NEWS                                                                                        Walnut Valley Unified School District

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                 880 S. Lemon Avenue

May 15, 2012                                                                            Walnut, CA 91789

Contact:         

Kelli Gile, Office of Community Resources

(909) 595-1261 ext. 31204

WALNUT, CA--C.J. Morris Elementary fourth grade teacher Tara Noelte is head over heels about using a new teaching style in her classroom.   

For the past few months, she has utilized the “Flipped” method of teaching.  

Flipping the classroom is a concept where the teacher videotapes and posts lessons online for students to watch at home on their laptops. 

Noelte’s students each have personal MacBook laptops for both school and home use through the school’s innovative iImagine One-2-One laptop program.

When the fourth graders come back the following day, they engage in activities based on the lesson that they viewed the night before.  

During a recent lesson, they learned how to convert fractions and decimal numbers.  

For their homework, students watched the video that their tech-savvy teacher prepared for the lesson, identified and noted two things that were taught in a learning log, and practiced a few math problems related to the lesson.  

At school the next day, students engage in more practice in an environment that allows their teacher one-on-one time with students who were struggling with the concept.  

Students are able to master the concept and then practice at a more challenging level after finishing their homework sheet. They log on to ixl.com, an on-one program aligned program to Common Core and State Standards for leveled math practice.

The positive results and benefits to students are evident in their math chapter assessments.

Noelte began using the "Flipped Classroom" model at the beginning of the 3rd trimester in March. She quickly noticed average and low-average students benefited the most as their chapter assessment scores began to rise.  

“After comparing the 2nd trimester (traditional teaching) to 3rd trimester (flipped teaching) the results were very impressive,” she said.

Every student who received a 'C' at the 2nd trimester grading period, raised their grade to a B in the 3rd trimester. And nearly every student who received a 'B' in the 2nd trimester raised their grade to an 'A' in the 3rd trimester, she reported.

Noelte credits the successes to the simple and effective methods of the program. Students are able to watch the videos without the normal classroom interruptions.  They are also able to pause, stop and rewind the video, which allows them time to process the information.  

Before utilizing the flipping method, math lessons took about 15-20 minutes to teach. Now she can teach the same concepts during the 5 to 10-minute videos.

In the videos, students are able hear their teacher’s voice and watch as she demonstrates math on an interactive whiteboard application. Noelte creates the video on her iPad.

“I’m teaching and walking them through the steps of the lesson,” she said.  Each video remains posted online throughout the semester.

“I like flipping because when we’re doing math and we forget how to do something we can look back at the video and it helps us,” said Kayley Choi, age 9.

“It’s helping me because Mrs. Noelte makes videos and we get to watch them at home. And if we don’t get it we watch it again. The best part is that we get to do a learning log and hear her voice,” said Xophia Venegas, age 10.  

It’s comforting - almost like she goes home and helps you do homework, the fourth grader added.

Fourth grader Emmanuel Cabasal practices math skills on his personal MacBook.   

Mrs. Noelte’a fourth graders are reaping the rewards of the new flipping style in math. Shown with Danielle Alcala.

The “Flipping Method” allows Mrs. Noelte more time to provide individual attention to her students.