6-8 Middle School

Explore and share tips, strategies, and resources for helping students develop in grades 6-8.

Place-Based Learning
A Place-Based Approach to PBL
A veteran teacher and author discusses how to bring fieldwork into your project-based learning curriculum.
Teaching Strategies
When a Rubric Isn’t Enough
Providing a scaffold and teaching students how to use a scaffold are not the same thing.
Assessment
Crafting Feedback That Leads to Learning
Five techniques for giving feedback that helps students improve their work.
Student Engagement
Promoting Productive Struggle in Math
Giving middle school students tough problems in advance of instruction pushes them to work like mathematicians.
Literacy
Reigniting a Passion for Reading
Many students stop reading for pleasure by middle school. Here are some ways parent volunteers can help counteract that trend.
Critical Thinking
The Importance of Purpose in Education
Students can discover a sense of purpose in their learning through questions that lead them to think about their interests.
Collaborative Learning
Community in the Classroom
On sharing personal stories and using reading circles to create strong bonds in the classroom and to help every student find their voice.
Communication Skills
Effective Student-Led Discussions
Three approaches to guiding your students to take ownership over their discussions of shared texts.
Apps
Helping Students See How Graphs Work
Guide students to see past what graphs look like and understand what they represent using free online animations.
PBL Assessment
Standards-Based Assessment in PBL
Incorporating standards-based grading into project-based learning is a challenge, but these four practices will help you get started.