Effective Middle School Practices

Middle School: Effective Practices and Practical Tools

Effective Practices

• Small communities for learning within larger school buildings.
• A rigorous, core academic program with success experiences for all learners (elimination of tracking and having teachers with skills to teach heterogeneous groupings; promotion of cooperative learning).
• Empowerment for educators in making decisions about the experiences of middle grade students. (The organization of a school into interdisciplinary academic teams of teachers and multi-age students with shared decision making by a close-knit school community)
• Teachers who are expert at teaching young adolescents.
• Investigating unique roles for teachers, such as team participation and teaching, building advisor/advisee programs, and facilitating community-based participation.
• Exploring interdisciplinary, integrated, and thematic approaches to curriculum design that include multicultural perspectives and an active, student-centered approach to learning, including collaborative techniques
• Creating classroom learning-communities where individuals and groups of students are self-monitoring in a constructive social environment that supports construction of knowledge.
• Connecting school curriculum to community needs and activities.
• Accommodation of diversity. Learning the skills necessary for working with students with a wide range of special needs and refining techniques for inclusionary practices.
• Integrating technology across the curriculum.
• Improved academic performance fostered through health and fitness.
• Families reengaged in the education of young adolescents.
• Schools that are reconnected with their communities.
• Advisor-advisee relationships and broader range of interest-exploratory courses.
• School transition programs.

Practical Tools for Inquiry-Based Learning [PDFs]

• The Inquiry Learning Cycle  
• Thriving in the Co-Taught Classroom
• Field Trip Checklist 1
• Field Trip Checklist 2
• Teaching Decision-Making
• Classroom Puzzlers
• Modifying Cookbook Labs to Engage Students
• Vision for Team Teaching
• Components of an Effective Middle School

Faculty Spotlight

Paul Jablon
Associate Professor

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Lorraine Greenfield
Assistant Professor

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