At Mayfield Middle School, in order to create personalized and more meaningful learning experiences for the students, it was realized that a typical, traditional schedule was not always conducive to the types of learning experiences teachers wanted to create. Teachers had great ideas for projects and practices that would incorporate more critical…

The 2018 STEM Summer Camp was held on the campuses of a middle school in the Southeast. Students from Title I schools across the district were invited to take part in the month-long STEM program, focused on advancing content competency through Mathematics, Science, Language Arts, and STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics) Inquiry.…

A popular trend fusing regular and special education, co-teaching aims to combine the content expertise of a general education teacher with a special education teacher's understanding of meeting the needs of a range of learners for the good of all students. Co-teaching also serves as a vehicle for actualizing characteristics of successful schools…

Co-teaching, defined by Friend and Cook (2013) as substantive instruction by two or more professionals of a diverse group of learners in a shared space, has long been a key feature of middle level instruction. This article reports on a four-year formative experiment (Reinking & Bradley, 2008) intended to generate insights to guide teachers'…

Two teacher researchers examined the nature of mentoring relationships occurring among and between team teachers at one middle school as they planned for and taught a common group of students. There were five types of (simultaneous) mentoring among teachers: collaborative, clerical, professional teacher, interdisciplinary content, and…

Discusses elements of successful cooperative planning for middle school teaching teams. Considers definitions for content goals, learners, and effective co-teaching. Describes planning of instructional units, cooperative grouping, roles and responsibilities for co-teachers, and tiered activities for a cooperative literature study. (JPB)

Study findings indicate that ongoing communication and collaboration among teachers play a critical role in promoting successful technology integration and that administrators need to establish ways to facilitate collaborative effort. (six references) (MLF)

Summarizes research findings from a longitudinal study related to measuring effective classroom practices, the aspects of interdisciplinary teaming that affect practices at the classroom level, and how classroom practices relate to student achievement. (JPB)

Discusses ways to assess how well team organizations are functioning and contributing to the total operation of the middle schools that use team structures. Considers whether teaching teams determine course content, and school support for teams; also considers teacher training in team operations and the level of understanding and commitment…

Discusses five types of flexible block schedules used in a team-taught middle school classroom. Briefly describes the transition from traditional scheduling to block scheduling. (JPB)

A middle school placed spelling instruction as a regular part of the first-hour class that had extended time for writing. Each teacher was responsible once every four weeks for providing a spelling unit related to his or her subject matter. (MLF)

This article discusses five outcomes of interdisciplinary teaming in middle school settings, based on the School Improvement Self-Study. These outcomes are intended to illustrate the positive impact of teaming with data from schools of varying demographic features. Outcomes include improvements to work climate, parental contact, job satisfaction,…

Discusses the implementation of partner teams of two or three teachers at the middle school level. Considers the effect of these partnerships on class organization, student achievement, and teachers' relationships, and notes the evolution of partnerships from teaching teams. (JPB)

Discusses the need for middle school teaching teams to maintain boundary relations with other parts of the school. Provides a framework for dealing with group boundaries and recommends actions to preserve intergroup relations, including intergroup communication, acquiring a total-school perspective, and deliberately attending to boundary matters.…

Discusses the ways middle school team teachers who have the team's best interests in mind actually engage in behaviors that undermine team effectiveness and trust. Provides a list of ten well-intended practices that erode team effectiveness. (JPB)