how to do research for middle school students

• Research Skills

50 Mini-Lessons For Teaching Students Research Skills

Please note, I am no longer blogging and this post hasn’t updated since April 2020.

For a number of years, Seth Godin has been talking about the need to “ connect the dots” rather than “collect the dots” . That is, rather than memorising information, students must be able to learn how to solve new problems, see patterns, and combine multiple perspectives.

Solid research skills underpin this. Having the fluency to find and use information successfully is an essential skill for life and work.

Today’s students have more information at their fingertips than ever before and this means the role of the teacher as a guide is more important than ever.

You might be wondering how you can fit teaching research skills into a busy curriculum? There aren’t enough hours in the day! The good news is, there are so many mini-lessons you can do to build students’ skills over time.

This post outlines 50 ideas for activities that could be done in just a few minutes (or stretched out to a longer lesson if you have the time!).

Learn More About The Research Process

I have a popular post called Teach Students How To Research Online In 5 Steps. It outlines a five-step approach to break down the research process into manageable chunks.

This post shares ideas for mini-lessons that could be carried out in the classroom throughout the year to help build students’ skills in the five areas of: clarify, search, delve, evaluate , and cite . It also includes ideas for learning about staying organised throughout the research process.

Notes about the 50 research activities:

• These ideas can be adapted for different age groups from middle primary/elementary to senior high school.
• Many of these ideas can be repeated throughout the year.
• Depending on the age of your students, you can decide whether the activity will be more teacher or student led. Some activities suggest coming up with a list of words, questions, or phrases. Teachers of younger students could generate these themselves.
• Depending on how much time you have, many of the activities can be either quickly modelled by the teacher, or extended to an hour-long lesson.
• Some of the activities could fit into more than one category.
• Looking for simple articles for younger students for some of the activities? Try DOGO News or Time for Kids . Newsela is also a great resource but you do need to sign up for free account.
• Why not try a few activities in a staff meeting? Everyone can always brush up on their own research skills!

• Choose a topic (e.g. koalas, basketball, Mount Everest) . Write as many questions as you can think of relating to that topic.
• Make a mindmap of a topic you’re currently learning about. This could be either on paper or using an online tool like Bubbl.us .
• Read a short book or article. Make a list of 5 words from the text that you don’t totally understand. Look up the meaning of the words in a dictionary (online or paper).
• Look at a printed or digital copy of a short article with the title removed. Come up with as many different titles as possible that would fit the article.
• Come up with a list of 5 different questions you could type into Google (e.g. Which country in Asia has the largest population?) Circle the keywords in each question.
• Write down 10 words to describe a person, place, or topic. Come up with synonyms for these words using a tool like  Thesaurus.com .
• Write pairs of synonyms on post-it notes (this could be done by the teacher or students). Each student in the class has one post-it note and walks around the classroom to find the person with the synonym to their word.

• Explore how to search Google using your voice (i.e. click/tap on the microphone in the Google search box or on your phone/tablet keyboard) . List the pros and cons of using voice and text to search.
• Open two different search engines in your browser such as Google and Bing. Type in a query and compare the results. Do all search engines work exactly the same?
• Have students work in pairs to try out a different search engine (there are 11 listed here ). Report back to the class on the pros and cons.
• Think of something you’re curious about, (e.g. What endangered animals live in the Amazon Rainforest?). Open Google in two tabs. In one search, type in one or two keywords ( e.g. Amazon Rainforest) . In the other search type in multiple relevant keywords (e.g. endangered animals Amazon rainforest).  Compare the results. Discuss the importance of being specific.
• Similar to above, try two different searches where one phrase is in quotation marks and the other is not. For example, Origin of “raining cats and dogs” and Origin of raining cats and dogs . Discuss the difference that using quotation marks makes (It tells Google to search for the precise keywords in order.)
• Try writing a question in Google with a few minor spelling mistakes. What happens? What happens if you add or leave out punctuation ?
• Try the AGoogleADay.com daily search challenges from Google. The questions help older students learn about choosing keywords, deconstructing questions, and altering keywords.
• Explore how Google uses autocomplete to suggest searches quickly. Try it out by typing in various queries (e.g. How to draw… or What is the tallest…). Discuss how these suggestions come about, how to use them, and whether they’re usually helpful.
• Watch this video  from Code.org to learn more about how search works .
• Take a look at  20 Instant Google Searches your Students Need to Know  by Eric Curts to learn about “ instant searches ”. Try one to try out. Perhaps each student could be assigned one to try and share with the class.
• Experiment with typing some questions into Google that have a clear answer (e.g. “What is a parallelogram?” or “What is the highest mountain in the world?” or “What is the population of Australia?”). Look at the different ways the answers are displayed instantly within the search results — dictionary definitions, image cards, graphs etc.

• Watch the video How Does Google Know Everything About Me?  by Scientific American. Discuss the PageRank algorithm and how Google uses your data to customise search results.
• Brainstorm a list of popular domains   (e.g. .com, .com.au, or your country’s domain) . Discuss if any domains might be more reliable than others and why (e.g. .gov or .edu) .
• Discuss (or research) ways to open Google search results in a new tab to save your original search results  (i.e. right-click > open link in new tab or press control/command and click the link).
• Try out a few Google searches (perhaps start with things like “car service” “cat food” or “fresh flowers”). A re there advertisements within the results? Discuss where these appear and how to spot them.
• Look at ways to filter search results by using the tabs at the top of the page in Google (i.e. news, images, shopping, maps, videos etc.). Do the same filters appear for all Google searches? Try out a few different searches and see.
• Type a question into Google and look for the “People also ask” and “Searches related to…” sections. Discuss how these could be useful. When should you use them or ignore them so you don’t go off on an irrelevant tangent? Is the information in the drop-down section under “People also ask” always the best?
• Often, more current search results are more useful. Click on “tools” under the Google search box and then “any time” and your time frame of choice such as “Past month” or “Past year”.
• Have students annotate their own “anatomy of a search result” example like the one I made below. Explore the different ways search results display; some have more details like sitelinks and some do not.

