DIfferentiation is Good Teaching: A Review of "Differentiation From Planning to Practice"

After learning some frameworks and theories about differentiation from Carol Ann Tomlinson's “How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms", I yearned for more practical strategies. Rick Wormeli's “Differentiation From Planning to Practice" did not disappoint. Rather than summarizing the book, I'll list what I learned, both things I already do that are consistent with the research and things I want to do in order to be more consistent.


Helpful Research

1) Differentiated Processing: One piece that was new to me is differentiating processing activities. Currently, I use the same processing activities after a video lesson - practice quiz, guided notes, and posting and responding to online discussion forums. It's now clear to me that students process the material in different ways and ought to have options for processing the content. What I'll plan to do is give students more options of processing after a lesson - perhaps they can use their journals to choose from the following:

• summary paragraph
• Creative RAFT, poem or story 
• Complete or create a graphic organizer 
• Compare & contrast assignment 
• Frayer method 
• Play a game with a twist - like charades, pictionary, charades or taboo

The processing activities can be organized in think dots, cubing, think tac toe or choice boards. This approach could work with my current system because the processing activities can be seen as level 1 out of 4 in my standards based grading world.

2) Building background or give experience to get background: I already accomplish this through the exploration activities prior to lessons. Even if students don’t possess the optimal priming experiences, they will gain this experience through the exploration.

3) Priming- I prime student brains by offering guided notes, a list of the "I can statements” they will learn about, a unit overview and potential agenda for each lesson.

4) Primacy-Recency theory: we remember the first and last things we learned in a chunk of time. This means the first and last minutes of class are crucial. I have to do a better job designing warm up activities that engage students fully in content. I have to move away from the housekeeping activities at the beginning of class. The same thing can be said for exit tickets; they should be as closely related to content as possible. Housekeeping and non-content related metacognitive activities can be done at other times in the lesson.

5) Explore similarities & differences: Students learn more effectively when they are asked if asked about similarities and differences. This is consistent with the idea of schema and brains wanting to make connections between preexisting schemata. In some processing activities, I need to ask how things are examples or non-examples of a concept.  The tricky thing is the brain is ineffective at remembering distinctions if learned at the same time. If possible, I need to teach  similar ideas days apart.

6) Novelty: While it’s important to prime the brain, it’s also important to switch things up and break from the routine. Brains are effective at picking up contrast and important moments. I need to encourage more divergent thinking by asking for arguments against what they learned, describe concepts without using certain words, etc.

7) Memory: Middle school students are typically limited to memorizing 5 unrelated facts.

8) Socializing: I already structure my course to be as social as possible. Most assignments and tasks can be completed in groups or as individuals. Students can pick and choose to what extent they wish to be social and with whom.

What’s clear to me is the heart of differentiation is just good teaching research-based practices. Providing choice and alternative routines and assignments are also important but meeting the needs of all students has to start with solid pedagogy.

Related articles

• A Review of "How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms"
• Differentiated Grading: Fair Isn't Always Equal

The Sweet Sauce: Reflecting on "Flipped Learning - Gateway to Student Engagement"

I recently finished reading "Flipped Learning - Gateway to Student Engagement." This book chronicled the path several teachers took from Flip Class 101 to Flipped learning. Typically, teachers who go down the flipclass road start by assigning students to watch videos at home and complete traditional homework at school. Their next destination, often called the Second Iteration or flipped learning, can take on many forms, from mastery, to PBL, to UBD, to Explore Flip Apply or even to my model, Mastery Learning Cycles. The difference in these reiterations is the focus is on learning and how best to facilitate it.  

The "final" destination of each teacher varies based on teacher personality and philosophy, strengths and weakness, interests and preferences, as well the culture of the school and support from administration. The most salient conclusion from this book is there really are countless types of the "sweet sauce." To borrow an analogy presented in the last chapter, Prego became successful because, rather than trying to design the ONE spaghetti sauce preferred by most people, they departed from their competitors by creating varieties of sauces which turned out to be the best for a variety of people. Everyone has their own favorite flavor of spaghetti sauce, just as flipped teachers eventually adopt the model that works for them. 

