place. I tried to explain that not hiring her would have been against the law, but she wouldn't hear of it. It went nowhere, though, since I was right and things had gone according to clearly mapped out plans. (The mother also thought all parents should have all syllabi mailed to them at the start of the semester.)

Brian, that makes sense. I had this image in my head of missing a couple of lectures and having it all fall apart, but you're right that those courses are also pretty consistent and that there are often a few people who could step in more easily. Actually, in some ways, that's easier than the sub situation I'm in now where I'm just lucky I teach the same readings this woman does.

I know our faculty member in philosophy who teaches our logic course online, and it was much more work than she expected. Good luck with the surgery!

I'd say this is the way it works in my math department, too.

I did get comments on my evals that semester, under the question, "How could the professor improve this course?" that said, "Don't get pregnant." In my annual review, which asks faculty how we have responded to student feedback, I reported to my chair that I had successfully taught that course the following semester without getting pregnant even once.

For straight-up lecture courses, that'd be fine. It's what I've done in the past. However, I'm now doing a lot more active learning in my math classes. I think I have two colleagues who I would feel confident could come in and run one of my activities, even with a well-developed lesson plan. I was happy that two of my three subs this semester (one day each) were interested in using clickers when they subbed for me. That at least kept some consistency for the students, and my absences came at the start of chapters, so more lecture-based instruction was not a horrible thing.

Rhonda, that reminds me of a colleague who had jury duty and ended up on a jury for three weeks. She did go online with classes and was actually happy with the results, but she, too, got eval comments under that same question saying, "Don't go on jury duty." I'm not sure they understood the jury process.

Mitch, you get at something that I was trying to articulate but could not figure out in my head. Active learning is the key. For those of us who really do it, active learning is often highly personal. In cases like this, that's where the glitch can be.

I don't think this should be left up to the individual -- there should be some sort of department strategy. One semester, I was out unexpectedly for three months due to a debilitating illness. Another full-time faculty member had a stroke and was also out for half the semester. This circumstance was very unusual and unexpected so my department really had to scramble. It would have helped to have a plan in place.

Clio --

I'm not sure how you can plan for unexpected absences. I'm sure your illness was a surprise, as was the other faculty member's stroke. The semester I did chemo, I thought about a sudden and long-term absence when I was planning my classes. As a result, I didn't schedule topics that were unusual -- i.e. that only I know -- and I made my course materials pretty self-explanatory. Oddly enough, my "healthy" colleagues had many more sick days than I did ( I only had 2.5 days off for chemo/illness...).

Perhaps the best thing you can do is to have a very clear and detailed class schedule that illustrates the plans for the course on a daily or weekly basis. Having extra copies of all materials in your office and being well-prepared for the semester in terms of creating exams and quizzes on-line are the only things that would make it easier for someone to take over.

I do think my experience during my chemo semester, and with cancer in general, has changed the way I think about my classes. As a result, it's been pretty easy for my substitutes to figure out where my students are -- so they can do a good job in my place. Of course, that isn't to say that things can't go wrong -- but, my colleagues seem very comfortable stepping in, which is all I can hope for at this point.