• Find two articles on a news topic from different publications. Or find a news article and an opinion piece on the same topic. Make a Venn diagram comparing the similarities and differences.
• Choose a graph, map, or chart from The New York Times’ What’s Going On In This Graph series . Have a whole class or small group discussion about the data.
• Look at images stripped of their captions on What’s Going On In This Picture? by The New York Times. Discuss the images in pairs or small groups. What can you tell?
• Explore a website together as a class or in pairs — perhaps a news website. Identify all the advertisements .
• Have a look at a fake website either as a whole class or in pairs/small groups. See if students can spot that these sites are not real. Discuss the fact that you can’t believe everything that’s online. Get started with these four examples of fake websites from Eric Curts.
• Give students a copy of my website evaluation flowchart to analyse and then discuss as a class. Read more about the flowchart in this post.
• As a class, look at a prompt from Mike Caulfield’s Four Moves . Either together or in small groups, have students fact check the prompts on the site. This resource explains more about the fact checking process. Note: some of these prompts are not suitable for younger students.
• Practice skim reading — give students one minute to read a short article. Ask them to discuss what stood out to them. Headings? Bold words? Quotes? Then give students ten minutes to read the same article and discuss deep reading.

All students can benefit from learning about plagiarism, copyright, how to write information in their own words, and how to acknowledge the source. However, the formality of this process will depend on your students’ age and your curriculum guidelines.

• Watch the video Citation for Beginners for an introduction to citation. Discuss the key points to remember.
• Look up the definition of plagiarism using a variety of sources (dictionary, video, Wikipedia etc.). Create a definition as a class.
• Find an interesting video on YouTube (perhaps a “life hack” video) and write a brief summary in your own words.
• Have students pair up and tell each other about their weekend. Then have the listener try to verbalise or write their friend’s recount in their own words. Discuss how accurate this was.
• Read the class a copy of a well known fairy tale. Have them write a short summary in their own words. Compare the versions that different students come up with.
• Try out MyBib — a handy free online tool without ads that helps you create citations quickly and easily.
• Give primary/elementary students a copy of Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Citation that matches their grade level (the guide covers grades 1 to 6). Choose one form of citation and create some examples as a class (e.g. a website or a book).
• Make a list of things that are okay and not okay to do when researching, e.g. copy text from a website, use any image from Google images, paraphrase in your own words and cite your source, add a short quote and cite the source. 
• Have students read a short article and then come up with a summary that would be considered plagiarism and one that would not be considered plagiarism. These could be shared with the class and the students asked to decide which one shows an example of plagiarism .
• Older students could investigate the difference between paraphrasing and summarising . They could create a Venn diagram that compares the two.
• Write a list of statements on the board that might be true or false ( e.g. The 1956 Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia. The rhinoceros is the largest land animal in the world. The current marathon world record is 2 hours, 7 minutes). Have students research these statements and decide whether they’re true or false by sharing their citations.

Staying Organised

• Make a list of different ways you can take notes while researching — Google Docs, Google Keep, pen and paper etc. Discuss the pros and cons of each method.
• Learn the keyboard shortcuts to help manage tabs (e.g. open new tab, reopen closed tab, go to next tab etc.). Perhaps students could all try out the shortcuts and share their favourite one with the class.
• Find a collection of resources on a topic and add them to a Wakelet .
• Listen to a short podcast or watch a brief video on a certain topic and sketchnote ideas. Sylvia Duckworth has some great tips about live sketchnoting
• Learn how to use split screen to have one window open with your research, and another open with your notes (e.g. a Google spreadsheet, Google Doc, Microsoft Word or OneNote etc.) .

All teachers know it’s important to teach students to research well. Investing time in this process will also pay off throughout the year and the years to come. Students will be able to focus on analysing and synthesizing information, rather than the mechanics of the research process.

By trying out as many of these mini-lessons as possible throughout the year, you’ll be really helping your students to thrive in all areas of school, work, and life.

Also remember to model your own searches explicitly during class time. Talk out loud as you look things up and ask students for input. Learning together is the way to go!

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10 Replies to “50 Mini-Lessons For Teaching Students Research Skills”

Loving these ideas, thank you

This list is amazing. Thank you so much!

So glad it’s helpful, Alex! 🙂

Hi I am a student who really needed some help on how to reasearch thanks for the help.

So glad it helped! 🙂

seriously seriously grateful for your post. 🙂

So glad it’s helpful! Makes my day 🙂

How do you get the 50 mini lessons. I got the free one but am interested in the full version.

Hi Tracey, The link to the PDF with the 50 mini lessons is in the post. Here it is . Check out this post if you need more advice on teaching students how to research online. Hope that helps! Kathleen

Best wishes to you as you face your health battler. Hoping you’ve come out stronger and healthier from it. Your website is so helpful.

Comments are closed.

ChatGPT for Teachers

Trauma-informed practices in schools, teacher well-being, cultivating diversity, equity, & inclusion, integrating technology in the classroom, social-emotional development, covid-19 resources, invest in resilience: summer toolkit, civics & resilience, all toolkits, degree programs, trauma-informed professional development, teacher licensure & certification, how to become - career information, classroom management, instructional design, lifestyle & self-care, online higher ed teaching, current events, 5 methods to teach students how to do research papers.

