Presentation Tools & Virtual Learning Sites

• Fundamentals for Student Success in the Middle Grades    
  This free presentation tool is a resource appropriate for advocacy work with school boards, parent and family groups, school staff and community members. The presentation is a 17 minute overview of the characteristics of middle level education. It can be viewed in its entirety or in three segments.
• Middle Grades Education: Fundamentals and Research    
  A collection of presentations with presenter notes about general middle grades education topics.
• Middle School Portal: Math & Science Pathways (MSP)2    
  This portal provides opportunities to develop increased content knowledge in the areas of science, mathematics, technology, and developmentally appropriate pedagogy. The site is a virtual professional learning community developed by the National Science Digital Libraries.
• Taking Center Stage - Act II (TCSII)    
  Ensuring Success and Closing the Achievement Gap for All of California’s Middle Grades Students; from California Department of Education and the Middle Level Alliance. This site is the culmination of an innovative project dedicated to promoting excellence in middle grades education and is delivered through a dynamic Web portal. TCSII addresses academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, social equity and organizational structures and processes.

Research on Best Practice

Felner, R. D., Jackson, A. W., Kasak, D., Mulhall, P., Brand, S. & Flowers, N. (1997). The impact of school reform for the middle years: Longitudinal study of a network engaged in Turning Points-based comprehensive school transformation. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(7), 528-532, 541-550.
• National Middle School Association: Research Summaries    
  These summaries provide up-to-date synopses of the latest research in critical areas including young adolescent developmental characteristics, leadership, mathematics, technology and student learning, technology and pedagogy, digital technology in mathematics and science education and more.
• Research for Middle Level Education Online (REMLE)    
  Current work by researchers in the field housed on the National Middle School Association website.
• Student Achievement and the Middle School Concept    
  In order to answer questions related to the middle school concept and its effects on student achievement and socio-emotional development, middle grades practitioners, researchers, and policymakers must move beyond the focus on individual components and look at research that addresses the reform as an integrated model, including the impact on student learning and achievement (Anfara & Lipka, 2003).
• Strategies to Engage Middle Level Learners    
  This newsletter addresses student motivation and illustrates three strategies that can help create a meaningful curriculum to engage middle-level learners. The strategies draw from effective classroom practices across grade levels as well as from research about the social, emotional, and physical development of middle-level learners.
• Effective Strategies for Dropout Prevention    
  15 Effective Strategies for Dropout Prevention from the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network.

Middle Level Philosophies and Practices

• Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports    
  PBIS offers a school-wide set of behavior standards all teachers can implement along with data gathering systems and surveys that make a difference.
• Safe and Civil Schools    
  Find information on Safe and Civil Schools, a positive behavior and climate program.

• This We Believe in Action
  The 14 tenets of TWB with a CD highlighting schools and programs that exemplify these practices. http://www.nmsa.org/store.

• This We Believe, Successful Schools for Young Adolescents
  National Middle School Association, Westerville, Ohio 2003, the foundational thesis for middle school reform around fourteen interconnected characteristics. A section on development characteristics of young adolescents is featured in this publication. http://www.nmsa.org/store.

• Andrea Morgan     (503) 947-5772
  Teaching & Learning Team - Ed. Specialist, Social Sciences Curriculum and Advanced Placement Incentive Prog