Professional Development and Consulting

Since 1973, AMLE has been a trusted professional learning resource for educators. Just like every school community is different, so are your professional development needs. AMLE can help design an innovative and unique program, aligned with middle grades best practice, that’s right for your team and provide the ongoing coaching to ensure that your professional learning is long term, job embedded, and relevant.  Every educator should have access to high-quality professional development, no matter the size of your team or budget. Connect with AMLE today to see how we can help your team reach every student, grow professionally, and create a great school.

Online Courses

The Successful Middle School Online Course Series

Learners will explore the characteristics of young adolescents and the characteristics of a successful middle school through 21 self-paced, interactive virtual modules. Participants earn 5 contact hours upon completion of the series.

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Book Study

The Successful Middle School Facilitated Book Study

An AMLE coach will lead your team through a book study of The Successful Middle School: This We Believe, or another one of AMLE’s seminal texts. Synchronous and asynchronous versions are available.

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Successful Middle School Assessment

The Successful Middle School Assessment

The self-assessment experience includes coaching throughout and a comprehensive report to help staff visualize a baseline of their implementation of middle grades best practices and includes recommendations for next steps.

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Schools of Distinction

AMLE Schools of Distinction

A recognition and continuous improvement program open to any school that educates students aged 10-15. Schools will be celebrated for their commitment to the middle grades best practices outlined in AMLE’s foundational text, The Successful Middle School: This We Believe, while also being guided through a process of self-assessment and strategic vision setting to help foster ongoing growth and success.

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Professional Development Workshops with AMLE

Bring AMLE to your school! Our in-house team, led by Director for Professional Development and veteran educator Jennifer Rose, will design and execute a professional development event tailored to your school and conducted over your identified time frame (one day, one week, across a series of staff meetings, quarterly, or a year-long program). We believe that professional learning should be long term, job embedded, and relevant and our team stays available to meet with your team to check in on your progress after your event and provide ongoing recommendations.

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Young Adolescent Development

Young Adolescent Development

Student Working

Fostering a Positive Brain State for Learning

Students Interacting in Class

Student Motivation

Students at Locker

Supporting SEL in the Classroom

Teacher and Students Engaging

A Middle Grades Primer

Students working in group

Advisory 101 and 201

Team Working Together

Interdisciplinary Teaming

Working on a Schedule

Scheduling

Proud Student

Student Choice and Agency

Students working together

Developmentally Responsive Discipline

Bored Student

Boredom Busters: Transform Worksheets, Lectures, and Grading into Engaging Learning Experiences

Frustrated Student

Frustration Busters: Unpacking and Responding to Classroom Management Frustrations Feeling frustrated?

The Mindful Middle School Student: Supporting Executive Functioning

Onboarding Your Parent Body

Formative Assessment 

The Flipped Classroom: Rationale and Talking Points for Administrators

Building Connected Educator Communities

AI: Challenges and Opportunities

Creating a successful House System – Without Wizardry

The Masks We Wear: DEIJ Work for All Stakeholders

AMLE Professional Development Cadre

To ensure our members can access the expertise they need to be successful, AMLE works with a range of vetted, world-class faculty. Contact us to plan your professional development event with the speaker or speakers that fit your needs.