When teaching students how to construct research papers, the scaffolding method is an effective option. This method allows students to research and then organize their information. The scaffold provides understandable support for expository papers. Students greatly benefit from having the majority of the research and proper structure in place before even starting the paper.

With well-prepared references, students are able to:

• Study informational text
• Practice strategies that are genre-specific for expository writing
• Use an inquiry-based approach
• Work individually
• Work collaboratively

The following tips and methodologies build off the initial preparation:

• Students formulate a logical thesis that expresses a perspective on their research subject.
• Students practice their research skills. This includes evaluating their sources, summarizing and paraphrasing significant information, and properly citing their sources.
• The students logically group and then sequence their ideas in expository writing.
•  They should arrange and then display their information on maps, graphs and charts.
• A well-written exposition is focused on the topic and lists events in chronological order.

Formulating a research question

An example research paper scaffold and student research paper should be distributed to students. The teacher should examine these with the students, reading them aloud.

Using the example research paper, discuss briefly how a research paper answers a question. This example should help students see how a question can lead to a literature review, which leads to analysis, research, results and finally, a conclusion.

Give students a blank copy of the research paper Scaffold and explain that the procedures used in writing research papers follow each section of the scaffold. Each of those sections builds on the one before it; describe how each section will be addressed in future sessions.

Consider using Internet research lessons to help students understand how to research using the web.

Have students collect and print at least five articles to help them answer their research question. Students should use a highlighter to mark which sections pertain specifically to their question. This helps students remain focused on their research questions.

The five articles could offer differing options regarding their research questions. Be sure to inform students that their final paper will be much more interesting if it examines several different perspectives instead of just one.

Have students bring their articles to class. For a large class, teachers should have students highlight the relevant information in their articles and then submit them for assessment prior to the beginning of class.

Once identification is determined as accurate, students should complete the Literature Review section of the scaffold and list the important facts from their articles on the lines numbered one through five.

Students need to compare the information they have found to find themes.

Explain that creating a numbered list of potential themes, taken from different aspects proposed in the literature collected, can be used for analysis.

The student’s answer to the research question is the conclusion of the research paper. This section of the research paper needs to be just a few paragraphs. Students should include the facts supporting their answer from the literature review.

Students may want to use the conclusion section of their paper to point out the similarities and/or discrepancies in their findings. They may also want to suggest that further studies be done on the topic.

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Kelly Field, The Hechinger Report Kelly Field, The Hechinger Report

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/what-science-tells-us-about-improving-middle-school

What science tells us about improving middle school

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In a middle school hallway in Charlottesville, Virginia, a pair of sixth grade girls sat shoulder to shoulder on a lime green settee, creating comic strips that chronicled a year of pandemic schooling.

Using a computer program called Pixton, they built cartoon panels, one of a girl waving goodbye to her teacher, clueless that it would be months before they were back in the classroom, another of two friends standing 6 feet apart from one another, looking sad.

“We have to social distance,” one of the girls, Ashlee, said. Then, as if remembering, she scooted a few inches away from her friend, Anna.

In classrooms off the hallway, clusters of kids from grades six to eight worked on wood carvings, scrapbooks, paintings and podcasts, while their teachers stood by to answer questions or offer suggestions. For two hours, the students roamed freely among rooms named for their purpose — the maker space, the study, the hub — pausing for a 15-minute “brain break” at the midway point of the session.

Welcome to Community Lab School, a tiny public charter that is trying to transform the way middle schoolers are taught in the Albemarle School District — and eventually the nation.

Here, learning is project-based, multi-grade and interdisciplinary. There are no stand-alone subjects, other than math; even in that subject, students are grouped not by grade, but by their areas of strength and weakness. In the mornings, students work independently on their projects; in the afternoons, they practice math skills and take electives.

“Our day revolves around giving students choice,” said Stephanie Passman, the head teacher. “We want kids to feel a sense of agency and that this is a place where their ideas will be heard.”

Anna (left) and Ashlee (right), sixth graders at Community Lab School, create comics depicting their Covid year. Photo by Kelly Field for the Hechinger Report

As a laboratory for the Albemarle district, Community Lab School is charged with testing new approaches to middle school that could be scaled to the district’s five comprehensive middle schools. The school has been held up as a national model by researchers at MIT and the University of Virginia, which is studying how to better align middle school with the developmental needs of adolescents.

Over the last 20 years, scientists have learned a lot about how the adolescent brain works and what motivates middle schoolers. Yet a lot of their findings aren’t making it into classroom practice. That’s partly because teacher prep programs haven’t kept pace with the research, and partly because overburdened teachers don’t have the time to study and implement it.

Today, some 70 years after reformers launched a movement to make the middle grades more responsive to the needs of early adolescents, too many middle schools continue to operate like mini high schools, on a “cells and bells” model, said Chad Ratliff, the principal of Community Lab School.

“Traditional middle schools are very authoritarian, controlling environments,” Ratliff said. “A bell rings, and you have three minutes to shuffle to the next thing.”

For many early adolescents — and not a few of their teachers — middle school isn’t about choice and agency, “it’s about surviving,” said Melissa Wantz, a former educator from California, with more than 20 years’ experience.

Now, as schools nationwide emerge from a pandemic that upended educational norms, and caused rates of depression and anxiety to increase among teenagers , reformers hope educators will use this moment to remake middle school, turning it into a place where early adolescents not only survive, but thrive.

“This is an opportunity to think about what we want middle school to look like, rather than just going back to the status quo,” said Nancy L. Deutsche, the director of Youth-Nex: The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.

