MiddleWeb’s January Articles
How do we convince students to learn more? Our January contributors explored this question in numerous ways. Key words: Goal setting. Motivation. Feedback. Engagement. Electives. Intentional AI.
Who can keep up with anything these days?! Once a month we’re making it easy for MiddleWeb Substack subscribers by sending you brief descriptions of last month’s new MiddleWeb.com articles and reviews – written (as always) by educators who are doing the work. Just click on a title to check it out!
Articles
Use Goal Setting to Grow Great Student Writers
Writing goals help students identify ways to improve in their writing and set specific targets they want to work on, says ELA teacher and children’s author Valerie Bolling. Best of all, during the process students will see the growth they’ve made as writers and as goal setters.
Breaking Down the Math Fluency Gates
When math interventionist Juliana Tapper was directed to teach grade-level content to her middle school strugglers, they “moved from apathy to hope,” and she had a revelation: If we provide access, structural support, and the right fluency practice, teachers stop being gatekeepers and become gatebreakers.
8 Ways I Use Feedback to Drive Student Growth
For students to get the most out of feedback, they need to know that the teacher believes in their potential and wants to help them continue to grow. Teacher leader Kasey Short shares tips to build trust and strategies she uses to make feedback a driving force in daily instruction and improvement.
How Can We Be Sure AI Advances Our Learning?
As artificial intelligence becomes omnipresent in schools, leadership coach Matt Renwick suggests ways to make sure AI benefits you and your students. Included: current AI education research, ways to make AI use intentional, and a guide to developing a unit of study that engages students in AI tools and ethics.
The Motivation-Engagement Loop: A Quick Refresher
When we provide learners with both the spark to start and the tools to keep going, we help each student move one step closer to becoming a self-directed learner who views challenges as opportunities to grow. Teacher educator Curtis Chandler explains how motivation and engagement work together.
Finding the Chiaroscuro in Our Lives as Teachers
The deficit atmosphere in schools – unsustainable workloads, lack of resources, minimal supports, terrible pay – contributes to culling, writes teacher Dina Strasser. Rather than seeing a complete image of our lives – both the dark and the light – we’re at risk of letting our empathy leach away.
Expository Writing: The Field Guide Project
Stephanie Farley is teaching nonfiction writing to her class of gifted, neurodiverse students and needed to design a differentiated unit that addresses each of her students’ particular strengths. Read about what she’s come up with – the Field Guide Project – and add suggestions!
Five Models for Asking Higher Level Questions
When you climb to the top of a mountain, the steps become increasingly difficult as you go, but the view is worth it. Consultant and author Barbara R. Blackburn shares five models for organizing higher levels of questions to help students reach the learning summit. (Our most-read article of the month!)
Transform Your Engagement by Expanding Your Electives
Many educators believe we could increase engagement and attendance if we gave middle schoolers the opportunity to choose (and even design) more electives. But what about scheduling? What about staffing? Leadership coach Jen Schwanke walks us through her district’s five-school transformation, step by step.
Book Reviews
Latinx Teens Find Power in Narrative Writing
Narrative Writing with Latinx Teens is an amazing exploration of the role of narrative writing in the lives of Latinx adolescents. It is not just a guide for educators, but a rich examination of the intersection between culture, identity and storytelling, says Melinda Stewart.
Using AI with Intention to Benefit Our Students
Tony Frontier’s AI with Intention encourages decision makers to view artificial intelligence as a tool for both teachers and students. This tool only works when it’s used with intention. Frontier provides a framework for schools to use AI in purposeful ways, writes veteran teacher Chris Wagner.
Strategies to Reach and Teach Every Learner
The Classroom of Choice is perfect for teachers seeking ways to strengthen their classrooms and curriculum using Choice Theory so students thrive as learners and humans, says MS teacher and NBCT Angela Lee. Each chapter has specific, ready to use, research based strategies.
Assessing with Rigor to Reach Every Student
Building on her previous writings redefining rigor in education, in Rigor and Assessment in the Classroom: Strategies and Tools (2nd Edition) teaching coach Barbara R. Blackburn shares fresh tools, strategies, and insights to add depth to your teaching in ways that are meaningful, engaging and appropriately challenging for all students.
Wow, the part about how AI can advance our learning realy stood out to me. What if we could properly leverage AI to create hyper-personalized learning paths for every student, adjusting in real-time? That would be such a game changer, right?