The Middle School World

The 13^th characteristic of effective middle schools is that “comprehensive guidance and support services meet the needs of young adolescents” (This We Believe, pg 37). Most schools offer related service providers and have counselors, psychologists or social workers but what makes them a part of an effective middle school is that they are readily available to the students who need them and can help students with their academic and social lives and their lives both in and out of school. Counselors are typically responsible for coordinating student guidance and support services, however they can also involve special education teachers, speech pathologists, and any other teacher which a student may have a close relationship with. Additionally, guidance can come in many forms. It can be participating in classroom activities with the student, planning for transitions, helping with peer mediation, or teacher to student mediation, meeting with parents, and offering regular small group or 1:1 guidance sessions.

Describe:

One example of a school which has provided exemplary guidance to their students is Caley Elementry School. Support services are typically organized and lead by the school counselors and Caley Elementry School had a wonderful school counselor, Barbara Micucci, who effectively took this role and went above and beyond. As the characteristic describes, she was available to the students when they needed her, and helped them work through classroom problems, problems with their peers and even issues they may be facing at home. What made the support she offered so comprehensive though is that she actively reached out to parents to work with them. After reviewing school records she noticed trends in the discipline of male students. She gathered a reading group of parents and school administers to collectively read the book Raising Cain which discusses issues that adolescent boys face. As a result of the reading she was able to further educate parents and her colleagues as well as make parents aware of the magnitude of influence male role models can have in their children’s lives. She then went another step, to organize a night for male students and any male role model they had to interact doing activities. Because of her commitment to her students and her ability to reach them in a multifaceted way she was awarded counselor of the year by the American School Counselor Association.

The description of reasoning for her award can be found through the link below:

http://www.schoolcounselor.org/files/MicucciPR.pdf

Analyze:
Barbara Micucci’s excellence in counseling has been recognized, however it is also important to remember that comprehensive guidance and support services typically cannot be effective without a whole team effort. Even a spectacular counselor can only have good, in-depth relationships with some many students, staff members and parents. In order to ensure that all of the students within a school have the support that they need, counselors need to work with a team and delegate responsibilities. The way in which these are divided are often evident based on staff’s specialties but nevertheless it is important that everyone works together in order to provide the student the most comprehensive support possible. Additionally it is essential that schools support for their students goes beyond the guidance of one counselor as often school counselors are busy and cannot meet the specific needs of each student at every moment.

Apply:

At my current school I believe we have excellent counselors, however I am not sure we provide comprehensive guidance and support services. Unfortunately I don’t think every student at my school who assumes special responsibility for supporting them academically and socially. Almost all (but not all) students at my school are receiving counseling, and many of our counselors are fantastic and do serve as mentors and provide guidance but this is not enough. This is primarily because each of our counselors has huge caseloads and so they often just don’t have the time to devote to each child that they really need. The counselors are responsible for picking students up for counseling on a regular basis, but often the times in which students need to see them, and need help coping with something, they are not available. As This We Believe highlights counselors should not be the only ones responsible for being mentors, but teachers even more so struggle to find time to meet with students 1:1 because of their even more structured schedules.

It is not possible for adults to be available whenever students require, however if the students where divided up amongst the school staff (including related service providers, teachers, paraprofessionals, etc) in a district 75 setting it is likely we could have less than a handful of students placed with each staff member. I think it would be fantastic if there could be 30 minutes in the school day for staff to meet in small groups with their handful of students to check in. It would be beneficial to help them make friends/know adults outside of their classes, have an appropriate time to chit-chat, discuss issues going on at home, discuss issues in their classroom and at school in the presence of a small group, with an adult who is more formally their advocate. It is hard to give up 'academic' time for things like this but I believe it could be an interesting experiment with potentially extremely beneficial results.

Knowing this many never be possible, I therefore believe that it should be the responsibility of all school staff (teachers, related service providers, administration, office staff, paraprofessionals, etc) to reach out to students and develop mentoring relationships even if they are informal. In fact these informal ones may end up being the most beneficial to the students because they most reflect real life.

The school actively involves families in the education of their children

The school actively involves families in the education of their children

Explain:

The 15^th characteristic of successful middle schools is that “the school actively involves families in the education of their children” (This We Believe, pg 40). This characteristic is so essential because parents often pull back support from their children as they enter middle school in comparison to what they offered in elementary school however studies still show that parent involvement is a huge indicator of student achievement. According to the 2007 annual survey of trends in education (http://www.nfer.ac.uk/nfer/publications/ASO01/ASO01part9.pdf) schools involved parents in elementary schools more than in middle schools in every category assessed, including having school newsletters, having an active PTA, involving parents in the classroom of having education opportunities for parents. . School and home communication ideally should be a two way street, with schools additionally offering parent education programs, parenting support, and communicating with parents about education content, student behavior and additional activities. In order to bridge the gap between home and school, schools need to be able to translate materials, and offer programs at times and in locations that are convenient for parents. Modern technology should work as a tool to help schools make parents feel integrated into the community and feel comfortable at school.

