MiddleWeb

Five Easy Steps to a Balanced Math Program

You only get the first step in this excerpt from "Five Easy Steps to a Balanced Math Program," but it may be enough to tempt you to purchase this practical guide for K-8 classroom teachers. "The first key component to a balanced math program is a simple system for reviewing basic computational skills that we call 'Math Review'. Math Review is the place in the math hour to discuss with students reasonableness of answer and estimation." Find out more about the book and read another brief excerpt at the Making Standards Work website.

Smithsonian: Spotlight on Science

In order to communicate its latest research findings to a broad web-browsing audience, the Smithsonian Institution has developed a weekly electronic newsletter which features its most recent endeavors and ongoing work. Recent issues include work on tracking invasive marine organisms, the poison dart frogs of Panama, the warming of tropical rainforests, and x-rays from Saturn. The contents of the newsletter may also be searched by keyword or date of publication. You can also sign up to receive email notification of new newsletters.

The Silk Road

Stretching from China to the Mediterranean, the Silk Road was actually a complex network of interconnected pathways that were influenced by a diverse set of civilizations, including those in China, India, and Turkey. At this website, developed in partnership with the British Museum, visitors can view a virtual version of the world's earliest dated and printed book, the "Diamond Sutra," discovered in a walled-up cave along the Silk Road. You'll also want to explore five Silk Road themes.

Grinning about Grammar

Grammar a dry and boring subject? Not always! Check out this page of humorous grammar rules at the Creative Teaching Website and  Here are a few to get you started: "Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects." "Foreign words and phrases are not always apropos." "The passive voice is to be ignored." We're betting you can find ways to use this list to have your students laughing and learning at the same time. Explore more of this funny and useful teacher-driven website by visiting the Creative Teaching homepage.

Gifted Learners and the Middle School

In this article, Gifted Learners and the Middle School, published in 1995 in the ERIC Digest, prominent University of Virginia scholar Carol Ann Tomlinson notes the tension that has sometimes existed between the advocates of cooperative learning and other strategies associated with the "middle school model" and those eductors of the gifted who believe such strategies result in a lack of challenge for advanced learners. Tomlinson, whose research on differentiated education has come to the forefront in the decade since this still-pertinent article was written, works to identify some "middle ground." Also see Tomlinson's 2003 article "Deciding to Teach Them All" for more recent reflections on this subject.

Giftedness Comes in Many Forms

A colleague sent us the link for this important 1989 essay by psychologist Thomas Armstrong. "Little Geniuses" reminds us once again that many middle schools become preoccupied with their GATE and PACE and other "gifted" programs aimed at academic high-fliers and forget all the other ways children bring gifts to the world. Armstrong celebrates more than three dozen "unconventional" talents that are worth developing and celebrating. It's an old issue which still lingers in many of our schools. Armstrong's thoughtful analysis can help us address it.

Classroom Strategies with At-Risk Students

In 2002, the McREL research group conducted a synthesis of recent research on strategies to assist students who are low achieving or at risk of failure. From this synthesis of research, McREL identified six general classroom strategies that can be used to assist low-achieving students: whole-class instruction, cognitively oriented instruction, small-group instruction, tutoring, peer tutoring, and computer-based instruction. This 2003 issue of McREL's Noteworthy publication series reviews each of the strategies and offers a discussion guide to provoke conversation. Free download.

Teaching Middle School: Day One and Beyond

No question was too simple during MiddleWeb's five-day marathon conversation with Rick Wormeli, author of Day One and Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle-Level Teachers. Wormeli generously volunteered his time to answer beaucoups of questions from new and inexperienced middle school teachers during a lively week-long email exchange. In addition, many veteran teachers pitched in with tips from their vast store of classroom experience. The raw transcript of this epic chat has received thousands of "hits" since we posted it on our website. It's still raw, but well worth sifting through for the valuable advice it contains. If you're intrigued by Rick's advice, find out more about his book.

