With the next school year not too far over the horizon, 7th grade teacher Laurie Hornik has tips for getting off to a strong start. She suggests skipping traditional ice breakers and instead introducing the class community by exploring what you will be learning together.
Creating a well-rounded middle school student goes way beyond the textbook! Anne Jolly shares the core learning skills and life skills middle-schoolers need and invites teachers – especially STEM teachers – to take up the challenge to help students achieve their potential.
Getting students to show their reasoning isn’t about adding one more step, writes math coach Mona Iehl. It’s about redefining how math learning happens and coming to see that students learn not through memorizing steps, but through reasoning, discussion, and exploration.
AI should be more than a tool; it could be a true creative partner and not a crutch. It is our job to get our students to that point. Practice at choosing the best words for prompts, refining those prompts, and evaluating and adjusting the responses can help get them there.
Adolescent Development / Book Reviews
by MiddleWeb · Published 05/22/2025 · Last modified 05/23/2025
What do middle graders need from adults, especially their parents? Looking into brain science and social, academic, tech and ethical issues, educator and parent Jody Passanisi asks parents to think back to their own childhoods and then consider how to best support their kids.
Artificial Intelligence / STEM By Design
by Anne Jolly · Published 05/20/2025 · Last modified 06/28/2025
Every student needs to understand AI basics, including its potential and problems. They need to be aware of current AI tools and understand how to use them. Perhaps most important, they need to understand the social and ethical issues AI can create. Anne Jolly shares ways to get students started.
If you teach students from immigrant families, EL teacher Dina Strasser is offering her list of “what can I do?” actions to prepare and support them. How you honor your duty of care depends on your students’ needs, your district’s policies and resources, and your political environment.
With summer here and most schools done for the year, MiddleWeb has pulled together a diverse set of deep-dive PD articles you might have missed. They’re insightful, informative and actionable!
Endings – whether for middle or high school – are all about what comes next. We help students learn so they will be able to bring their learning forward to face new challenges. Students can benefit from our making these moves more explicit. Laurie Miller Hornik offers strategies.
Teacher Michelle Russell likes to have some short activities on hand, in case she needs to fill extra time during math class. Here she shares several fun fillers that are easy to access, don’t require prep, and increase students’ math fluency, logic skills, or number sense.