So far, my sweet sauce seems to be a combination of Standards Based Grading and Mastery Learning Cycles. Students are assessed on how well they understand specific objectives and demonstrate important competencies, rather than merely being evaluated through points or averages. Students demonstrate mastery of these competencies by progressing through  modified 5E learning cycles at their own pace. The flipped videos are only used in one particular phase of the learning cycle to supply content knowledge and at other phases just to provide instructions for labs and other important procedures. This iteration will continue to evolve and hopefully closer approach my sweet sauce. 

The other useful application of the Prego analogy relates to student choice. Just as consumers are free to choose the spaghetti sauce they prefer, many of the flipped teachers highlighted in the book eventually provided choices to their students - choice in how they acquire content (My video? Another teacher's video? Textbook? Website? Simulation?) - how they processed or applied content (Lab? Problem set? Game?) - and how they demonstrated learning of the content (Quiz? Project? One on one chat?) 

The potential of flipped learning is indeed a gateway to student engagement. 

A Review of "How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms"

 Carol Ann Tomlinson's book, How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms, was a brief introduction to differentiation. I read this book in order to improve my asynchronous flipped class. As I started to let students work at their own pace a couple of years ago, I immediately understood other accommodations can and should be made in order to meet the needs of my students. I read the book in the hopes of learning some tools of the differentiation trade.

Overall, the book was useful. Initially, I was disappointed because I already knew several of the techniques mentioned; I was hoping to pick up some more ideas. I'm already using tools like cubing, choice boards and tiered assignments. However, after greater reflection, I'm grateful for reading this book because I now have a better understanding of the guiding principles of differentiation and picked up a few ideas. Some of the ideas that I plan to institute as a result of the book are the following:

• Challenge leveling: in problem sets and beyond the course learning opportunities.
• Choices in learning materials: textbooks, videos, online articles, simulations, etc. 
• Compacting: students who demonstrate prior mastery of a concept can "test" out of the unit.

It was validating to read that some of the strategies I already decided to institute were considered effective ways to differentiate. For example, I am holding all students accountable to be able to apply their learning but exceptional students will be allowed to demonstrate learning at a higher level by creating, evaluating and analyzing learning materials. These higher order products are organized in think-tac-toe boards, choice boards, 2:5:8 boards, etc. Another point of validation was the idea that everything does not have to be graded. It's okay for students to practice applying skills without the specter of a grade looming. It's also helpful to know that my approach of starting small and adding more opportunities for differentiation is appropriate. 

The greatest takeaway from the book was the cognitive framework for differentiation. Rather than gaining a random collection of tools, I have better insight into the paradigm shift, which will equip me with the ability to develop my own tools. For example, there are three major ways to differentiate - by readiness, interest and learning profile. I've tended to focus on readiness and interest. It's easier to differentiate according to ability (readiness) and interest by offering choices at harder and easier degrees of difficulty and allow some freedom in the details and topics of projects. It is much harder to tailor intervention and activities based on individual student learning styles or profiles. That will take a better understanding of learning profiles and the type of lessons that will cater to the various styles in my classes. Looks like I have more research to do. 

The other major insight is there are three major things one can differentiate: content, process and product. Again, I've favored some of these more than others. It's easier to differentiate student products because projects can be broad enough to allow students to decide which modality to use - a report, presentation, video, essay, photo journal, story, etc. In some ways, differentiating content can also be straightforward. I have already offered optional topics for students to learn. Some students will have an opportunity to solve dihybrid Punnett Squares or sex linked problems, while other students will only handle basic genetics problems. In addition, students are allowed to learn the content at their own pace. The most difficult, or time consuming, part of differentiating content is curating a library of varied resources that can make the content accessible to all students. I would love to create an iBook that some students can choose to read, rather than relying on watching the videos I make. 

Another piece is differentiating process. These are the sense making activities that help students process or understand the material. Right now, I don't have many options for students to learn and process the material. Students may complete the sense making activities at their own pace and even have the freedom to pick and choose how much of the activity to complete; however, they do not have freedom to choose WHICH activities to complete. They all pretty much have to do a problem set, lab and online discussion for a typical learning cycle. I'd like to give students a choice, or make the choice, about the nature of the sense making activity. 

The neat thing about differentiating by readiness, interest and learning profile and differentiating content, process and product, is there are a number of possible techniques in a given unit. In one learning cycle, I may differentiate the content by interest but keep the other variables the same. In a different learning cycle, perhaps I may allow students to submit different products according to their learning profile. The combinations are plenty and can be tailored to the particular topic and combination of students in my class. 

