Successful Middle School Mini PD Library
Schools of Distinction in Action
At Willard Middle School, an eighth-grade science teacher has moved to using the prompt, “Ask Me Two Questions” instead of simply “Does anyone have any questions?”. This simple change of phrase has worked to encourage interactions and connections, fostered an inclusive and collaborative environment, and created a more supportive classroom where students feel comfortable asking questions.
At R.L. Stevenson Middle School, administration recognizes that engaged learners at every level are essential to maintaining a harmonious learning environment. To move from compliance to engagement, they give staff the opportunity to have input on strategies by reviewing initiatives and allowing for suggestions on what to focus on as a school. Teachers form groups around each chosen focus area, then share what they learn throughout the school year and make suggestions for the future. These teacher-led cohorts help faculty and staff become empowered and invested in the school’s success.
At JL Simpson Middle School, students can earn spending bucks at “Monty’s Tack Shop” for honorable, engaged, respectful, and determined behavior. Relationships between teachers and students work both ways, as students can also submit teachers for awards. As with all successful middle schools, there’s a future plan in the works. Next school year, students will be even more engaged as the tack shop transitions to being student-led.
At Readington Middle School, students are asked to participate daily in the RMS mission: to take care of themselves, to take care of others, and to take care of their school. They ensure seamless transitions into and out of the middle grades, focus on getting to know every child on both a personal and academic level, and give time and space for mindfulness activities, monthly themes, spirit days, and pep rallies. Students are encouraged to be leaders both in and out of the classroom through clubs, activities, and athletics along with a prominent recognition program highlighting students’ examples of delivering on the school’s mission, providing joy and purpose from the time they arrive until the time they are dismissed and hopefully beyond.
At Miguel Juarez Middle School, every moment and activity, in and after school, is an opportunity to build belonging. This includes strengthening the bond between school and home through family activities at the school where parents and caregivers are encouraged to be a part of the school community.
At McCulloch Intermediate School, a robust transition program led by students helps welcome new students into the community, making them feel at ease as they navigate their new surroundings. It also helps older students demonstrate responsibility and a sense of ownership for their school’s culture.
At Marietta Sixth Grade Academy, being an IB school means encouraging kids to think globally and to explore interests both in school and through out-of-school clubs and activities. This involves engaging community partners to provide support they can’t offer at the school and offering professional development to help staff meet the specific needs of young adolescents.
At Girls Preparatory School, targeted and relevant professional development supports staff in building relationships with students and, more specifically, with young adolescent girls during a critical stage in their development. Before classes begin, each school year starts with grade-level retreats to help the girls bond as a class, develop relationships with teachers, and get to know their peers.
At Ewa Makai Middle School, a focus on student voice and choice is embedded into the life of the school. Students are offered a wide range of electives where they can explore interests, contribute to school and classroom rules and norms, and are encouraged to be active partners in their learning. The results speak for themselves through improved student engagement and achievement.
At Dorseyville Middle School, they prioritize a collaborative, joyous learning environment that aims to introduce kids to new experiences and skills. The school makes the most of the devices they give to students to bolster creativity across subject areas, seeking student input on how they’re using tech and making a help desk available to both staff and students.
At Custer Baker Intermediate School, staff recognize that if we want students to think, we need to give them something truly challenging to think about. Their goal is to enhance students’ conceptual thinking by fostering a safe environment where students can “get stuck,” make mistakes, and learn along the way.
At Cave Spring Middle School, the staff aims to foster a uniquely “Cave” experience to support students’ sense of belonging at school. Their PBIS framework, called the Squires’ Code, helps establish common expectations across the school community and motivates kids to make good decisions through mini shields designed by the students themselves and collectively displayed throughout the year.
At Crayton Middle School, a rotating bell schedule helps reduce missed instructional time due to late arrivals/early dismissals, allows teachers to see students at different times of the day throughout the week, supports common planning time, and mixes up student lunch groupings to encourage more peer engagement.
At Beach Street Middle School, the whole student is the focus of special programming, including the Middles Helping Littles initiative, which allows middle schoolers the opportunity to mentor and support younger students. Students' health and well-being are also supported through fun and engaging activities, including their P.S. I Love You program and an annual Wellness Day.
Upson-Lee Middle School takes team time seriously. Grade levels have 90-minute common planning blocks each day. While content teams meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the other two days are dedicated to student advocacy and professional learning.
Smart’s Mill Middle School focuses on the needs of each individual student in a holistic way, striving to continually listening to students to provide responsive educational environments. This is all possible through a philosophy of education they call, “E.A.R.R.”
At Seaman Middle School, the importance of relationships is a cultural foundation that extends from the deliberate interactions during both structured and unstructured times within the day.
At Ridgeview Charter Middle School, distributed leadership means The instructional leadership team honors and asks for teacher and staff voices with grade level, content, and staff representatives on the team.
One way Lee County Middle School West strives to meet the needs of students is through its WIN program. WIN stands for What I Need and is a daily school-wide extended learning time. WIN was created to provide students more time to explore their interests, enrich their learning, and/or allow for remediation with identified deficit areas.
