I can't wait to share this with you!  Recently, I interviewed Keri Tafuro who demonstrated how flipping her classroom has transformed the teaching  experience and the learning  experience of her students, both within the pandemic and regardless of it.

On today’s episode of the Sustainable Teacher Podcast I am so excited to welcome Keri Tafuro, a full time classroom teacher of  7th and 8th grade math  in Vacaville, California.  Keri isi a 22-year teacher, having  taught math  at the  high school, and now middle school level.  She and her husband  have two college-aged children, and mine and Keri’s paths crossed about a year ago when Keri was exploring a bit more about the flipped classroom, and came upon one of my Facebook live trainings.

Since then she has jumped in with two feet taking Flipped Classroom Formula last summer and into flipping her classroom this school year.  I can’t wait to bring her...

Who would have known almost a year ago that we would all have experienced such a monumental change in our lives that showed us just how important and effective having students in the classroom with us is for student engagement.  Who would’ve known?

Somewhere in the middle of my second year of teaching, I vividly remember a moment when I realized, it’s got to get better quickly - meaning, I’ve got to stop engaging more and working harder than my students when it comes to understanding the content.  I’m not the one taking the test and I care a whole lot more than they do.  Side bar - of you course you do, you’re the teacher in the room, but feeling exhausted at the end of the day because of all your hard work just to have black screens or non-engaged students is not what’s going to keep you going in this career field.  

No matter how long you’ve been teaching, this year and your experiences with distance learning have...

Hey there teacher friend!  Today I’ve got a bit of a different episode for you.  A few months back I sat down with Catherine Whitcher, the Master IEP Coach of specialedinnercircle.com and catherinewhitcher.com to chat about the possibilities of the flipped classroom in today’s education context and how the flipped classroom can serve teachers at the IEP table and their students.

This interview was done for Catherine’s podcast which I encourage you to go check it out, it’s called Special Education Inner Circle, and so she is actually interviewing me.  I loved our conversation so much that I wanted to share it on my podcast as well.  At the end of the episode you’ll hear me talk about dates long past for the Sustainable Teacher Challenge, but have no fear you can still go check that out here.

From a basic understanding of flipped learning to how the flipped classroom can serve you and your students long after distance learning, this...

The last couple weeks on the blog have been focused on talking to and hearing from students of the flipped classroom.  If you haven't checked those out yet, I would encourage you to here and here.

This week, however, we are shifting gears and our focus to be on teachers not who have just flipped their classrooms, but who have done it by participating in the implementation program that is Flipped Classroom Formula.

Flipped Classroom Formula is the online course I built over a year ago to help teachers not just consider flipping and if it will work for them, but instead to get tools in their hands and actually build the thing.  That's right, it's an implementation program where I walk teachers through, step-by-step, exactly how to flip their classrooms like a seasoned veteran without the overwhelm of DIYing it.

 But instead of hearing me talk about it, I want you to hear from teachers who have been in the program and flipped their classrooms.  Keep in mind that...

I've been thinking about this post for a while and how to go about writing it.  Better yet, I've been thinking about all of the things I'd like to include in it because it's hard to put the words together to describe how the flipped classroom changed so much for me.

To me, flipping is such a simple idea.  Just flip how you deliver the content with what is traditionally homework, and you've done it.  But I guess that's a bit of an oxymoron to say that flipping something on its head is simple.

Truly it is simple, and so are clear results you'll see in your classroom and your students.  But the process of making it happen, once I step back and think of all that goes into it, really isn't the simplest process in the world.

And that's why I want to support you on your journey of flipping your classroom.  It's not an easy journey.  It certainly wasn't easy for me when I took on the task on my own about nine years ago, and that's not something I want for...

I've been thinking about how to go about writing this post for some time now.  And here's why.  I am huge believer in the power of the culture of your classroom.  I believe it is the undercurrent of every single classroom, contributed to by every facet of the classroom, and does not overlook anyone in the room with its impact.

In the flipped classroom, it is imperative - and this is the main takeaway I want you to get - I'll say it again, IMPERATIVE that you as the teacher spend time consciously thinking about and anticipating your flipped classroom culture.  You'll see what I mean by this as you get deeper into this post, but to quickly show the significance here I'll say that you don't want to do all this work in flipping your classroom just to have a traditional classroom culture that sabotages all that work you've done.

The good news is that it's largely in your control.  The not so good news is that, well, it can totally sabotage all this hard work...