The Magic of Google Forms for Beginners

Google Forms can greatly enhance a course. The ease of use coupled with the spreadsheet that automatically organizes the responses, make Google Forms my go-to survey-maker. Below you'll find some great uses of Google Forms that are relatively easy to use and set-up.

1) Formative assessment - after watching the video, students complete the Google Form. Some of the form tasks might be answering questions, writing a summary and asking a question. The responses get organized in a spreadsheet and there is an option to view the responses in graphs. In a traditional class, this is analogous to an exit slip. I appreciate being able to gauge what my students know and are confused about before arriving to class. This information can inform my planning and intervention.

2) Student feedback - at the end of the year, I have students complete an anonymous course evaluation. I highly recommend doing it anonymously to help get genuine answers but some might disagree. I've learned some interesting facts about my course by reading through the responses. 

3) Student reflection - I use Google forms to reinforce meta cognition skills. Regularly, I have students complete a form as a means to reflect on their learning. They may also reflect on their contribution to a group project, which helps me formulate future groups or intervene.

4) Submitting work or lab data - if you have students create online materials, like blogs, presentations or videos, it can be daunting to organize these submissions. You can send a Google form requesting the URL of their assignment. In science classes, you can also have students share their data with the class by filling out a Google Form. When it's time to review student work, all of the links or data are organized in a spreadsheet for you. 

5) Polls - whenever I need to poll students, perhaps as a pre and post discussion activity about a controversial issue, I prefer to use Google forms as well. 

Google Forms can do a lot more, especially when scripts or add-ons enhance the response spreadsheets. For more uses of Google Forms, visit this site. 

A Review of "Mastery Learning in the Science Classroom"

Kelly Morgan's book on mastery science classes only spans 68 pages but is full of insight and practical advice. The book outlines her motivation and journey to mastery learning, while also dedicating a chapter to the research, some of which, has long since been forgotten.

Perhaps the most interesting point made in book is the revelation that research supported Mastery Learning decades ago. Mastery learning classes were unsustainable at the time and researchers stopped performing studies because of this lack of feasibility. There's an odd yet powerful observation Kelly makes: researchers stopped investigating mastery, not because it didn't work, but because it did work - there was just no way to pull it off!

Fast forward a few decades, the changes in technology do allow for mastery learning. It's no surprise that the pendulum shifts back to mastery.


I also appreciated some of the practical recommendations. Some of the particular suggestions are a bit dated since technology continued to advance even since the publication of the book a few years ago. Nevertheless, the idea of using an LMS, online varied quizzes and offloading direct instruction to an on-demand platform are still crucial to the success of mastery learning classes.

I highly recommend this book for flipped mastery practitioners or those who wish to explore the possibility. It is a great read!

Screencast 101 - a Comparison of Screencast Apps

There are tons of screen cast programs. A person new to flipping could be overwhelmed with the choices. Hopefully this post will prove to be helpful.

(feel free to edit the spreadsheet above to add programs, features and update outdated information. Since this is a publicly edited document, I can't attest to its accuracy.)

My favorite desktop program: 

Camtasia is hands down the iMovie of screen casting. It is a powerful feature-rich program. It has a longer history on the PC, so it has fewer features on the Mac. I hear ScreenFlow is the powerhouse on Macs but never used it. Nevertheless, it is an amazing program. It is costly though and has to be downloaded to your desktop. It has tons of editing and annotation options like zoom & pan, highlighting and even custom animations. You can export directly to YouTube, as well as TechSmith's screencast.com. Unlike the simpler alternatives, Camtasia supports recording from the webcam with a picture in picture option. 

My favorite web-based program:

Hands down Screencast-O-Matic is the best web based screen casting program. Assuming you have Java enabled, this free app is a great alternative for someone who doesn't want to download software. With an inexpensive upgrade, there are some nice editing and annotation features. Like Camtasia, you can either download the video or export to YouTube or a propriety website. Screencast-O-Matic also supports webcam recordings. 

