Problem of Practice: How can I use design challenges to improve student engagement and learning, with a focus on English language learners?
District: Glen Cove
School: Landing Elementary
Facilitator: Jacqueline Grennon Brooks
Principal: Bridget Finder
Teachers: Courtney McCord
This action research project uses a Reading to Learn unit, with a focus on Narrative Nonfiction, to engage 3rd grade English Language Learners and their native English-speaking classmates in expanding their expressive language and reasoning skills through reading biographies. Each student produced individually illustrated “portrait posters,” recorded books complemented with pictures and/or voiceover technology, and 3-D artifacts related to the person being studied, all shared at an in-person celebration of learning.
