What is the Biggest Secret to Sustainability in the Classroom?  Teachers do some of the most impactful and important work, and keeping them in the classroom is our top priority here on the podcast and for team Teach On A Mission, and we work to do that by helping teachers build sustainable systems and practices in their classrooms.

Sometimes it’s hard to have these conversations about doing things that sustain teachers because it feels guilty to focus so much on the adult in the room rather than the students.  That narrative, along with the status quo of teacher hustle equating to effectiveness, is what’s ultimately driving teachers away from the classroom.

Could we overdo it by focusing too much on the teacher and not enough on the students?  Of course we could - there are two ends of extreme to every choice, and I choose to live somewhere comfortably in the middle as much as possible, including when it comes to building an effective...

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...

This week I want to be sure that I'm giving you as much practical flipped classroom strategies as possible.  No matter the flipped classroom model you choose (which you can learn about in the Ultimate Flipped Classroom Starter Kit here), you want to rely on solid procedures in your class.  

In this post, I will be bringing you the major three themes and desires behind procedures I had in my classroom, and what I recommend to all of the teachers in my online course, Flipped Classroom Formula.  These are absolute musts for any thriving flipped classroom.

1. Student Content

In my online course, Flipped Classroom Formula, there is an entire MODULE on just this topic... student content and what that looks like.  Here's the big secret... student content is NOT your videos.

Shocker, I know.

Here's the thing, you HAVE to have a procedure for what your students will be doing when they watch your videos.  You can't just leave them out for the wolves and...

Ten or so years ago when I decided to flip my classroom the reasons why I wanted to flip were very clear.  Crystal clear.

From wanting to do more than just lecture all day to increasing student accountability and ownership over their learning, I knew the flipped classroom model would get me closer to those goals.  I could go on and on about finding and solidifying your WHY for flipping, and I give most commons reasons why in this post, but it's something we dive deeply into in my online course where I walk teachers through, step-by-step how to flip their classroom, called the Flipped Classroom Formula.

I won't spend time in this post talking about reasons to flip because, I'm betting, you know what those are.  And if you don't know them for sure, you do have some idea of why you're looking into this whole flipping thing, and I want to help you solidify and optimize those reasons if you become one of the teachers who joins me in the Flipped Classroom Formula.

This...