My favorite iPad program:

Explain Everything is a feature rich video producing app. For only $2.99, you can import images, videos, and presentations from cloud based accounts like Google Drive, Dropbox and Evernote. You can export to YouTube and pretty much everywhere else. You can even import a website into your video. In addition to the annotation options, a cool useful but undervalued feature is the customizable laser pointer. And as expected for an iOS app, it integrates well with iTunes and the iPad's native photos and videos. 

Simplest/Easiest to Use
Jing (harddrive), ScreenR (web) and Quicktime Pro (harddrive) are the simplest and easiest to use screen casting programs. The drawback to these programs is that they produce one-take videos without editing and any helpful annotations. I use Jing for screenshots but not for screen casts because the videos are recorded as swf files, which do not upload to Youtube. Quicktime Pro has a relatively unknown screen recording feature. It's as easy as selecting "New Screen Recording" on the File menu and pressing record. This is my go-to program when I wish to do a quick one-take screen cast.

Importance of Adjusting to Student Feedback - Week 2 reflections

This was a shortened week since we had our annual overnight grade trip. Even so, we managed to get an exploration activity completed and some tweaks to workflow. 

Successes: 

Hands down the highlight of the week was when a student encouraged me to patent this way of teaching. He sounded disappointed when I informed him that thousands of teachers flip their class. That is my #eduwin for the week!

A new student joined the 8th grade and it became obvious during the exploration activity that he already knew the content for the upcoming week. We agreed that he didn't need to watch the next video, take notes nor submit the associated Google Form. He'll skip to the problem set to demonstrate proficiency, and if successful, work on an alternative project or move on to the next learning cycle. In the traditional model, he would've suffered through one period of lecture, demonstration and sample problems. Flipping the class will allow this student to use class time much more effectively. 

After some anxiety about students understanding the content presented in the videos, I'm relieved to share high ratings regarding the helpfulness and clarity of the videos with average ratings of 2.7 out of 3. (The average would've been higher but I neglected to have a 3 rating as a choice and was made aware by students who wanted to use a rating of 3.) In addition, students answered the understanding level questions correctly on the Google form responses. A handful of negative reviews can be attributed to students assuming the video would give information about something that I opted to put into a different video or an upcoming activity. A few incorrect answers on the Google form appeared to be careless arithmetic errors. Two students mentioned that they preferred the old method and one wanted to a question answered in the moment. 

On a personal but related note, I'm becoming less concerned with perfecting videos; rather, I'm focusing on getting useful videos published in a timely manner. I can now appreciate Jon Bergman's joke, "do I need the video to be perfect or do I need it on Tuesday?" This new focus should reduce stress and anxiety. The hours I put into earlier videos created an unsustainable workflow. The encompassing theme of the Flip seems to be intentional use of time and energy for students and teachers alike. Think I've internalized that message, finally!

The FormEmailer Google Form script works marvelously. This script sends email responses to form entries directly from the spreadsheet, rather than necessitating the crafting of separate email messages to each student. One concern I had about the Flip is the inability to answer questions during video-viewing or shortly after. One way to alleviate the concern was the addition of a Google Form, where students can submit questions. Adding the FormEmailer script greatly decreased the turnaround time for a response to student questions or concerns. I typed my responses into the spreadsheet, clicked a button or two, and students got an email response. There's some setup required but it is well worth it. Some of my email messages were sent minutes after the students submitted their form. I plan to enhance this with other scripts that can indicate which students have not submitted a form response. 

Gradebook Pro (on the iPad) has proved useful as well. If you take the time to input or import student email messages and determine values for each assignment, you can send a grade report to students directly from the app. The report can inform the students which assignments they are missing, current grade and even notes that you recorded about assignments and/or conduct. After sending these periodic messages, my inbox shortly gets flooded with Google Drive share notifications, indicating students submitting their work. On one or two occasions, the message prompted a student to correct a mistake I made in record keeping. 

Since we're on the topic of Google Drive documents, I reminded students in class that I needed to see their video notes. Apparently, I must have mentioned printing the notes as a submission option. A student replied (and I'm paraphrasing), "it's better to share on Google Drive with Mr. Wilson because his best use of class time is working with us, not checking assignments." Wow...this student is really starting to internalize my daily message - think about YOUR best use of class time. 