"The Year I Reinvented Professional Development"

If the title, The Year I Reinvented Teacher Professional Development: An Action Research Diary (100k PDF File), sounds tongue-in-cheek, you're right! Professional development expert Anne Jolly's sense of humor leavens this detailed account of the year she spent away from her classroom designing and implementing a site-based, teacher-driven professional learning process for middle school teachers. Her willingness to share both the ups and downs of her experience makes this diary a valuable resource for anyone else comtemplating a year of living dangerously. Anne, a former Alabama teacher of the year, currently helps schools across the Southeast develop professional learning teams. Also see Anne's book, A Facilitator's Guide to Professional Learning Teams, available from the National Staff Development Council.

Bullying Rubric

Prominent middle grades educator Chris Toy was principal at Maine's Freeport Middle School when he developed this bullying rubric and shared it with members of the MiddleWeb discussion group. He described it as a "work-in-progress" and urged educators to remember that "these kinds of rubrics work best when they are tailored to the specific needs of your school." So think of it as a starting point! (Very small PDF file)

Lorraine Monroe: Lessons in Leadership

Lorraine Monroe helped transform an apathetic, low-performing school in central Harlem into a place of high expectations and greatly improved student achievement. The former teacher and administrator now directs the Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute, and she is tireless in her quest to help other educators adopt her model for reform. Monroe "knows firsthand what kind of leadership is required to achieve change," says the introduction to this April 2004 interview with Monroe in Educational Leadership magazine.

In another story in the same "Leading in Tough Times" issue, Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink share their Seven Principles of Sustainable Leadership.

Small Middle-Grades Learning Communities

If you want to make the case for small middle schools or small learning communities within a school, the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform has done the homework for you! In a policy statement, The National Forum argues that small is indeed beautiful. Even if you're trapped in a big school, the Forum urges you to consider small learning communities "where teams of teachers share small groups of students (sometimes called 'clusters' or 'houses')." Smallness won't solve all of your school problems, but it does create "a personalized learning environment that enhances teaching and learning at the middle level." You can view the statement on-line and download a copy in PDF format at this link. The statement defines small schools, includes a slew of research-based benefits (with summaries and citations) and offers several pages of references for further research.

Practical Ideas about Writing Assessment

In this excerpt from his book 101 More Questions & Answers About Standards, Assessment, and Accountability, assessment expert Douglas B. Reeves offers answers to a batch of real-world questions about writing and student achievement. Reeves' own informal writing style is inviting, and he succeeds in weaving together good assessment practice and classroom common sense. Great advice! (At the Making Standards Work website - 75k PDF file) Find out more about the book.

The King of Classroom Management

New and veteran teachers alike can learn something from the "King of Classroom Management" -- Fred Jones -- by visiting the Education World website and browsing articles by and about the author of "Positive Classroom Discipline" and "Tools for Teaching." Check out the index of more than two dozen articles by Jones, including a series on positive discipline and a two-part series that's one of our favorites: "Weaning the Helpless Hand Raisers." You'll find everything here from effective room arrangements to adding motivation to mastery.

A Middle School Devoted to Project-Based Learning and Group Work

At Landry Middle School in Hahnville LA, eighth graders began the day with a chant: "Bo-bo-ski wotten totten! Bo-bo-ski wotten totten!" It's part of the school's daily "Tiger Talk" introductory period. Students greet each other using eye contact and handshakes, play games that encourage interaction, and discuss a wide range of interesting topics. "By the time the students leave, they are warmed up both socially and intellectually," reports this article at the Edutopia website. "While other schools might look to raise test scores with drills and memorization, Landry is devoted to project-based learning and group work."

Read the article to find out about the school's "Circus of the Kids," a three-week long interdisciplinary unit complete with aerial acts and fire eating. And view a 7-minute video that demonstrates Landry's hands-on, project-based learning.