SPRINGDALE : Class for teachers of middle school informs, reassures
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/232101/
SPRINGDALE — The amount of social, emotional and intellectual change children experience in middle school is second only to the rapid development of their first year of life, educators said Tuesday.
The pace of that development poses challenges for teachers trying to maintain control and discipline in the classroom.
“Middle level kids are so much fun to teach but, boy, are they difficult,” teaching lecturer Neila Connors told a roomful of Northwest Arkansas middle school teachers.
Leaders with the Educational Renewal Zone organized the Middle Level Institute, the first of a planned annual event focused on mid-level educators to assist teachers in adopting a new educational philosophy.
The Educational Renewal Zone is a partnership of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative and teachers in Benton, Washington and Madison counties.
More than 280 teachers attended the conference, with more than one-third of them coming from the Rogers School District.
The fall opening of Heritage High School will coincide with a revised grade configuration in Rogers that eliminates two junior highs and redistributes the district’s secondary students into four middle schools and two high schools.
Many teachers accustomed to teaching junior high students in an autonomous fashion will now work with teams of their peers with younger middle school pupils.
“The timing of this is perfect for us,” Roger Hill, principal of Rogers’ Kirksey Middle School, said of the group. “We want them to continue to be great teachers, but we want them to do it through a new structure.”
Strategies included in the middle school teacher model, such as cooperative teaching, help to prevent students’ personal changes and a fragile social dynamic from hindering the classroom experience, Hill said. Teachers in several core subject areas work with the same group of students, comparing notes on their strengths, weaknesses and instructional needs.
Kirksey is one of three Northwest Arkansas middle schools named “Diamond Schools to Watch” by the Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, which recognizes schools that excel at teaching through the middle school model. Kelly and Tyson middle schools in Springdale were recognized this year.
A group of middle school principals designed focus areas for the institute based on their own classroom experiences, Hill said. At the institute, education lecturers and administrators worked with teachers to develop new ways to relate to children of different learning levels, develop interactive lesson plans and work together to motivate children. Lecturer Gail Heinemeyer told teachers how to use “diffusing strategies” to work with social situations and uncooperative students without disrupting the classroom. She encouraged them to use children’s social interaction as a part of instruction, rather than a hindrance to it, by building student conversations into lesson plans. “These are kids who have real needs,” Heinemeyer said. “One of those needs is to interact, and they’re going to do it whether you structure it or not.”
To contact this reporter: eblad@arkansasonline. com