Describe:

Quest to Learn School, or otherwise known as the gaming school, or school for digital kids, is a very unique school, that through its interesting educational strategies well integrates parents into the learning environment. The school integrates all of their core subject materials into games so that students are motivated to learn. More about the school can be found at: q2l.org With game theory as a premise of the school, education and learning is easily transferable between school and home life, and between ‘work’ and play time. The school openly shares with parents so that they are aware of what their children are working on. For example, the schools website has a parent kit page (http://q2l.org/node/27) where parents have access to a great deal of school materials. Additionally, because learning is game play, parents can easily take over for teachers, in what is known as connected learning, and which provides cohesion and increased understanding for learners. For example in this video: http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/10/the-school-where-learning-is-a-game/ a mother of a child at the school scribes how she plays games with her son to reinforce what he has learnt at school. They guess the total price of groceries. When parents understand school teaching strategies, learning can occupy many different spaces.

Analyze:

Parental involvement at Quest to Learn is a fantastic attribute of the school, however it is important to remember that it is not solely the school that influences parental involvement. Because Quest to Learn is such a specific and focused school with a unique methodology, students attending it, by their very nature have parents who are interested in their children education. This parental investment is how the kids end up at this specific school. That being said parental involvement is highly influenced by what schools do to actively involve families. Quest to Learn has unique methodologies, but they make sure that parents are aware of this, and aware of what their kids are learning at any specific moment so they can be partners with the school in educating their children. Some children are extremely open about school life, but others are not, so if I parent can know directly from school what is going on in the classroom they are likely to be able to offer much better support to the child.

Apply:

This past year I had some parents who were kind, concerned and wanted to be involved in their child’s learning as much as possible, while I had other parents who I simply could not reach and/or seemed fairly uninvest in their child’s education. I think it is important to make all parents feel welcome in the school community and to reach out to all parents to keep them in the loop. Reflecting on Quest to Learn though I realize that keeping parents in the loop involves more than calling when kids are sick or have misbehaved. Next year I plan at the beginning of each unit to send home a blurb (which I can hopefully get translated) about what we will be learning, key vocabulary, and ideas for activities or conversations for them to have with their kids. I believe this will be beneficial for increasing student learning, for my students relationships with their parents, and for their investment in school subject matter- if they see it as transferable between home and school.

Health and wellness are supported in curricula, school-wide programs and related policies

Health and wellness are supported in curricula, school-wide programs and related policies

Explain:

The 14^th characteristic of an effective middle school is that “health and wellness are supported in curricula, school wide programs and related policies” (This We Believe, pg 38). While middle schoolers are still early adolescents, they are not too young to start learning about maintaining healthy minds and bodies. Drinking, Smoking, doing drugs, eating habits, and sexual activity are all on the minds of middle schoolers or will be as they grow up and it is important to address these important issues for them before they face them in situations that they don’t know how to handle or are already out of control. A well developed health and wellness program “provide[s] opportunities for developing and practicing healthful decision making and refusal skills, which are purposely reinforced throughout the curriculum” (This We Believe, pg 38).

Describe:

Many schools have health and wellness programs integrated into their everyday curriculums, or into their health, gym, or activities of daily living classes but there are also many programs which push into schools and provide this education through programs and challenges. One example of a program that is implemented in schools across the nation is Game On! The Ultimate Wellness Challenge which it organized to help students make better food choices and understand the value of physical exercise. Details of the challenge can be found at: http://www.a4hk.org/gotuwc/. One school that effectively implemented the Game On challenge is Wes Del Elementary and High Schools. At the school staff members met to discuss school wellness issues and eventually sought resources from the challenge to help meet their needs. In surveys conducted they found that many of their students had never even been exposed to many healthy foods but in fact liked them and wanted them in the school cafeteria. The challenge also helped the school organize more physical activities for the students and helped the high school business students practice their finance and management skills managing vending machines.