After class, I informally chatted with two students and asked whether the new assignment sheet format (more info on that later) was an improvement. They both agreed, one more emphatically than the other. The one criticism was deadlines were missing from the assignment sheet. Before I responded, the other student said, "that's the point, you're working at your own pace." Sounds like more students are starting to buy into the philosophy here. I met with the student who desired due dates and helped him set daily deadlines. This doesn't have to be an "all or nothing" approach. It's about giving each student what they need to be successful. If some students work more effectively with deadlines, then I can make adjustments for that student without handcuffing the others.

Adjustments:

I got some really helpful feedback about a video. A student mentioned on their Google form evaluation of the video that they would love more practice on the concept, while others felt they understood the concept just fine. Since there is always an application in class, I took this to mean that the student wanted just a bit more practice before coming to class. Typically in the form confirmation page, I share the answer key to the form questions, in order to give students instant feedback. Now, I'm adding a link to additional practice problems with answers. This way, students can choose whether they want the extra practice or not.  

The great thing here is that some students are submitting questions with answers in their Google form response. These questions can behave as formative assessment for the students who submitted them and extra practice for future students.

I'll need to add a table of contents to videos. On several occasions, I referred to a specific part of an instructional video. This will be helpful to allow students to pick parts of videos they need, instead of watching the entire video. 

On my tracking sheet, I have students input the date on a completed cell and change it from red to green. Even though this seems like a simple 2-step task, is it really necessary? It occurred to me that they can input the date and I can set up conditional formatting to automatically change cells with dates into green and set empty cells to red.

I also found a simple solution to the ridiculous issue in the mobile version of Google Drive Sheets, where students accidentally erase other entries because the entire row gets highlighted when a student edits a cell. 

   I switched the rows and columns so if a student edits a cell, they are only editing their row. I suspect they will be more careful and aware of their actions if their entire row can get ruined due to careless editing.

After a brief love affair with Mentormob playlists, I've opted to use an online assignment sheet with links to all resources. [I alluded to this change earlier in this blog post.]

Multiple Playlists vs...

One Assignment Sheet

Even though the playlists are aesthetically pleasing, it became clear that the extra step of navigating through a playlist was an unneeded obstacle. In addition, a student pointed out that a web page with multiple playlists takes quite a bit time to load. I should have expected this because last year's evaluation responses indicated students found the online assignment sheet with links to documents all on one page to be useful. I'm unsure how I got to this point; perhaps it's because I loved using Mentormob to learn about different topics. It's still a great tool but the online assignment sheet just works better for my students. 

Related articles

• The Potential of the FLIP Meets Workflow & Tech Issues Head-on: week 1 reflections
• Reflections on my First Attempt at Flipped Learning

Grading on the iPad - A Look at Gradebook Pro

Gradebook Pro is a wonderful iPad app that can replace an educator's grade book. I'm sure some teachers will find this app indispensable.

Some of the features that I have found the most useful are -

• Easy to use.
• Protected with a passcode.
• Calculate weighted or standard averages, even if all assignments are not graded.
• Organize assignments (eg, tests, labs, quizzes.)
• Add notes to each graded assignment.
• Grade summaries can be sent via email.
• Backup to Dropbox.
• Vote to request new features.

Probably the most important and relevant to the flipped class is that the app is on the iPad. As I moved to a mastery model, recording grades and notes on the spot became important. On a daily basis, multiple students completed assignments and I needed a reliable way of keeping track of completed assignments. Gradebook Pro did that and so much more.

If you have the time, check out this other positive GradeBook Pro review.

Curating Learning Materials via MentorMob

When I started to create and organize materials for the flipped class, I immediately wondered how to share them with students. I also desired a way to keep track of student progress in my asynchronous course.

I decided to use MentorMob. MentorMob is a site where people create learning playlists. Learning playlists are collections of curated online resources. These playlists are public so a person could use them to learn about baking cakes, tying karate belts, and driving cars.

My mastery learning cycles  (explained in a previous post) are organized into these MentorMob playlists. I have flipped videos, Google documents, presentations, websites, and links to online quizzes. There's even an option to make quizzes and challenge questions between steps in each playlist; unfortunately, these options don't show up in mobile web browsers. Another benefit is students can easily keep track of which steps they've completed. The playlists can also be embedded on external websites. I included a few below.

