Why Flip?

After a year and a half into my time at Byrne Creek, my husband was offered a job that would propel him up the experience ladder and open other doors in the future. It was great! ...but it was in Quebec City. Newly married, no kids, and still renting, we thought: Let's do it! That meant leaving behind my dream job, but I was all for it at the time.

We're still in Quebec City just over a year later, and I'm still a teacher, but I've been working at the elementary level...something I thought I'd NEVER do. What a growing experience! However, I miss teaching high school Spanish so much!!! The opportunities for teaching Spanish in high school here are limited...

So why am I writing this blog? Well, even though I'm not teaching Spanish right now, I know I will again very soon! And after the year and a half I had as a new teacher, I cannot even explain how excited I am to even delve deeper into my Flipped Classroom research! I feel flipping my class would allow me to do all the things I only thought would be possible in another lifetime as a teacher!

I'm not even sure how I stumbled across the my first 'Flipped' encounter. I'm so sure it was something I saw on Pinterest that lead me to an amazing blog (that I read like a novel and got sad about when I had caught up with the real time posts) by
Heather Witten that details her adventures with a Flipped Spanish classroom. Reading her blog led me to other sites and other blogs and pretty soon I was starting to feel overwhelmed by all of the info.

As soon as I started reading more, I started thinking: did I really flip my Intro class? Was a flip the solution to my split? Could I actually call it a flip? Maybe a baby flip?...or a somersault at least? Whatever it was, it helped me and my students stay sane and allowed me to guide their learning without forcing them to 'turn the page' when they weren't ready to....or at the opposite end they could 'turn the page' as fast as they wanted without having to wait for others and grow bored and doodle all over the desk....noooo...students wouldn't write on desks, would they? ;)

Reading Heather's account intrigued me because on some small level I had done this and I saw that it could be successful. It also made me think about all of those times I wished you could set a writing speed for the entire class because the clock was ticking and there was so much to do! It was stressful and I imagine it wasn't very fun for the students - if I felt rushed, then they felt it for sure. What would happen if we had more class time?

I was always so proud of how much my students had accomplished by the end of a semester, especially the Spanish 9s and the Intro 11s because they start with nothing (majority) and end up being able to write, read, and speak another language at a basic level, but still! So, it always made me feel that with more class time they would grow so much more and in the following years, their language level would develop even further. I don't want to teach Spanish so that students can answer all the questions on a test, I want to teach it because I'm helping them with another form of communication.

Do I know if the 'Flip' is perfect for me and my future students? No. However, it excites me and I see more of the advantages of the approach than any disadvantages. I don't have my Spanish class right now, but I'm staying positive (as much as I have enjoyed elementary!) and thinking I'll be the Spanish teacher somewhere soon again. So, I'm using my time to research, learn, plan, and contemplate what 'Flipping" is all about.

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