MiddleWeb

Test Prep Magic

Ten-year teaching veteran Heather Wolpert-Gawron is no great fan of standardized testing, but the middle grades ELA teacher figures: if you gotta do it, don't be a bubblehead -- do the prep! In this article at the Teacher Magazine website, the former California regional teacher of the year shares several ways in which teachers can help students develop self-defense skills that will protect them (and you) in the testing wars. 

The Global Library

The vast Internet Archive, a global library that provides "universal access to human knowledge," continues to grow at a rapid pace. It includes not only text, but moving images, audio and live music. The Archive currently houses nearly 1.25 million texts (85 billion pages), nearly 160,000 movies, close to 60,000 concerts, and more than 300,000 recordings. It's all copyright-free and open to the general public. The link above leads to the Archive itself where you can, for example, sample nearly 500 youth media products http://sn.im/ia-youthmedia. If you're intrigued by the "mass mind" of the Internet, here's a recent news story telling how the Recaptcha anti-spamming software doubles as a human translator for the library.

Improving Adolescent Writers

Visit Kelly Gallagher's classroom for an in-depth look at writing instruction that spurs students to internalize the habits and skills of good writers. Improving Adolescent Writers is a 3-part DVD series with over 120 minutes of classroom footage and commentary by Kelly. Includes a 16-page viewing guide. Click here to view 3 sample clips online!

Thanks to Stenhouse Publishers for their support of MiddleWeb and middle grades educators.

Teach with Picture Books

Teacher Keith Schoch contends that middle schoolers are not too old for picture books. In fact, he says, you can TEACH important skills and encourage creative and imaginative thinking with both fiction and non-fiction illustrated books. This link leads directly to Keith's 13-point "rationale" so you can decide for yourself. If you continue to be intrigued, explore Keith's resource-oriented blog for picture book summaries, guiding questions, and cross-curricular extensions, "with the upper primary and middle school teacher in mind." For ease of searching, he's tagged books using both universal themes and 21st Century skills.

Middle Leaders: Learning from the Past

NASSP named March as Middle Level Education Month and declared the 2009 theme to be "Celebrating Our Past, Looking to the Future." The celebration is less about festivities than "significant lessons learned." And who better to deliver such lessons than these Voices of Wisdom from the middle grades reform movement of the past four decades: Gayle Davis Andrews (Turning Points 2000), Don and Sally Clark, Nancy Doda, Paul George, John Lounsbury, Ken McEwin, Hayes Mizell and Sue Swaim. Listen as they podcast their responses to the question: "What do you see as significant lessons from the past that today's middle level leaders must not forget as we move into the future?"

10 Steps to Better Student Engagement

The ideas offered in this Edutopia magazine article by teacher-coach Tristan de Frondeville could provide some savory food for thought at your next professional brainstorming session (or conversation with yourself in the mirror). Underlying these seemingly simple suggestions are profound statements about what makes for effective teaching. Take suggestion #6, "Create a culture of explanation instead of a culture of the right answer." You'll know you've created "a rich learning event," de Frondeville says, "when all students are engaged in arguing about the best approach to the assignment." If school is just too crazy to think these big thoughts right now, print them out and save them for summer. Sooner or later, we have to admit: It all begins with engagement.

Low-Cost Dropout Prevention

In these difficult economic times, what school system can afford to bypass a proven, low-cost method of lowering the dropout rate? In this article for the Dallas Morning News, middle grades teacher Bill Betzen describes the evolution of the School Archive Project, an initiative that -- unlike daytimes curfews, truancy fines and other coercive stay-in-school approaches -- seeks "to focus students on their own futures in as concrete and physical a way as possible." All for pennies a day.

Raptoring in the Content Area

We've written before about teacher Deborah Mathies and her annual effort to promote Raptors in the City -- a project that engages students in the life cycle of peregrine falcons who nest in a Cleveland Ohio skyscraper. We heard from Deborah recently about a video that tells how a middle school reading teacher has used the falcon "focus" to draw reluctant readers into content area reading in science and social studies. The link above leads you to that video. Also visit Deborah's website and be sure to subscribe to the e-newsletter Falcon Flash, which provides weekly updates during the falcon mating season. "It's a wonderful subject because there are so many cross curricular activities," Deborah says, including math, writing and technology integration.

Building Foundations for Algebra

The 2008 report Critical Foundations for Algebra from the National Mathematics Advisory Panel is distilled into three component parts (Essential Concepts, Recommended Practices, and Planning Templates) at this federal Doing What Works website. Developed by WestEd's Innovation Studies program, the site offers videos and diagrams to further the panel's arguments and recommendations. For more perspective on the report itself, see this critique by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Nonfiction Mentor Texts

Develop your students as nonfiction writers with Nonfiction Mentor Texts. You'll get concrete strategies for explicit instruction on introductions and conclusions, building content, writing to persuade, voice, syntax, and more. Includes annotated lists of hundreds of recommended children's books. Click here to preview the entire book online!

Thanks to Stenhouse Publishers for their support of MiddleWeb and middle grades educators.