Jack Berckemeyer
Jack Berckemeyer
Author and humorist who bring his trademark energy and expertise to every engagement. Topics include teaming, young adolescent development, classroom management, & more.
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Cedrick Gray
Cedrick Gray
Award-winning superintendent with 25+ years of practical experience. Topics include instructional coaching for principals, transforming school culture, middle school advisory, & more.
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Nathan Maynard
Nathan Maynard
Award-winning author of Hacking School Discipline with a background in both social work, and school administration. Topics include restorative practices, social and emotional learning, & more.
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Tara Maynard
Tara Maynard
An innovative and veteran middle school math teacher who started flipping her classroom in 2012. Topics include engaging math learners, setting up a collaborative classroom, flipped classroom, & more.
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Ann McCarty Perez
Ann McCarty Perez
Author of the Successful Middle School Schedule and a seasoned administrator with a PhD in scheduling. Topics include master scheduling, school culture, counseling program development, & more.
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LeAnn Nickelsen
LeAnn Nickelsen
Author of 14 books on education with an expertise in high impact teaching strategies. Topics include teaching strategies, closing and preventing learning gaps, equitable teaching strategies, & more.
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Katie Powell
Katie Powell
Author of the popular Worksheet and Frustration Busters books with a passion for quality teaching techniques. Topics include classroom engagement, young adolescent development, & more.
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Jennifer Rose
Jennifer Rose
A veteran leader with decades of experience implementing the middle school model across settings. Jennifer specializes in effective use of instructional technology and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
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Rick Wormeli
Rick Wormeli
An internationally recognized author & presenter with 40+ years in education. Topics include grading & homework practices, cognitive and executive function skills, & more.
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Young Adolescent Development

YAD is the heartbeat of middle school, the why behind what we do—and don't do. However, many educators find themselves in middle grades positions without a strong background in young adolescent development, and sometimes our developmental responsiveness gets dulled under the weight of the countless decisions we make and obstacles we face in any given day. In this engaging session, we lay a foundational understanding of young adolescent development and explore the implications for teaching, classroom management and discipline, and school culture.

Fostering a Positive Brain State for Learning

We may have planned a highly-engaging lesson that spans bell-to-bell with expert strategies, but if our students enter our classrooms emotionally escalated—or practically asleep—they're not likely to learn much of anything. Leveraging educational neuroscience, we'll equip teachers with practical steps they can take to foster a positive brain state for learning so students are ready to receive that expert instruction.

Student Motivation

Let's face it—not every student shows up to class eager to learn. Sometimes we see far more compliance than engagement...and sometimes, we don't even get that. When students aren't eager to learn—or downright refuse to even start—it can feel out of our hands. But there's hope! Learn some of the common root causes of motivation issues and practical steps you can take to start to shift the tide toward participation—and even true engagement.

Supporting SEL in the Classroom

SEL isn't a curriculum or a lesson we teach once a week. It weaves in and out of every aspect of school. Learn ways to support SEL in the classroom in authentic, practical ways without sacrificing instructional time.

A Middle Grades Primer

Do you find yourself working with middle schoolers but don't have a background as an educator? Maybe you are a mentor, run an after-school program, provide career education, or run a club. This session provides an overview of the nature of middle grades learners and strategies for building impactful relationships, planning engaging instruction, and navigating challenging behaviors.

Advisory 101 and 201

Need help starting an advisory program from the ground up? Have an advisory program that needs a little work? We can help! Rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach to advisory, we support your team with information, research, examples, and provocative questioning so you can make informed decisions to develop an advisory program that fits your needs. From duration and frequency to content and delivery, training of advisors and troubleshooting, we can craft a supportive experience just for you.

Interdisciplinary Teaming

The structure of interdisciplinary teaming is a hallmark of the middle school concept. That may mean looking at the master schedule and staffing needs, ensuring that students are grouped together with the same teachers and that those teachers have planning time together. But developing a master schedule that affords common planning time for teams of teachers is just part of the story. Once teachers have that time together, what do they do with it? How can teaming create true learning communities within your school? We will work with you to meet you where you are and help you advance toward truly student-centered, productive interdisciplinary teams.

Scheduling

Does your master schedule limit your vision? Or does your vision drive your schedule? Many of the hallmark practices of the middle school concept require time within the schedule. Our team can work with you to re-evaluate your values and schedule and develop a master schedule that allows your school to fully execute your vision and values.

Student Choice and Agency

Middle school students are discovering who they are and how they navigate the world, and that includes how they function in our classrooms. Rather than being passive recipients of information, middle school students should be at the center of their learning experiences. But when we start talking about increasing student choice and agency, we have some concerns: How do we satisfy the demands of the curriculum and the pacing guide? Are we talking about creating an individual lesson plan for every student? And what happens when a student just wants us to tell them what to do? Unpack these challenges and come away empowered with real steps you can take, within your own teaching style and comfort zone, to start engaging students today.