The adolescent brain

Scientists have long known that the human brain develops more rapidly between birth and the age of 3 than at any other time in life. But recent advances in brain imaging have revealed that a second spurt occurs during early adolescence, a phase generally defined as spanning ages 11 to 14 .

Though the brain’s physical structures are fully developed by age 6, the connections among them take longer to form. Early adolescence is when much of this wiring takes place. The middle school years are also what scientists call a “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, when the brain is primed to learn from social cues.

While the plasticity of the teenage brain makes it vulnerable to addiction, it also makes it resilient, capable of overcoming childhood trauma and adversity, according to a report recently published by the National Academies of Science. This makes early adolescence “a window of opportunity,” a chance to set students on a solid path for the remainder of their education, said Ronald Dahl, director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley.

Meanwhile, new findings in developmental psychology are shedding a fresh light on what motivates middle schoolers.

READ MORE: Four new studies bolster the case for project-based learning

Adolescents, everyone knows, crave connections to their peers and independence from their parents. But they also care deeply about what adults think. They want to be taken seriously and feel their opinions count. And though they’re often seen as selfish, middle schoolers are driven to contribute to the common good, psychologists say.

“They’re paying attention to the social world and one way to learn about the social world is to do things for others,” said Andrew Fuligni, a professor-in-residence in UCLA’s psychology department. “It’s one way you figure out your role in it.”

So, what does this evolving understanding of early adolescence say about how middle schools should be designed?

First, it suggests that schools should “capitalize on kids’ interest in their peers” through peer-assisted and cooperative learning , said Elise Capella, an associate professor of applied psychology and vice dean of research at New York University. “Activating positive peer influence is really important,” she said.

Experts say students should also be given “voice and choice” — allowed to pick projects and partners, when appropriate.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included such practices as interdisciplinary team teaching and cooperative learning. Kids often learn better when they work together, researchers said. Photo by Nichole Dobo/The Hechinger Report

“Kids have deeper cognitive conversations when they’re with their friends than when they’re not,” said Lydia Denworth, a science writer who wrote a book on friendship, in a recent radio interview .

Schools should also take advantage of the “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, setting aside time to teach students the skills and mindsets that will help them succeed in high school and beyond, researchers say .

Yet many schools are doing the opposite of what the research recommends. Though many teachers make use of group learning, they often avoid grouping friends together, fearing they’ll goof off, Denworth said. And middle schools often spend less time on social and emotional learning than elementary schools , sometimes seeing it as a distraction from academics .

Meanwhile, many middle schools have abolished recess, according to Phyllis Fagell, author of the book “ Middle School Matters ”, leaving students with little unstructured time to work on social skills.

“When you think about the science of adolescence, the traditional model of middle school runs exactly counter to what students at that age really need,” said Ratliff.

A developmental “mismatch”

The notion that middle schools are misaligned with the needs and drives of early adolescents is hardly a new one. Efforts to reimagine education for grades six to eight dates back to the 1960s, when an education professor, William Alexander , called for replacing junior highs with middle schools that would cater to the age group.

Alexander’s “Middle School Movement” gained steam in the 1980s, when Jacquelynne Eccles, a research scientist, posited that declines in academic achievement and engagement in middle school were the result of a mismatch between adolescents and their schools — a poor “ stage-environment fit. ”

Propelled by Eccles’ theory, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included interdisciplinary team teaching, cooperative learning, block scheduling and advisory programs.

But while a number of schools adopted at least some of the proposed reforms, many did so only superficially. By the late ‘90s, policymakers’ attention had shifted to early childhood education and the transition to college, leaving middle school as “the proverbial middle child — the neglected, forgotten middle child,” said Fagell.

For many students, the transition from elementary to middle school is a jarring one, Fagell said. Sixth graders go from having one teacher and a single set of classmates to seven or eight teachers and a shifting set of peers.

“At the very point where they most need a sense of belonging, that is exactly when we take them out of school, put them on a bus, and send them to a massive feeder school,” said Fagell.

And at a time when their circadian rhythms are shifting to later sleep and wake times, sixth graders often have to start school earlier than they did in elementary school.

No wonder test scores and engagement slump.

READ MORE: Later school start time gave small boost to grades but big boost to sleep, new study finds

In an effort to recapture some of the “community” feel of an elementary school, many schools have created “advisory” programs, in which students start their day with a homeroom teacher and small group of peers.

Some schools are trying a “teams” approach, dividing grades into smaller groups that work with their own group of instructors. And some are doing away with departmentalization altogether.

At White Oak Middle School, in Silver Spring, Maryland, roughly a third of sixth graders spend half their day with one teacher, who covers four subjects. Peter Crable, the school’s assistant principal until recently, said the approach deepens relationships among students and between students and teachers.

“It can be a lot to ask kids to navigate different dynamics from one class to the next,” said Crable, who is currently a principal intern in another school. When their classmates are held constant, “students have each other’s backs more,” he said.

A study of the program now being used at White Oak, dubbed “Project Success,” found that it had a positive effect on literacy and eliminated the achievement gap between poorer students and their better-off peers.

But scaling the program up has proven difficult, in part because it goes against so many established norms. Most middle school teachers were trained as content-area specialists and see themselves in that role. It can take a dramatic mind shift — and hours of planning — for teachers to adjust to teaching multiple subjects.

Robert Dodd, who came up with Project Success when he was principal of Argyle Middle School, also in Silver Spring, said he’d hoped to expand it district-wide. So far, though, only White Oak has embraced it. (Dodd is now principal of the district’s Walt Whitman High School.)

“Large school systems have a way of snuffing out innovation,” he said.