NYT Lesson Plan: Investigating Popular Toys

This lesson, inspired by the hoopla over the 50th anniversary of That Doll, guides students in some exploration of the cultural significance of toys. Using a 3/6/09  New York Times article ("Barbie at 50: Unwrinkled and None the Wiser") as a springboard, students investigate the origins and historical contexts of favorite toys from their own past, create a game to share their knowledge, and write reflective letters to their prized childhood playthings. Sounds like fun. Can we have fun this time of year?

A Fragmented System of Professional Learning

A new report on the status of professional development in the United States, Professional Learning in the Learning Profession, was released by the National Staff Development Council last week -- with visible support from new Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Part of a multi-year research effort, the study co-authored by Linda Darling-Hammond and Nikole Richardson of Stanford describes the condition of teacher learning in America as generally fragmented, often isolated, and largely passive -- with little sustained commitment to create ongoing school-based professional learning environments that draw on teachers' collective knowledge and skills. This page at the NSDC website provides access to the report and to a presentation by the authors, which highlights PD comparisons among the U.S. and more high-achieving countries. It also notes bright spots and areas of progress in some states and school systems.

Student-Led Parent Conferences

Thanks to MS librarian Sarah Thompson for prodding us to update our collection of resources on the student-led parent/teacher conference -- a "best practice" that we've championed for many years. We've checked all the links, tracked down URL changes, removed hopeless causes and, best of all, added new materials, including an excellent, detailed PowerPoint made available by the Arkansas Department of Education – Sarah's own state.

Mentoring Beginning Teachers

Flourish as a mentor with this practical guide. The revised and expanded edition of Mentoring Beginning Teachers helps mentors understand roles, encourage reflection, provide support with specific teaching challenges, and deal with common mentoring tensions and dilemmas. Click here to browse the entire book online!

Thanks to Stenhouse Publishers for their support of MiddleWeb and middle grades educators.

Middle School Resources at Education.com

Almost everyone on our subscriber list enjoys hearing about another good teacher resources website, full of ideas and materials that will enrich lessons and spark new ideas. If you're not a regular visitor to Education.com, you may decide to bookmark this one. This link jumps you right to the main activities page for the middle grades, where (today) we see featured a spatial observation game, a tutorial on how to make paper in the classroom, a hands-on demonstration of scientific classification and ideas about creating a grandparents history book. There's also a regularly undated list of activities other visitors find most interesting (like the cause-and-effect card game). You can ask questions, leave comments, or contribute ideas at this site that serves both parents and teachers. 

Teaching the Process of Science

This new module at the Pedagogy in Action website was created by Stanford University's Anne E. Egger and addresses practical teaching questions like "what is the process of science," "why should I teach it," and "how do I teach it." The module also includes several how-to examples and a list of additional resources. Egger writes: "We expect our students to gain not only content knowledge from our courses (for example, what happens to pH when acids and bases are mixed in varying proportions), but process knowledge -- how we know what we know. These pages will help you integrate the process of science into your teaching at all levels, using a variety of different techniques."

Visual Arts as Authentic Learning

Exploratory and electives teachers often express a concern that "core" teachers in the middle grades have a narrow view of these non-core subjects (art, music, physical education, etc.) and don't always see the opportunities to integrate them with other disciplines. In this refreshing article from the February 2009 issue of NMSA's Middle Ground, arts teacher (now college dean) Jacqueline McDowell describes a "curriculum brokering" process that eventually led McDowell to become an effective advocate of "art as authentic learning" -- a subject with real world application that promotes higher order thinking and other valued skills.

AYP: A Tale of Two Middle Schools

This article from Educational Leadership (Dec 2008)  tells the story of two Montgomery County MD middle schools with very different student demographics – one "stable" and rural, the other urban and diverse. Faculties at both schools found themselves struggling to make adequate yearly progress (AYP). Each school developed a strategic monitoring and intervention program that required them to look closely at student data and tailor their interventions to student needs. Teams of educators met together regularly to discuss student progress and adjust plans as needed. By 2008, both schools had made AYP for two years in a row and moved out of school improvement status.

Troubled Times: Helping Teens & Parents

This timely resource created by the National Association of School Psychologists and adapted by the Teachers and Families web community, recognizes that for students "tough economic times can be as distant as a television news story or as close as an unemployed parent or leaving the home they know." Included are methods for spotting signs of stress, ideas about easing children's fears, and, in particular, "What teachers and schools can do." One important piece of academic advice: All schools should strive to help students "build a better understanding of real world economics and financial basics so that similar financial crises can be averted in the future and our students can be better stewards of the world economy."

Math Focal Points: Grade 8

Last year we highlighted a great series of in-depth mathematics resources at the NSDL Middle School Portal called "Math Focal Points." We pointed you to the resources for Grades 5-7 and indicated that Grade 8 would appear soon. It did, but we failed to note its appearance last summer. We're doing so now! NCTM recommends that students in grade 8 analyze linear functions in a variety of ways, and this excellent resource from NSDL and Ohio State U offers "tutorials, games, carefully crafted lessons, and online simulations that provide varied approaches to these algebraic concepts. You will also find opportunity for the practice needed for understanding." If you teach math in grades 5-7 or need resources for review of earlier concepts, you'll find links to Math Focal Points for those grades at this page.