MIDDLE SCHOOL PRACTICES

MIDDLE MIDDLE MIDDLE MIDDLE SCHOOL SCHOOL SCHOOL SCHOOL PRACTICES PRACTICES PRACTICES PRACTICES

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Curriculum

Enriched

Focus on critical thinking and social skills, as well as academic content Current, real world applications, problem-solving and tied into community Interdisciplinary and use of language across the curriculum No tracking, curriculum based on content standards Full range of elective courses Universal access to extra-curricular activities

Challenges: creating challenging, integrated curriculum, articulating information between primary and secondary school

Instruction

Active, discovery and inquiry learning Use of literature and primary sources, instead of textbooks Hands on activities, projects, performance-based learning Extensive use of technology Cooperative learning, peer and cross age tutoring Students taking responsibility Heterogeneous grouping

Challenges: skill development for effective instructional strategies; giving more responsibility to students

Organisational Practices

Parents in partnership Teams across departments or schools within schools Faculty involved in inquiry and decision-making

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Principal is coordinator and facilitator Flexible scheduling Teams with common prep periods Staff interacts, plans, coaches and supports each other Time for homeroom or advisement

Challenges: deciding on unity of purpose; setting up structure for school governance, implementing the inquiry process, creating change with scarcity of time, getting the participation of parents and community; building group process and problem-solving skills

Discuss which practices you have already implemented which are working. Note others to incorporate into your strategic plan.

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LESSONS from MIDDLE SCHOOL LESSONS from MIDDLE SCHOOL LESSONS from MIDDLE SCHOOL LESSONS from MIDDLE SCHOOL RESTRUCTURING RESTRUCTURING RESTRUCTURING RESTRUCTURING

Clarifying the Focus

1. Build a shared vision about what students should know and be able to do; 2. Define student outcomes/results that bring the picture to life; 3. Distil and integrate the curriculum and broaden the instructional strategies (focus on essential concepts and relationships students need to learn, use content standards to develop problem-solving units); 4. Alter assessments to show what students are able to understand and do; 5. Expand professional development to include learning while doing and learning from doing (workgroups and reflective practice); 6. See restructuring as an intensely personal experience for all.

Making Change Systemic

1. Restructuring is about—making time, taking time, finding meaningful ways to spend time. 2. Restructuring is systemic; all levels are related and affected. 3. Restructuring must be built on staff working collegially together. 4. Restructuring evokes questions about power: what does it mean to have young people think, teachers who make decisions, administrators who are advocates for learning, councils and parents who are actively engaged?

Managing the Ongoing Process

1. Restructuring means managing change over time, among many people, and in many arenas of action. 2. Restructuring is simultaneous, interactive, spirals and circles, and messy. (no finite steps and definitely not tidy!) 3. Restructuring involves adults in the school and in the community talking to each other and with students about what constitutes effective learning and then joining forces to make it happen. 4. Restructuring around learning for all students takes many years and the persistence to make changes, assess results, and modify along the way. 5. Restructuring creates questions faster than they are answered; not fewer problems but handled differently.

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Budgeting for Change:

1. Use money for on-going professional development that focuses on both learning and organisational issues; 2. Use money for release time for teachers to plan, work and reflect together; 3. Use money to foster a “can do” attitude and to organise budgets around student learning, not programs.

Which of these issues are being actively addressed in your school, note others to incorporate into strategic plans.

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TYPICAL MIDDLE SCHOOL TYPICAL MIDDLE SCHOOL TYPICAL MIDDLE SCHOOL TYPICAL MIDDLE SCHOOL CHANGE PROCESS CHANGE PROCESS CHANGE PROCESS CHANGE PROCESS

Initiation

• Interest by staff and/or principal in middle schooling;

• Team of teachers, council members and principal to middle school P.D. program;

• Dissemination and review of literature, followed by staff discussions--focus on current practices and future changes;

• Outside consultants share ideas and research regarding developmentally appropriate education for adolescents;

• Design a possible new organisational model for staff teaming (ex: five 4-member, multiyear, multi-disciplined teams with flexible block scheduling; tracking to be eliminated to allow for regrouping of students and teachers);

• Develop and disseminate a parent handbook; hold informational meetings on early adolescence and educational needs; establish a parent advisory committee;

• Throughout staff professional development on cooperative learning, thinking skills, integrated curriculum, aligning curriculum, instruction and assessment practices;

• Ongoing meetings to establish programs, schedules, deal with special needs;

• Curriculum standards in all subject areas are established.

Implementation

• During next school year, teams implement units and use common team planning time for curriculum, student and team issues; team leaders are given more professional development on their role;

• Curriculum embedded performance assessments are developed and trialed;

• Development of advisor-advisee program; use of student learning contracts are initiated;

• Program for new students is developed; articulation with feeder schools is increased.

Institutionalisation

• After a year of implementation, programs are refined, evidence of more heterogeneous groupings, team-based budgeting;

• School-wide benchmark student assessments are given; Program evaluation is given to the council, district and/or state.

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