Even Argyle Middle, where the program started, has pressed pause on Project Success.

“Teachers felt like it was elementary school,” said James Allrich, the school’s current principal. “I found myself forcing them to do it, and it doesn’t work if it’s forced.”

Restoring recess, and other pandemic-era innovations

But Argyle is continuing to experiment, in other ways. This fall, when students were studying online, the district instituted an hour-and-a-half “wellness break” in the middle of the day. Allrich kept it when 300 of the students returned in the spring, rotating them between lunch, recess and “choice time” every 30 minutes.

During one sixth grade recess at the end of the school year, clusters of students played basketball and soccer, while one girl sat quietly under a tree, gazing at a cicada that had landed on her hand. Only three students were scrolling on their phones.

Sixth graders at Argyle Middle, in Silver Spring, Maryland, play basketball during recess. Photo by Kelly Field for the Hechinger Report

“I thought when we got back, students would be all over their cellphones,” said Allrich, over the loud hum of cicadas. “But we see little of that. Kids really want to engage each other in person.”

Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College who has found a relationship between the decline of free play and the rise of mental illness in children and teens, wishes more middle schools would bring back recess.

“You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” he said.

Allrich said he plans to continue recess in the fall, when all 1,000 students are back in person, but acknowledges the scheduling will be tricky.

READ MORE:   How four middle schoolers are navigating the pandemic

Denise Pope, the co-founder of Challenge Success, a school reform nonprofit, hopes schools will stick with some of the other changes they made to their schedules during the pandemic, including later start times. “Don’t go back to the old normal,” Pope implored educators during a recent conference . “The old normal wasn’t healthy.”

Prior to the pandemic, barely a fifth of middle schools followed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. (Community Lab School started at 10 during the shutdown, but plans to return to a 9:30 a.m. start.)

But if the pandemic ushered in some potentially positive changes to middle schools, it also disrupted some of the key developmental milestones of early adolescence, such as autonomy-building and exploring the world. Stuck at home with their parents and cut off from their peers, teens suffered increased rates of anxiety and depression.

When students return to middle schools en masse this fall, they may need help processing the stress and trauma of the prior year and a half, said author Fagell, who is a counselor in a private school in Washington, D.C.

Fagell suggests schools survey students to find out what they need, or try the “iceberg exercise,” in which they are asked what others don’t see about them, what they keep submerged.

“We’re going to have to dive beneath the surface,” she said.

Deutsche, of Youth-Nex in Virginia, said teachers will play a key role in “helping students trust the world again.”

“Relationships with teachers will be even more important,” she said.

Fortunately, there are more evidence-based social-emotional programs for middle schoolers than there used to be, according to Justina Schlund, senior director of Content and Field Learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. A growing number of states are adopting Pre-K through12 social and emotional learning standards or guidelines and many districts and schools are implementing social and emotional learning throughout all grades, she said.

For many middle school students, a return to in-person schooling means a return to a routine that allows no time for play. But, according to researchers, free time is essential to students’ mental health in early adolescence. “You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” says Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College. Photo by Amadou Diallo for The Hechinger Report

At Community Lab School, middle school students typically score above average on measures of emotional well-being and belonging, according to Shereen El Mallah, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia who tracks the school’s outcomes. Though the Community Lab students experienced an increase in perceived stress during the pandemic, they generally fared better than their peers at demographically similar schools, she said.

Anna and Ashlee, the sixth graders on the settee, said the school’s close-knit community and project-based approach set it apart.

“We’re still learning as much as anyone else, they just make it fun, rather than making us read from textbooks all the time,” Ashlee said.

This story about early adolescents was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter .

Kelly Field is a journalist based in Boston who has also reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Middle school is a time of burgeoning curiosity and the perfect opportunity for students to engage in research that not only educates them academically but also cultivates skills for the future. By encouraging young learners to explore topics they are passionate about, educators and parents play a pivotal role in their intellectual development and the growth of their intrinsic motivation. This blog post outlines a diverse range of research topics suited to the inquiring minds of middle school students, giving them the freedom to deepen their understanding of various subjects while honing critical thinking and independent study skills.

Uncovering the Mysteries of History

Middle schoolers often find history fascinating, particularly when learning about the past from distinct perspectives. Here are some intriguing historical research topics to consider:

• The Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement: Apart from the well-known leaders, students can explore the contributions of lesser-known figures who played a significant role in the struggle for equality.
• The Impact of Ancient Civilizations on Modern Society: Researching the ways in which the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, or other ancient societies have influenced contemporary culture, politics, and technology offers a broad canvas for exploration.
• Everyday Life in Different Historical Periods: Focusing on the routines, customs, and technologies that shaped people’s daily lives in times gone by can provide valuable insights into societal norms and individual experiences.

Science and the Natural World

The sciences are a playground of wonder, with an infinity of topics waiting to be explored. Here are some research ideas that can nurture a love for discovery and experimentation:

• Climate Change: Effects and Solutions: Investigating the causes and potential solutions to this global challenge can make students aware of their role in protecting the planet.
• The Wonders of the Solar System: Encouraging a study of the planets, their moons, and the vast expanse of space they inhabit can ignite dreams of interstellar exploration.
• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Conservation: Researching the variety of life on Earth and strategies to protect and sustain ecosystems can foster a sense of environmental stewardship.

Literature, Language, and Creative Expression

Language and literature are potent forms of human expression, allowing students to explore complex ideas and emotions. Here are some topics that bridge the gap between art and academia:

• Interpreting Classic Literature for Modern Relevance: Encouraging the study of timeless works can lead to discussions on their contemporary significance and the evolution of societal values.
• The Structure and Evolution of Language: Investigating the origins and changes in language over time can be a rich area of study, especially when paired with the examination of cultural shifts.
• The Intersection of Art and Literature: Exploring how visual arts and writing intersect to convey messages and emotions can be a fertile ground for interdisciplinary research.

