In the summer prior to entering middle school, I dove deep into the Choose Your Own Adventure book series. On page 11, as commander of a spaceship, I chose to put up the energy propulsion shields to try to escape a...

What would middle schoolers call a "Shark Tank" style competition about the national parks? "Park Tank" of course! Last spring, seventh grade students from Hudson Middle School in northeastern Ohio presented their...

Collaboration. The buzzword that gets crowned as one of the most important student skills. It has emerged as one of the major components of 21st century learning. The idea of collaboration is far from new, and the...

Using a microfilm machine for the first time… Watching a local news broadcast from the mid-nineties about the Blizzard of '93... Holding an authentic newspaper from 1941… Facetiming across the Pacific...

Last September, Eva waited impatiently at the copier, her blood pressure rising as she realized she would be late for class yet again. She could barely make eye contact with her colleagues, her aggravation impeding...

Myths come in all shapes and sizes, from UFOs in Roswell and Elvis in Vegas, to whether a tomato belongs in the fruit or vegetable section of a market. Yet, most unexplained phenomena are straightforward; you either...

Four hundred years ago Galileo Galilei observed that "Mathematics is the language with which God has written the Universe." The "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics," in the words of famous physicist Eugene...

Every day 200 students file into my language arts classroom. When I give a writing assignment, spending just five minutes commenting on each paper is a 1000 minute –or 16 hour—investment. That is for just...

The Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) emphasizes that attending to the social, intellectual, emotional, and physical needs and assets of middle school children is central to their intellectual development....

In a world in which we can always look things up, memorization still matters. Depending on the situation, engagement, meaning, progress, expediency, and safety are increased significantly if participants have the...