MiddleWeb is all about middle school & the middle grades — with a sharp focus on teaching and learning in grades 4-8. Click to learn about our work and what we have to offer, and find out how to get involved.
Understanding multilingual students, their languages, histories, and cultures, is foundational to making content comprehensible and meaningful. Equity, says Valentina Gonzalez, lives at the intersection of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and students’ seeing themselves valued.
Thanks to an extensive career as a teacher, principal and district leader, Jen Schwanke can testify that the vast majority of middle school educators feel deeply connected to the unique journey of adolescent learners. She believes MS principals should be drawn from that pool.
Move to learn! Prevent those mid-class energy slumps with movement and active learning strategies. Master teacher Kelly Owens describes 10 engaging, low-prep activities she uses to re-energize every student – from the quiet to the restless – to be their best all class long.
In “Intentional Moves” Elisa B. MacDonald lays out ready-to-use strategies for team leaders, insightfully describing to readers how her 10 moves will play out within different team dynamics. After four years as a team leader, reviewer Katie Dunkin still keeps the book handy.
When schools give students the chance to tinker, create, test ideas, and solve interesting problems, classrooms become places of curiosity and innovation, writes author and STEM curriculum expert Anne Jolly. Makerspaces can help bring that kind of energy into STEM learning.
When math tutors create space to connect, speak and reflect, students not only gain confidence in their math skills, they strengthen their empathy and resilience and leave their sessions feeling capable, supported, and truly seen as learners, says tutoring expert Halley Bowman.
With authentic scenarios, well-sequenced tasks, and teacher supports, Real World Math is a classroom-ready resource. Whether your goal is to deepen engagement, build understanding, or spark curiosity, the book brings math to life in a way students and teachers will appreciate.
Dina Strasser’s 7th graders like the idea of “Warm Demanders” once they’re introduced to the concept. Their lunch-time conversation has Dina musing about the research and the impact of friendly teachers who require participation in diverse and not-so-diverse classrooms.
Understanding how sentences work is a reading skill, not just a writing skill, researchers tell us. When students understand how sentences are built, they read better. So, argues Patty McGee, grammar instruction is in fact reading instruction, and we should treat it that way.
Rather than treating writing as a sequence of isolated assignments, in “Goal Setting in the Writing Classroom” Valerie Bolling shares a structure for a continuous, student-driven process shaped by clear goals, routines, and informed choices, writes reviewer Melinda Stewart.
More