Mathematics and Logic Puzzles

The precision and patterns found in mathematics can be both satisfying and thought-provoking. Middle school students often enjoy the thrill of solving problems and unraveling puzzles. Here are some mathematical research topics that can engage students’ analytical minds:

• Famous Mathematical Conjectures: Researching unsolved problems, such as the Goldbach conjecture or the Riemann hypothesis, can introduce students to the excitement of open questions in mathematics.
• The Application of Math in Various Industries: Investigating how mathematical principles underpin fields like music, art, sports, and technology can illuminate the subject’s real-world utility.
• The History of Mathematical Discoveries: Tracing the lineage of mathematical concepts through different cultures and periods can showcase the universality and timelessness of mathematics.

Social Sciences and Human Interaction

Studying human behavior and society can help students develop empathy and a deeper understanding of the world around them. Here are some social science research ideas to explore:

• The Impact of Social Media on Friendships and Relationships: Research could focus on positive and negative effects, trends, and the future of social interaction.
• Cultural Traditions and Their Meanings: Investigating the origins and contemporary significance of customs from various cultures can foster respect for diversity and a global perspective.
• The Psychology of Decision Making: Exploring the factors that influence human choices, from cognitive biases to social pressures, can provide insights into individual and collective behavior.

Technology and Innovation

Middle schoolers are often tech-savvy and interested in the latest gadgets and advancements. Here are some technology and innovation research topics to tap into that curiosity:

• The Impact of Gaming on Society: Research could examine how video games influence education, social issues, or even career choices.
• Emerging Technologies and Their Ethical Implications: Encouraging students to study technologies like artificial intelligence, gene editing, or wearable tech can lead to discussions on the ethical considerations of their use and development.
• Inventions That Changed the World: Chronicling the history and influence of significant inventions, from the wheel to the internet, can provide a lens through which to view human progress.

By providing middle schoolers with the opportunity to conduct meaningful research in a topic of their choosing, we not only deepen their education but also equip them with the skills and passion for a lifetime of learning. This list is just the beginning; the key is to foster curiosity and guide young minds toward engaging, challenging, and diverse research experiences. Through such explorations, we empower the next generation to think critically, communicate effectively, and, most importantly, to nurture their innate curiosity about the world.

Implementing Research Projects in the Classroom

Encouraging middle school students to undertake research projects requires a strategic approach to ensure sustained interest and meaningful outcomes. Here are some methods educators can employ:

• Mentorship and Support: Pairing students with teacher mentors who can guide them through the research process, provide feedback, and encourage critical thinking is essential for a fruitful research experience.
• Cross-Curricular Integration: Linking research topics to content from different subjects helps students appreciate the interconnectedness of knowledge and develop versatile learning skills.
• Use of Technology and Media: Incorporating digital tools for research, presentation, and collaboration can enhance engagement and teach essential 21st-century skills.
• Presentation and Reflection: Allocating time for students to present their findings nurtures communication skills and confidence, while self-reflection activities help them internalize their learning journey.

These strategies can create a robust framework within which students can pursue their curiosities, leading to a more personalized and impactful educational experience.

What is a good topic to research for middle school?

A good topic for middle school research could delve into the Role of Robotics in the Future of Society . Students can explore how robotics may transform jobs, healthcare, and everyday life. They can examine the balance between automation and human work, predict how robots could augment human abilities, and discuss the ethical dimensions of a robotic future. This inquiry not only captivates the imagination but also encourages critical thinking about technology’s impact on tomorrow’s world.

What are the 10 research titles examples?

• The Evolution of Renewable Energy and Its Future Prospects
• Investigating the Effects of Microplastics on Marine Ecosystems
• The Influence of Ancient Civilizations on Modern Democracy
• Understanding Black Holes: Unveiling the Mysteries of the Cosmos
• The Impact of Augmented Reality on Education and Training
• Climate Change and Its Consequences on Coastal Cities
• The Psychological Effects of Social Media on Teenagers
• Genetic Engineering: The Possibilities and Pitfalls
• Smart Cities: How Technology is Shaping Urban Living
• The Role of Nanotechnology in Medicine: Current Applications and Future Potential

Fascinating Facts About Middle School Research Topics

• Interdisciplinary Impact : Research projects in middle school often blend subjects, such as the integration of art and mathematics when exploring patterns and symmetry, which helps students discover the interconnectivity of different fields of knowledge.
• Skill Building : Engaging in research equips middle schoolers with advanced skills in critical thinking, problem-solving, and time management, which are beneficial across their academic journey and beyond.
• Diversity in Content : Middle school research topics are notably diverse, ranging from examining the role of robotics in society to exploring the psychological effects of social media, catering to a wide array of student interests and strengths.
• Tech Savvy Learning : Technology-based research topics, such as the influence of smart cities or the impact of augmented reality in education, are deeply relevant to tech-savvy middle school students, making learning more engaging and relatable.
• Cultural Relevance : Researching topics like cultural traditions and their meanings encourages middle schoolers to develop a global perspective and fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation for the diversity within their own school community and the world at large.

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Teaching ELA with Joy

Middle School ELA Resources

10 Ideas to Make Teaching RESEARCH Easier

By Joy Sexton 1 Comment

I enjoy diving into research units with my students because they get to learn new things, and I do, too! But teaching research skills is a gigantic task! And one thing’s for certain: I’ll have to break the research process into steps to keep my middle school students from feeling overwhelmed. I want them to have that “I’ve got this” attitude from the moment I introduce the project.

