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Word Sort
Display these directions on the board one step at a time:

Each student writes 10 words on cards (one word per card) that were important in the reading.

Students get into small groups.

Group sorts the words from all of the members into 3-4 categories.

Group chooses the 5 most important words.

Group writes one sentence using those 5 words.

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1. Classrooms are communities. And in those communities, students have various roles. These Classrooms are communities. And in those communities, students have various roles. These roles promote positive interactions with one another and allow for teachers to build up and praise students that need more of that validation during this age more than any other group. This strategy can be combined with two other successful strategies, which are active participation and student movement.

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Students individually reflect on a question, then share their thoughts with a partner before discussing as a larger group.

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The number one top teaching strategy for any level, especially middle school, is to provide a clear plan of instruction daily. Middle school students crave structure and routine, and teachers are destined to fail without a clear plan.

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Arrange students into expert groups.

Each group becomes experts on a particular topic.

Rearrange students into mixed groups.

Each expert in the mixed group shares their expertise with the rest of the group.

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Substitutes writing for discussion and appeals to introverted students.

During the pair sequence, the two learners “exchange written notes instead of verbalizing their ideas.” Then they share conclusions aloud to the class. This can encourage the full participation of a rowdy or shy class. Example: A history teacher can direct students to silently annotate each other’s perspectives on the causes of the Boston Tea Party.

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Show students that it pays to behave: At the end of tough classes, I’d daily give out two raffle tickets—one for academic effort and one for good behavior. After writing their names on the tickets, kids dropped them in a jar. On Friday, I randomly drew two student names—both received candy bars.

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The teacher creates 4 questions and prints multiple copies of each question on colored paper.  For example, if you have 32 students, you will have 8 copies of the blue question, 8 copies of the green question, etc.  Next the teacher arranges the students into small groups of 4.  Each student in the group is given a different question.   For example, each group will have one student who has the blue question, one student who has the green question, etc.  Each student leads the small group discussion of his/her question.  You may want to use a timer to pace the small group discussions.  During the whole class discussion, the students who had each question report what their group discussed.

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Give students choices: “Do you want to do this assignment in class or as a take-home quiz?” “Should this project be group or independent work?” Choice increases students’ buy-in.

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Post a question on the board.  Ask each student to individually write down six ideas on their paper.  This could be a question related to a text they just read, in which case it would be fine to allow them to refer to the text in writing down their ideas.  Once the students have had sufficient time to write down six ideas, arrange them in groups of three.  Each group of three must narrow down their lists to the three best ideas that they have collectively.  Once they have had time to do this, lead a whole class discussion and ask each group to share one idea from their group.

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Establish routines: If you have a chaotic class, keep things predictable. Also: Post the day’s schedule.

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Build prior knowledge so new learning and strategies stick to begin a unit.

Centers

Skits

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Middle school students have an abundance of energy! Master teachers are able to successfully take that energy and channel it into positive interactions and participation that is helpful, not hurtful. Research shows that students perform better with a series of brain breaks which can include activities that involve students in getting up and out of their seats, role playing, or other team-based activities that make learning fun and engaging, while allowing energy to be spent productively.

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• 3 ideas from today I found interesting

• 2 things I’m still wondering about

• 1 strategy I might actually try

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Invite students into the process

Be explicit when sharing the “why” for small-group work. A simple, yet critical initial exercise is to facilitate a circle-time discussion about small-group work. As students share their ideas, record responses on chart paper so that you can refer back to their plan as needed throughout the year.

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Developing Social Awareness with Empathy Mapping 

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Developing Social Awareness with Empathy Mapping 

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Students can create an empathy map as a helpful tool for being kind and connecting better with others by understanding how they may feel.

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Writing A Personal Narratives

Encourage students to focus on understanding and appreciating themselves through a personal narrative—doing so will make it easier for them to make better efforts to understand others. Emphasize that having knowledge of self means having insight into one’s identity, and self-awareness means comprehending the reasons for our actions.

Students will compose an original personal narrative of about 250 words describing things they know about themselves or a particular event or hobby they enjoy (e.g., a sport they play, an artistic skill, or their special talent). They may also include aspects of their culture at home (e.g., music, food, holidays, languages they speak, religion, etc.) or a future goal. The narrative should also provide the following:

Adherence to good grammar and sentence structure.

Clear organization with a start, middle, and end.

Takeaways on what they know better about themselves.

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An activating strategy is something that gets students actively thinking or making a connection with the material being presented that day. Make a connection to the content or to the outside world to see how much the students already know or remember.

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There should be limited lecture time. After 12-15 minutes of lecturing, you should engage your students in some type of activity, even if it's for only a few minutes. The teacher can then go back to lecturing for another chunk of time.

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Use of a graphic organizer allows students to visually categorize new information or review old information.

Students need to be able to conceptualize whatever information we're giving them. The graphic organizer is student friendly. When they look at information that's organized, it's easier for them to retain and remember that information. And when they go home, it is less intimidating to look at that information as opposed to pulling out a notebook that has pages and pages of notes.

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Present your students with at least three higher-order-thinking (“HOT”) questions during the lesson. This is proof that you are presenting all your students with challenging work.

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Summarize to bring the lesson to a close. This is when you can assess your students' abilities to effectively answer the essential question, and you can find out whether you need to extend or refine the skill.

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Self-Assessment of amount of understanding

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Self-Assessment of amount of understanding

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Students can rate their perceived understanding using a variety of gestures or indicators, most of which are probably familiar to you. One thing all these indicator systems have in common is that they allow you to survey the entire class, not just a few students who are called on. Another thing these indicators have in common is that they are ratings of an amount of understanding or confidence in understanding. Note: They don’t indicate what students are understanding. For that, students need to use words and explain their thinking.

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For many students, ideas on the page come alive when they are spoken. Reading text aloud provides a way to help all students access the material and develops their skills as active listeners. Listening to proficient readers provides a model for fluent reading and can help students, especially ELL students, recognize how to pronounce unfamiliar words. By inviting students to read, this strategy encourages class participation and takes the focus off of the teacher as the only source of information.

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Inviting students to engage in robust talk leads to growth in learning and achievement. Accountable Talk practices seriously respond to and further develop what others in the group have said. It puts forth and demands knowledge that is accurate and relevant to the issue under discussion.

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Peer teaching is a collaborative, active learning strategy in which students take on the roles of both teacher and learner. In peer teaching, students teach and learn from one another, sharing knowledge, skills, and experiences.

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According to Fisher and Frey, Close Reading is “an instructional routine in which students are guided in their understanding of complex text”.  Close Reading is an instructional approach that integrates several reading strategies, where students add knowledge gained from text to their schema. Doing so builds habits of successful readers, and builds stamina and persistence with complex text.

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The Word Wall teaching strategy creates a place in the classroom where students display the meanings of important ideas using words and pictures. As students encounter new vocabulary in a text or video, creating a classroom word wall offers one way to help them comprehend and interpret ideas in the text.

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The Socratic seminar method is a structured discussion that encourages critical thinking and collaboration among students. It's based on the Socratic method, a teaching style developed by the Greek philosopher Socrates that uses questioning and dialogue to explore a student's beliefs.

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Reciprocal teaching is a teaching method that helps students improve their reading comprehension by having them work together in small groups to apply four comprehension strategies to a text.

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In this direct instruction method, students watch as a teacher demonstrates an action or skill. This might be seeing a teacher solving a math problem step-by-step, or watching them demonstrate proper handwriting on the whiteboard. Usually, this is followed by having students do hands-on practice or activities in a similar manner.