At Douglas Middle School, every day starts with advisory. But it doesn’t stop there. Students who need a tier 2 support for certain skills attend advocacy during this time, working on individual skill building with their adult advisory until their advocacy goals are reached.
At Laveen Elementary School, their signature mindfulness program helps students show up as the “best version of themselves” each day. Before and after school yoga and breathing class for students and families, staff training in mindfulness, and a dedicated “healing room,” are all parts of the signature mindfulness program at Laveen Elementary School. The program, says principal Robert Caplinger, helps students show up each day as the “best version of themselves.”
Lee County Middle School East strives to continually partner with and educate parents with opportunities like quarterly Parent Universities, Title Nights, STEM Days, Student Led Conferences, PTO, and WatchDOGS (Dads of Great Students).
River Bend Middle School Principal Dave Shaffer has prioritized building leadership capacity for the staff of River Bend Middle School. This means making sure his master schedule reflects this commitment.
At Kamehameha Schools, their Hawai’ian Culture-Based Education approach demonstrates how embracing a school’s local community and culture can have a powerful impact on students’ experiences and achievement.
2024 Snapshot Poster Presentation Winners
Come along with three teachers as we delve into the intricacies of crafting and executing an interdisciplinary project centered around Climate Justice for our students. We’ll walk you through the journey of conceptualizing the project, navigating the hurdles we encountered during implementation, and provide valuable resources to kickstart your own academic team project. Rooted in the belief that the middle level curriculum should be both challenging and diverse, our aim is to not only share our experiences but also ignite inspiration for your own educational endeavors.
Forming genuine relationships with today’s changing young adolescents can be challenging even for seasoned middle grades educators. Leveraging their unique position as “near-peers” to young adolescents, preservice teacher candidates from Western Carolina University share unique—and sometimes entertaining—insights about building supportive relationships with middle grades students.
Students will demonstrate collaborative thinking by working hands-on in group settings, where they will engage in dynamic problem-solving and creative tasks. As part of this experience, they will function like a team within a company, dividing roles, sharing responsibilities, and contributing their unique skills to achieve collective goals. This setup will not only foster teamwork but also encourage innovation as they work together to brainstorm ideas, develop solutions, and create projects. Through this approach, students will gain practical experience in how professional teams collaborate in real-world business environments.
2023 Snapshot Poster Presentation Winners
The success of the Nation demands a STEM-literate modern workforce adept at navigating an increasingly high-tech, digital, and connected world (Federal STEM Education Strategic Plan 2018-2023). Maclure et al. (2023) suggests that there is an extensive gap in our understanding of the practical ways in which STEM integration occurs in schools and is made explicit to students (Roehrig et al. (2021). Rooted in convergence thinking, our program promotes and showcases the interdisciplinary nature of STEM and provides opportunities for teachers and students to engage in real-world scientific thinking critical for the STEM workforce. We aim to promote the design of projects of local environmental relevance that engage educators across the curriculum. Our STEPD-UP model can be employed to transform any middle school classroom into a laboratory setting and will promote the next generation of STEM minded citizens into the workforce.
The Portland Public Schools Middle Grades Redesign plan is grounded in research and best practices, including many works from AMLE.
As a 20+ years middle school teacher, I know that communicating with parents is crucial to our students' success but it is not easy. This session will provide educators with practical how-to's for effective and efficient parent communication through a variety of methods: phone calls, emails, newsletter, meet-the-teacher night, conferences, and more. I am the author of the new book "When Calling Parents Isn't Your Calling: A teacher's guide to communicating with parents" which serves as a helpful resource for educators who may struggle to communicate with parents and provides practical advice for improving parent-teacher partnerships.
84% of learners at Embark Education agree they have a say in their learning. Desire the same for your students? Try increasing student agency by ceding control over their weekly schedules. Learn how Embark educators teach time management skills so learners can prioritize assignments, opt into desired choice lessons, plan for independent work, and schedule their time using Google Calendar. Gain inspiration and the concrete, transferable tools to launch your student-centered scheduling practice.
Follow Emily as she implements the 14 practices from the Building Thinking Classrooms framework by Peter Liljedahl. Learn how to set up your classroom from day one to engage students like never before. See how to work with random groups and manage students standing at vertical whiteboards. You'll see how to incorporate your current curriculum and assess student understanding.
This is the story of 8th grader Dara, whose middle school teachers failed him, literally and figuratively. Dara was doing okay despite his traumatic childhood. He was a big fish in a small pond. But, he failed two classes, and had to repeat the 8th grade. When he entered the 9th grade his friends had moved on and he was lonely and unmotivated. He was a small fish in a big pond. He dropped out in 9th grade, joined a gang, committed crimes, and was incarcerated for more than 20 years. In this session, Dara shares his experiences and advice to middle school teachers.
The Universal Design for Learning Guidelines 2.0 indicate practices to address significant barriers for diverse learners (CAST, 2011; Meyer et al., 2014). The UDL Guidelines recommend scaffolds be in place to ensure that a broad range of students have strategies to close any gaps between current and desired performance. Middle schools are experiencing challenges that arise not from the written curriculum but from the taught curriculum. (See references: https://tinyurl.com/laynehunter)