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Innovative educators know that students preparing for the challenges of work and further study in our ever-changing world need to achieve fluency and comprehension—but they also need to develop higher-level thinking skills and build deep knowledge. The following schools and districts are using edtech tools to integrate literacy skills across the curricula.

BUILDING CONFIDENCE AND REASONING SKILLS

How can teachers make writing more “hands on” and engaging for students while also teaching them close reading strategies in all content areas? At Corona Arts & Sciences Academy (CASA) in New York City, where “literacy is the life blood of education,” Principal Beth Hert, Assistant Principal Amanda Gardener, teacher April Taitt, and team are in their third year of using ThinkCERCA with their Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) classes. When students have authentic texts at their individual reading levels, “everyone has an entry point into the conversation.”

Current eighth graders in the CASA ICT class, who have been working on ThinkCERCA for three years now, demonstrate “an overwhelming build in confidence with both their use of technology and their written and oral work as opposed to classes who are not using the program.” While Hert and her team see many students “who support their claims but don’t successfully use their reasoning skills to synthesize and show how the evidence supports their work . . . it just seems more natural for these students to support their claims with evidence and reasoning.”

CASA teachers are being supported and encouraged to design cross-curricular lessons, such as a science/ELA collaboration exploring GMOs. In addition, CASA students have further opportunities to expand their cross-curricular learning through new coding and website design clubs.

LEARNING IN THE FISHBOWL

Since CASA is a new and growing school, it’s a challenge to get new staff up to speed every year without overwhelming them with “just one more thing.” So they’ve created “lab classrooms” led by more experienced teachers. ICT teams will float through these “fishbowls” this December to see the work in context and demystify its implementation before engaging in their next session of professional development. “We have found in our practice that showing versus telling makes the practice come alive,” Hert says

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CASA

SHOWCASING LITERACY AND CREATIVITY

THE CHALLENGE

Last year, the large and diverse Hillsborough County (FL) School District set out to create a literary event that would motivate students in over 225 schools and across all grade levels to read great books, to make cross-curricular connections by responding creatively to these books, and to use technology in meaningful and creative ways.

THE SOLUTION

An inclusive and representative cross-curricular team of people from across the district collaborated to create and plan the inaugural Student Literacy and Media (SLAM) Showcase. Students read books from grade-level Florida award nominated lists, created a diverse array of projects in the two different categories (2D and video creative expression), and presented them at their schools’ SLAM showcase events. Schools then selected representatives to bring their work to the district-wide Con-style event at the Tampa Convention Center.

We were building the plane as we flew it,” says Kimberly DeFusco, Supervisor, Library Media Services 6–12. Sharing and sparking ideas across the district, through PLCs and Twitter and other social media outlets, was key to the collaborative process of showing educators how they and their students could contribute to this event. As John Milburn, Supervisor, Library Media Services K–5, says, “You make the best plan you can and implement it—and then all of these other connections open up.” This year’s event adds a 3D category, which will further expand the creative possibilities to include, for example, sculpture, robotics, and 3D prints.

THE POWERFUL RESULTS

While art teachers, for example, immediately saw natural opportunities for cross-curricular connections as students used a variety of media to respond creatively, other connections weren’t as obvious at first. At Davidsen Middle School, the Computer Applications for Business class realized that, since they were already using Office Mix, they could create book trailers. At Blake High School, a public magnet arts school, TV and film production majors wrote, cast, and directed trailers “as if that book were a movie.” A fifth-grade student at Schwarzkopf Elementary created a stop-motion-animation trailer for a book she enjoyed using iMovie. Her project was tweeted, retweeted, and eventually reached the author—who loved it, came to the event, and met her young fan. These organic connections, particularly with authors who responded with excitement to students’ creations, created “a powerful symbiosis” that has surprised and delighted both DeFusco and Milburn. See more at bit.ly/SLAMWEB

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HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY

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