Of course, as teachers, we need to be prepared and have our research assignments clearly-designed. But a big key to making the process easier for me and my students, what makes the most impact I think, is modeling . If you can model what you want students to do (as opposed to just telling them), your expectations become clearer. Not everything can be modeled, but whenever the opportunity arises, it’s powerful!

Here are 10 ideas to make teaching research skills manageable and successful:

1.  Make sure students start out with more than one topic option . What I mean is, it helps for each student to have “back up” topics ready to go in case the first choice isn’t panning out.  For example, I’ve had students who chose a topic they were very passionate about. But it turned out that once they got searching, not enough information was turning up. In most cases, these students had decided to research very current topics like a YouTuber or a new version of iPhone or even a specific automobile. They searched and searched, but the few sites they located just repeated the same smattering of facts. It REALLY helped that the assignment required three topic choices, with students prioritizing their choices . Instead of getting all stressed out, the students just went with their second choice, and got right into note-taking. Or let’s say you are assigning topics, for example, for Holocaust research.  Once they start researching, students may find a certain topic too complex and would feel more supported if they had other options.

2.   Don’t rule out books and other print sources. Now that so many students carry laptops, we’ve come to expect research to be Internet-based. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that! With just a few clicks, students have access to SO MUCH information. But some of my students come and ask if they can go to the library for printed sources because they prefer taking notes from books. That reminds me that we all learn differently. It might be to our amazement, but library research is alive and well for a portion of our students. Sometimes it’s my struggling learners who go for the printed sources, but I’ve also had more advanced learners hit the books as well. Even if you’ve got kids on their laptops or in the computer lab, find a way to incorporate different types of sources in their search so you differentiate . FYI, the Common Core Standards for W.8 (the research writing) state “Gather information from multiple print and digital sources . . .” So, it looks like using some print sources is still an expectation (but not for every assignment) if you follow Common Core. Definitely let your librarian in on whatever type of research assignment you have going on. They’re usually very eager to provide support !

3.  Emphasize the need to narrow search terms . So often, students just want to plop their main topic into the Google search bar, right? Unfortunately, what comes up is usually current information that is not necessarily going to hit what they need. That’s how time gets wasted. You can quickly model this skill for students with an example using a celebrity. Say you are needing information on a certain celebrity’s life—some facts about their rise to fame. Place just the name in the search bar, and what most likely comes up are articles that have been in the news about the person. Then place the name with the word “biography” in the search bar and have students notice the difference.

4.  Explain the connection between research and reading . Once they have a topic, students are so ready to start note-taking! But wait, do your students understand that research starts with careful reading? First, they’ll need to preview several websites before taking any notes. I call it “Ten Minutes, Reading Only.” That’s the least they can do to look for sources that not only match their topic but meet their readability needs . Let’s face it, many websites or even printed sources are written well above some of our students’ reading levels. Let them know that if they are finding long sentences with numerous unfamiliar words, it’s time to move on. Then, once they do locate a few good sources, they still need to read! When they come upon information they understand that really hits the topic, BINGO. That’s when note-taking should begin.

5.   Model note-taking using a bulleted list of short phrases . One thing is for sure: we don’t want students to copy full sentences, word for word, when they take notes. So modeling this when you’re teaching research skills is huge. I always tell students that they will create their own complete sentences when they are drafting . Note-taking is for short phrases . Just give them a heads up that they have to be able to understand the shortened information! I’ve had students who wrote phrases too short for the complex information they represented. A problem arose, of course, when trying to draft sentences. The students couldn’t remember what was actually meant by the few words they had copied down.

You can easily model note-taking by choosing a paragraph of nonfiction from a website or online encyclopedia. Project it on your whiteboard or pass out copies to the class. You can have students work with a partner to take notes in short phrases on a bulleted list. Students could then exchange papers several times to see what others came up with, and then share out what they noticed. Or, you may prefer to make the notes on your whiteboard with whole-class participation.

6.  Show students the citation generator you want them to use and how it works. Teaching research skills always includes citing sources. So if you approve of students having citations created for them, I’m with you! Just be clear on which citation generator to use. I’ve always preferred www.Bibme.org , but now with all the ads on these sites, and Google Docs’ own generator, there are other options. Again, you can do a quick modeling on your Smartboard using a website. It’s a good idea to walk around during note-taking and check that each student is comfortable using the citation generator. Sometimes students are unsure but might not want to ask.

7.  Offer creative formats for students to use as their research product. If you can, let them infuse some of their own passion into the topic. Let’s face it, teaching research skills is easier when students are personally invested. Your standards or district curriculum may require a research-based essay , and that’s fine. With lots of scaffolds and modeling, the results can be awesome! But how about having students report out in a newsletter format? They can break the information down into four short articles and give each one a title. Now the assignment becomes more motivating. Or require a slide presentation, with a paragraph of text on each slide along with visuals.

Another creative format is a Q & A page . My students enjoy a short project called Research Q & A , where they choose a topic they’d like to learn more about and create two questions to research. They report their findings on a Q & A sheet, using a template they type into, along with visuals.

8.  Have students color code their notes . This is an incredibly helpful scaffold to producing an organized draft! Once the research is completed, students should look over their notes and on a sheet of paper, list the “sub-topics” they have covered. For example, if they are writing an informational article about an athlete, their list might include childhood, training, early career steps, and best achievements. Then, with 4-5 colored pencils, they underline each sub-topic with a different color. Students then read through their notes, placing a colored bullet to match as they find content corresponding to the sub-topic.