Developmentally Responsive Discipline

One of the most common challenges for middle grades staff is discipline. We know relationships are essential in the middle school world, but how do we handle student behavior without damaging those relationships? How do we empower staff with real steps they can take to not just smooth over issues, but actually address them at their root? By starting with the lens of young adolescent development and growing our understanding of behavior and discipline from there, we're able to de-mystify middle school behavior and empower teachers to take action that addresses these behaviors, strengthens relationships, and improves school culture.

Boredom Busters: Transform Worksheets, Lectures, and Grading into Engaging Learning Experiences

Sometimes we have the perfect activity to support a lesson. And sometimes...we don't. What do we do when our lesson plan just reads, "page 147"? Boredom Busters are low- or no-prep activities that transform our ordinary worksheets and lectures into novel, exciting, engaging learning experiences, perfect for any grade level or content area. Curious? Your students will be too. And they'll want to come back for more tomorrow.

Frustration Busters: Unpacking and Responding to Classroom Management Frustrations

Feeling frustrated? The steady drip of forgotten pencils, classroom disruptions, and circumstances beyond our control can chip away at our resolve, creating a chasm between our love of teaching and our ability to continue happily in our chosen profession. Even more, frustrated teachers pass their stress on to students, who can experience academic losses and instability from high teacher turnover. Frustration Busters help teachers identify the source of frustrations, learn how to tackle them when they arise, and implement practical ideas that will help prevent them from occurring in the first place.

The Mindful Middle School Student: Supporting Executive Functioning

Typically moving from a one-classroom homeroom in elementary school to five-seven classrooms a day, middle schoolers need to learn the skill of transitioning from one place and set of expectations to another very rapidly. Executive functioning skills are one of the top challenges for new middle schoolers. Utilizing proven mindfulness and habit-building techniques, we'll share skills and strategies that teachers can use to support students who are building those new middle school muscles.

Onboarding Your Parent Body

Each and every year we create a new community in our middle schools. It is just as important to support onboarding our parent body as it is to provide orientation for our students. With a focus on creating successful home-school partnerships, we'll work with administrators and teachers to provide practical steps and processes to foster collaborative parent relationships.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment promotes active student engagement and self-reflection through metacognitive skills. Students and teachers work together proactively, rather than reactively, to support students' mastery of learning targets while helping teachers make informed and timely instructional decisions. Leveraging research and providing resources, we'll work with administrators and teachers to help differentiate instruction, identify learning gaps, and achieve learning goal.

The Flipped Classroom: Rationale and Talking Points for Administrators

The Flipped Classroom model has been in practice for more than a decade. To support our faculty who are using this modality, or who are interested in beginning the practice to elevate classroom engagement, it is important for curriculum supervisors and administrators to be able to share the rationale and value of Flipped Classrooms with parents, students, and school boards. We'll share the research backed information so leaders can support this valuable classroom practice.

Building Connected Educator Communities

As leaders, it is crucial to be able to build strong educator communities. Enhancing job satisfaction helps to create positive learning environments which in turn improves academic engagement and success and fosters a strong, resilient whole-school culture. We'll share the research and the tools for school leaders so teachers and students feel like they belong.

AI: Challenges and Opportunities

Middle school students are on the cutting edge of technology. As early adopters, they need to develop a solid understanding of AI's potential opportunities as well as its limitations and ethical concerns. We'll work with school teams to share the challenges and opportunities that already exist, and those that are being created, as we build the plane while we fly it.

Creating a successful House System - Without Wizardry.

Organizational structures that foster belonging optimize positive relationships between students and students and teachers. Using case studies, we'll share how to build a House system that works for your school, no matter the size.

The Masks We Wear: DEIJ Work for All Stakeholders

Every member of our educational community: students, parents, teachers, staff and administration come to our building with a unique identity which informs daily interactions. Fostering a school environment that is welcoming, inclusive and affirming for all requires that we not only arrive knowing what masks we are wearing but also learn to honor those that others are wearing. We'll share research and best practices as well as tangible take-away activities to support school belonging.