The review of the school’s success in the Game On challenge can be found below:

http://www.actionforhealthykids.org/for-schools/success-stories/game-on-the-ultimate-wellness-challenge.html

Analyze:

The program Game On! The Ultimate Wellness Challenge was able to be so successful because they were actively brought into Wes Del Elementary and High school to meet a certain deficit in their current curriculum and school life. Many programs offer health and wellness resources to schools, teaching lessons, units, or setting up programs but without the support of school and the desire of individuals to integrate the material into the current school environment the magnitude of what is taught is significantly lost. In this case the school was fully supportive of the challenge, including being willing to alter their cafeteria food service, and maintain new extracurricular activities. This school appears to be an exemplary case of health and wellness because the program was integrated into the school’s “overall focus on improving school wellness” and offered to the students in a huge variety of activities “before, during and after school” involving “taste tests, physical activities, and other activities that encourage wellness” (http://www.wes-del.k12.in.us/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=2699)

Apply:

Making school wide changes that involve before and after school and that involve the school’s food service require a high level of administrative initiative and support, however that does not mean that there are not a lot of excellent steps individual teachers can take to improve health and wellness in their classroom. Health and wellness topics can be integrated into all other academic subjects with ease. For example, literacy can involve stories about eating healthy, exercise, etc. Math word problems or manipulatives can have students counting with pieces of fruit instead of cookies. When teachers feel their students are getting restless or tired they can implement jumping jack breaks.The examples go on and on. Additionally, if teachers have the time and flexibility with their current curriculum they can teach their own units about health and wellness and develop nutrition challenges within their classroom. Health and wellness education needs to go beyond diet and into sexual health, body changes, and risky behavior choices that impact the body and mind (drugs, alcohol, etc) but working with students to improve their diets is something every teacher can do every day as all students eat 1-2 meals at school a day.

Ongoing professional development reflects best educational practices

Ongoing professional development reflects best educational practices

Explain:

The 9^th characteristic of an effective middle school is that “ongoing professional development reflects best educational practices” (This We Believe, pg 30). For all those teachers out there, professional development is a pretty easy concept to understand, however for it to be effective it needs to be more than just a day away from your students. Effective professional development needs not be a series of random activities, but needs to be linked to the teacher or the schools specific needs. Additionally materials learned at professional development sessions need realistic plans of implementation and sustainability in the classroom or school. This is best achieved through multi-phased workshops, workshops that educate teacher teams as a whole, and workshops that have some form of assessment or evaluation.

Describe:

This past year I went to many informational and interesting professional development workshops, however after most of them I returned to my classroom doing the same things I was doing before. I workshop I attended however forced me to make critical changes in my planning and lessons and so I would like to bring one to the forefront of peoples attention. The workshop was held by NYC DOE District 75 which offers professional development workshops specifically for teachers of students in special education. The link to the workshop (held last year) can be found here: http://www.district75pd.org/classviewer.php?cid=2131 although it will likely be held again in the future. The workshop was to teach students Joint Action Routines.

*For further information on what a Joint Action Routine is, please refer to this website: http://www.bbbautism.com/pdf/article_19_communiation_joint_action_routines.pdf

There were two professional development days however the first was instructional and the second was reflective. In between those two days, we were expected to implement joint action routines with our students, have them practice repeatedly, and then one of the instructors from the PD attended a class period and filmed my students undergo the Joint Action Routine. During the second day of the professional development we watched videos of each teachers class to see the multiple ways in which the JAR could be implemented and to receive feedback on how we had already done it. We then developed plans to modify the JAR we had used or to develop additional ones for the future.

Analyze:

This Joint Action Routine professional development was so successful because there was ongoing assessment of the teachers to see if they could successfully apply what they had learned. Rather than being passive learners they were forced to implement the techniques used by having their class do a JAR and by evaluating other teachers implementations. Watching all the other videos was a bit long and tedious at the time however retrospectively I can see the benefits. The JAR in which I implemented was targeted specifically at my class of students, however throughout my career I may also work with lower and higher functioning students, or with larger or smaller classes, or a may teach different subjects. By having the opportunity to watch others work I know have a very broad understanding of how to implement a JAR in all kinds of classroom environments.

Apply:

I think there is much to be applied from this example of professional development. First of all it is a reminder that we are more similar to our students than we often remember. We learn best when the topic is integrated and relevant in our life, when our work is assessed, when we are forced to reflect on our work and when our work is supported by others. Additionally, after attending this professional development, in the future I plan to search for an increasing number of professional development opportunities that are multi-phased workshops, or that involve me going with my paraprofessionals, related service providers or teams of teachers. Having multiple staff members from a school attend the meeting, increases accountability to implement what has been learned.

Curriculum is challenging, exploratory, integrative and relevant

1 Curriculum is challenging, exploratory, integrative and relevant

Explain:

Characteristic 3 (This We Believe, pg 17) is that “curriculum is challenging, exploratory, integrative and relevant.” This statement is all encompassing, meaning it does not just addresss math, science, English and social studies curriculums, but addresses school elective classes, extra-curricular activities, and related services. This characteristic has been focused on because there is often confusion between “covering the content and learning the content” (This We Believe, pg 17). It is not sufficient for teachers to simply go over all and lecture about all of the curricular content. The curriculum rather should achievable, relevant in context, integrate technology, push students toward critical thinking, have career value, have some degree of independence/free choice, and involve collaboration.

