Fletcher Elementary School third graders, Giovanni Parasiliti and Maleea Haight, talk about the details they discovered about bullfrogs through their visually-orientated project.

“How many details did you gather about bullfrogs?” asked Fletcher Elementary School third-grade teacher, Vicky Volpe.

“We found four details,” said the group.

“Tell your classmates one you discovered,”

“Frogs have sticky tongues to help eat their prey,” said the group as they pointed to their newspaper article about bullfrogs, complete with headline.

“Great job written group. How did you collaborate together?”

“Good!”

The bullfrog project in Mrs. Volpe’s class was just one example of Fletcher School’s efforts to work towards school improvement goals this year. Two of these improvement goals are: increasing student engagement and differentiating for students’ needs.

Mrs. Volpe worked along side Instructional Coach Stephanie David on an end-of-unit study on bullfrogs. The entire ELA module has students using literacy skills to become experts — people who use reading, writing, listening and speaking to build and share deep knowledge about a topic, like frogs. The unit also includes informational text about bullfrogs. For the end of the first unit, students had the task of showing what they learned about the bullfrog’s survival by working on a team project. To meet the needs of the students, they were given a Learning Style Survey, to discover which style of learning, best suited them. The students were then placed into groups based on this data. They were assigned a project that matched their specific style of learning.

Visual learners created a large concept web of their learning.

Auditory learners wrote and recorded a “nightly news video” with a “scientist” that answered questions about bullfrogs.

Kinesthetic learners used their hands to fold paper into an answer/question quiz.

Students, who had the strength of writing, wrote a newspaper article informing readers of bullfrogs and their adaptations for survival.

All the students were graded using the same rubric. All the groups needed to include four to five details about the bullfrog’s survival. They were also rated on their group participation and collaboration. The students were able to assess their own learning by using the rubric and rating their own group.

The students were very excited and passionate about the work that they were doing. The creativity and talents of the students shined through! At the close of the lesson, students proudly presented their group project to their classmates, teacher, and Fletcher Elementary School Principal Maria DeJoy.