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

Concerns from a Devil's Advocate about the Data Supporting the FlippedClass

CC Image courtesy of Flipped Learning Network

If you've been following the flipped class, then you've probably observed the infographic on the left several times. Like dozens of educational reforms, the flipped class has been scrutinized for it's lack of data concerning student outcomes. I must admit that, even though I buy into the flipped class and see it's potential, I worry that some of the data is not convincing - at least not yet.

In my graduate school course, I've read a few papers regarding the flipped class. The Flipped Learning Network, Pearson and George Mason University sponsored a "Review of Flipped Learning." The paper is an extensive review of some preliminary findings and case studies.

The authors were honest at the beginning of the paper when they stated that "quantitative and rigorous data on Flipped Learning is limited...(page 2.)" In the following paragraphs, they further admit that the present research mostly "consists of teacher reports on student achievement after adopting the model" and offer that these teachers "report that their job satisfaction has improved." I have to admit a certain level of skepticism as I continued to read on. My chief concern was the conflating of different pedagogical approaches with flipped instruction. The authors did a wonderful job explaining how Active Learning, Peer Instruction, Priming and Pre-training lead to improved student outcomes. Although I do see how flipped instruction can make these other approaches possible and the overlap between flipped instruction and those pedagogies, I finished this section feeling a bit underwhelmed about the data supporting flipped instruction.

The meat and potatoes of the review paper were the case studies from Byron High School in Minnesota and Clintondale High School in Michigan.

Byron High School

CC Image courtesy of Flipped Learning Network

Bryon High School was plagued with low math scores on standardized exams. According to the review, the flipped class caused the increase in math scores seen in the graph on the right.

However, upon closer inspection, the department chair came up with a plan to replace textbooks with open source materials, rewrite the curriculum and flip their classes. It's almost impossible to tease out the actual cause for the increased test scores. Perhaps not as significant but an interesting observation, the plan to make those changes was created in 2009.  According to the graphic, Bryon already outscored the rest of the state by 16%. Although, the gap did increase beyond 2008.

Clintondale High School

CC Image courtesy of Flipped Learning Network

Clintondale was in a similar situation as Bryon with low achievement and high failing rates. The failure rates appear to drop significantly (33%) and student discipline cases dropped by 74% in two years. The results of the flipped class appear miraculous. The only question I have about the case study is regarding the graph on the left. I wonder if some of these results are actually significantly different. It's hard to interpret the data without knowing the historic trends. I would love to see the same data for the previous five-ten years to see how much the passing rates fluctuate in the traditional model.

Higher learning
The paper continued with citations of similar cases from the College of Westchester. Unfortunately, they only shared the conclusion from an electrical engineering course rather than supplying the data. However, they did share data demonstrating that the flipped class students performed better on a post test than their non-flipped counterparts. Although, I have to admit that both the flipped and non-flipped students apparently scored poorly, 31% versus 24% respectively.

Teacher & student perceptions

CC Image courtesy of Flipped Learning Network

To date, the most convincing data I've read about the flipped classroom comes from teacher and student reports. There is a bit of quasi-scientific anecdotal contamination here but the majority of flipped teachers and students in those classes report positive results and perceptions about the flipped classroom. The infographic at the beginning of this post, courtesy of Classroomwindow, suggests that flipped teachers unanimously agree that they will continue this approach and the majority report increased job satisfaction.  It's rare to get 80% of students to agree on much so I also found the positive reviews on the right intriguing.

Final Thoughts
From this post, you might get the idea that I'm against the flipped class, or at least skeptical of it. It might sound blasphemous coming from a science teacher but I'm not worried about the lack of data. The flipped class is a new grassroots and largely-undefined movement. While we get a sense that most flipped teachers offload direct instruction through video (and despite the F.L.I.P pillars), there is so much variation in this model. This variation makes it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the model. I suspect there are "good" and "bad" teachers flipping their classrooms. I would not expect this model to turn a "bad" teacher into a "good" teacher. Even though I criticized the authors for conflating active learning, peer instruction and other models with flipped learning, I understand why the authors used this strategy. The true power of the flipped classroom is NOT the actual flipping, but the real gift is what the flipped class makes possible! There are data supported strategies that work like Mastery Learning, PBL and Active Learning. For me, the point of flipping is to be able to use the approaches that we know to be effective in the classroom.