Target 3 – Flexible Learning Environments. FWSU will maximize flexible learning environments by redefining the school day, promoting learning experiences that extend beyond the school classroom, and fostering creativity, innovation, and differentiated learning opportunities for all.
Action Step – Develop opportunities for students to collaborate, innovate, create and conceptualize in all learning settings.
Indicator of Success – Staff, students and community embrace the digital, social, mobile and “always on” learning styles of 21st century students.
Students in Jan Murphy’s second grade classroom at Fletcher Elementary School are engaged in the goal of becoming published! The class has undertaken a group learning focusing on a frequent visitor to our neck of the woods – bears! What makes the project extra “bearable” is the incorporation of the digital learning devices into their work
Students utilized Discovery Education to help them gain the background knowledge needed to become authors. Discovery Education is known for captivating student interest by providing high quality and dynamic digital content. The use of this resource was brought to the classroom by FES Literacy Coach Julie Steves. Julie is completing an action research project as part of a FWSU Digital Learning class.
Along with great content, Discovery Education also provides strategies for students that aid them in their writing. Among the strategies used for the project were:
- Summarizing
- Sequencing
- Inferencing
- Comparing and contrasting
- Drawing conclusions
- Self-questioning
- Problem-solving
- Relating background knowledge
- Distinguishing between fact and opinion
- Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details
As educators, we know that students’ linguistic and literacy competencies impact their success in reading, writing, speaking, and listening – extending to all academic content areas. With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards comes a sharper focus on students’ ability to read carefully and grasp information, arguments, ideas, and details based on evidence in the text. Further, students are expected to answer questions that depend on having read texts from a variety of diverse media and formats, not just their own opinions. Discovery Education provides students a rich multimedia source to explore.
The student’s utilized digital skills, written language skills, illustrative abilities and peer relations. A project such as this brings a love of literacy to life!
The FWSU Story 