Welcome to the Middle Grades!
MiddleWeb is all about middle school & the middle grades — with a sharp focus on teaching and learning in grades 4-8. Join us, learn about our 5 streams of content, and find out how to get involved.
Teaching and learning in grades 4-8
Reflect on the Qualities of Effective Teachers
Qualities of Effective Teachers is a profoundly useful tool for all educators, helping them to reflect on their own teaching or the teaching they may be observing and identifying areas of strength and areas for improvement, writes educator Jennifer Peters.
A Leader’s Guide to Boost Student Learning
If your goal is to improve curriculum, instruction, and assessment in your classroom, building, or district, then read Six Steps to Boost Student Learning. Education consultant Anne Anderson notes the concise, focused book is filled with resources.
Time Management for the Incredibly Busy Teacher
With the workplace pressure most teachers experience, it’s crucial to prioritize tasks so you can accomplish everything you need to do. Julia Thompson’s 5-step process can help you move forward, meet goals, and reduce your stress levels to achieve a work-life balance.
Halloween Goes to School with MiddleWeb
Can Halloween be fun when candy gives way to cogitation? Looks that way from the resource collection for ELA, math, history and science classes that we have conjured up for this All Hallow’s Eve holiday season.
Creating a Safe Space for Difficult Conversations
In his powerful book “Not Light, But Fire” teacher Matthew Kay shares three rules of discussion – each centered around listening – that he teaches his students. His goal is to transform the classroom into a true “safe space” for difficult conversations about race and life.
Helping Students Hone Key Communication Skills
Texting isn’t talking. With so much digital communication among students, Curtis Chandler wants to be sure they can also speak, listen and make eye contact with others, skills they need now and in the future. He has ideas and tools for bridging the communications gap.
Challenge Kids to Explore Probability and Statistics
Jerry Burkhart’s explorations challenge accelerated students with Common Core based math study while engaging other students with creative, and differentiated, problems to solve. Kathleen Palmieri notes the fully developed resources that support the explorations.
How to Lead Change in Your School’s Culture
In Leading School Change, Todd Whitaker focuses on strategies to successfully navigate cultural changes, using specific examples. Educator Laura Von Staden particularly likes his coverage of how standardization has as a cost, often holding back the best teachers.
Helping Student Writers Learn to Code Switch
If your students have trouble switching back and forth from informal to formal writing – with all the inherent grammar, punctuation and capitalization problems – you’re not alone. Rather than just blame it on technology, Jeremy Hyler is using some tech to fight back.
Some Inclusion Tips for the General Ed Teacher
Veteran special and general education teacher Cheryl Mizerny describes ways that general educators can be most effective teaching all students within inclusion classrooms. She highlights necessary underlying beliefs, key assumptions, and hallmarks of inclusive teaching.