Describe:

An example of a curriculum, specifically for students with special needs in alternate assessment programs, is the Unique Learning System. It is a curriculum with a different unit per month, however all of them are literacy based. Each monthly curriculum has about 30 lessons that involve readings, time based math, currency based math, schedule based math, science experiments, cooking, as well as other varied activities. No matter the lesson or the activity, the curriculum materials offer around 3 different levels of differentiated materials. The various levels are described below:

The Unique Learning System Curriculum (in combination with ) is fully explained in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVNc9W8L_M4

o Or those of you with a little less time, or who are already familiar with Unique, the following video presents a teachers step by step organization of Unique Learning materials. Each month the materials are extensive but she does a good job organizing them and describing how she uses different materials.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTACLikT3PU&feature=related

Analyze:

The Unique Learning System has been so successful because there are many organized curriculums in general education, but there are very few in special education. There is typically a differentiation between individuals who believe students in special education should still follow general education curriculums and others who believe that what is being taught should be specifically catered to each student (and to their IEP) because students needs vary so extensively. The Unique Learning System works to bridge this gap, or find some sort of compromise. There is a set curriculum (that varies for elementary, middle and high schools) however the content of the material is simplified compared to general education materials. Additionally it is designed so that a teacher can teach one whole class lesson while providing students with differentiated materials. These differentiated materials have different difficulty and amount of text, amount of pictures, and pictures on the side versus images linked to each word. After working with the Unique curriculum the downfall that I found was that while it is targeted at alternate assessment students, it was not difficult or challenging enough for some of my highest performing students. Additionally, I was not provided with manipulatives to accompany the lessons, which would make the curriculum far more accessible to all my students, but particularly to my lowest functioning students

Apply:

This curriculum is extremely relevant for all teachers using alternate assessment and can be applied in a huge variety of ways. It can be adopted as the primary curriculum implemented in the school or can be used as just an additional resource providing differentiated books, worksheets, and activities to integrate into other curriculums. I personally think it works best as the primary curriculum as the assessments and materials are well integrated. The computer software that accompanies it keeps track of students’ scores, comparing formative and summative assessments in each unit, and overall scores across the year. While differentiation is the focus of the curriculum, I do not believe it is sufficiently differentiated high and low enough and therefore requires that teacher incorporate additional materials.

Organizational structures foster purposeful learning and meaningful relationships

Organizational structures foster purposeful learning and meaningful relationships

Explain:

The 10^th characteristic of effective middle schools is that “organizational structures foster purposeful learning and meaningful relationship” (This We Believe, pg 31). This means that both teachers and students are divided into interdisciplinary teams to better foster learning. Students learn best when they have the ability to collaborate with their peers and with different teachers and teachers are able to best do their job when they have common planning time with teachers teaching similar things or working with similar students. The book This We Believe claims that teaching teams of two to three teachers are maximally effective. Additionally they describe how having teaching teams that let students work with the same teachers years in a row creates increase comfort in the school environment and better allows teachers to develop effective relationships with parents.

Describe:

An excellent example of an organizational structure that fosters learning are the professional learning communities at Park Crest Middle School. The professional learning communities are responsible for collaborative planning, data collection and concentrational learning. Their collaborative planning ensures that teachers across the board are on the same page. For data collection, each student has data folders where they track their progress over several years. They have a staff member of their school working solely as the districts executive director of professional and organizational development to help the school implement their professional learning communities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pw5qlhCF_k&feature=related

Analyze:

The reason that the professional learning communities at Park Crest Middle School are so successful is because they have a detailed plan about their collaborative responsibilities. Additionally the meetings are supported by the school administration and above that as professional learning communities are a district wide initiative. Having this kind of supervision and support ensures that meetings are held, are productive and are constantly evaluated for their effectiveness. Having the professional learning communities interact with children for over a year, they help create a sense of community for the students and provide them a more cohesive educational experience, rather than a series of segregated learning opportunities.

Apply:

Starting my second year as a teacher I don’t know if I feel fully comfortable working to create larger structural change in my school yet so pushing for formalized professional learning communities may be a stretch. Regardless, I think there is much to be learned about how they have been implemented in other schools and there are elements of them that I can implement in my own classroom and with small groups of colleagues. This website : http://www.allthingsplc.info/tools/samples.php provides a huge range of resources that are beneficial for teacher planning, and any kind of collaborative team meeting.

Additionally, because formal teacher collaboration at my school is scarce, reflecting on these examples forced me to consider how influential the organizational structure of a school can be on the teaching and learning environment. I think in the long run they would be extremely beneficial if well organized and supported, however in the short term they could be very difficult to implement as teachers would see this as time taken away from their classroom prep time.