The color coding helps make drafting each paragraph so much easier! Students just focus on all the green information on their notes pages when drafting the first body paragraph, all the purple information when drafting the second, etc.

9.  Require editing and revising using a different color . As English teachers, we want the revising and editing step to be meaningful. When revisions stand out this way, both students and the teacher get to visibly see a growth process.  They understand that they are expected to and can notice weaknesses and make their product better.  I always keep red and green pens available.  And I sense that kids like using them. Another BIG plus here: individual conferencing becomes quick and easy when you can see by the colored ink which revisions have (or have not!) been made.

10.  Work in some peer exchange opportunities . Students benefit from regular check-ins, but you don’t always have the time. So why not have students check in on each other? Decide on a few times in your assignment when students will need to “take stock” of things. That’s when you’ll say, exchange with a partner, and look at x, y, or z. The check can be as simple as the partners write feedback in the margin of each other’s paper, or on a post-it, or have a short discussion. For example, let’s say you allot two periods for research, and you expect three solid pages of notes. When the second class period is drawing to a close, have a partner exchange. Peers have two tasks: rate the quality of the notes on a scale of 1-5 and suggest whether note-taking is complete or more needs to be done as homework.

Students love to read each other’s papers, so work in a peer exchange during revising and editing. Have peers place a question mark in the margin next to any area that doesn’t make clear sense. You could also choose a couple specific topics for their focus, such as capital letters and commas. Students enjoy these roles and checks like these build skills and confidence .

Our goal, of course, is to make research motivating for every one of our students. By using some of these strategies, teaching research skills should become easier! I think your students will experience excitement over all the new learning their efforts bring.

I’ve developed some print-and-go research activities that students enjoy and have success with. They include step-by-step scaffolds and mentor texts to save you time. Just click on the images to have a closer look.

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April 21, 2021 at 11:47 pm

This looks amazing. I’m so glad I found this article. I am guiding my 7th grader through a year-end research project at home and this is exactly what I needed to help guide me through it first!

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Why and how do middle school students exchange ideas during science inquiry?

• Published: 24 July 2018
• Volume 13 , pages 263–299, ( 2018 )

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• Camillia Matuk   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4067-1322 1 &
• Marcia C. Linn 2  

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Science is increasingly characterized by participation in knowledge communities. To meaningfully engage in science inquiry, students must be able to evaluate diverse sources of information, articulate informed ideas, and share ideas with peers. This study explores how technology can support idea exchanges in ways that value individuals’ prior ideas, and allow students to use these ideas to benefit their own and their peers’ learning. We used the Idea Manager, a curriculum-integrated tool that enables students to collect and exchange ideas during science inquiry projects. We investigated how students exchanged ideas, how these exchanges impacted the explanations they ultimately produced, and how the tool impacted teachers’ instruction. We implemented the tool with 297 grade 7 students, who were studying a web-based unit on cancer and cell division. Among other results, we found a relationship between the diversity of students’ ideas, and the sources of those ideas (i.e., whether they came from the students themselves or from their peers), and the quality of students’ scientific explanations. Specifically, students who collected more unique ideas (i.e., ideas not already represented in their private idea collections) as opposed to redundant ideas (i.e., ideas that reiterated ideas already present in their private idea collections) tended to write poorer explanations; and students who generated their own redundant ideas, as opposed to choosing peers’ ideas that were redundant, tended to write better explanations. We discuss implications for formative assessment, and for the role of technology in supporting students to engage more meaningfully with peers’ ideas.

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Acknowledgements

A preliminary version of this analysis was presented at ICLS 2014. Portions of this manuscript are owned by the International Society for the Learning Sciences (ISLS). ISLS has granted the authors permission to reuse these portions for publication.

Funding for this research was provided by a DR K-12 award from the National Science Foundation [grant #1119670].

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Matuk, C., Linn, M.C. Why and how do middle school students exchange ideas during science inquiry?. Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn 13 , 263–299 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-018-9282-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-018-9282-1

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Please find the registration link  here. 

Location : Virtual     

Dates : February 24th from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Deadline : TBA

8. North Carolina State University's Summer Ventures

North Carolina State University's Summer Ventures in Science and Mathematics is a four-week immersive summer program designed to provide exceptional middle and high school students with advanced learning opportunities in STEM fields.

While primarily targeted at high school students, Summer Ventures also offers research opportunities for outstanding middle school students who demonstrate a strong interest and aptitude in science and mathematics.

The program typically runs for four to five weeks during the summer and takes place on NC State University's campus. Students have the opportunity to work alongside older peers and university professors on research projects in various STEM disciplines, including biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, and engineering . These projects may involve conducting experiments, analyzing data, and presenting findings, allowing middle schoolers to gain hands-on experience in scientific inquiry and exploration.

Location : North Carolina State University

Dates : TBA

Cost : None

Age requirements : Middle and high school students 

9. Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development's Summer Camp

Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development's Summer Camp is an esteemed initiative designed to provide students with  immersive research experiences under the guidance of university faculty mentors. 

It engages students in research-oriented learning experiences. Tailored for high-achieving and motivated individuals, these camps offer opportunities to delve into high school, college-level, and pre-professional instruction under the guidance of master teachers and industry leaders .

Participants are exposed to fast-paced, intensive courses that delve into advanced concepts across various disciplines, including math, science, writing, technology, leadership, and service learning. Through rigorous coursework, students are encouraged to grapple with complex problems and develop critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills.

Note: Financial aid is available for the qualified students. 

Location : Northwestern University

Dates : June 23 - July 12, 2024 (Other sessions available as well)

Cost : $4650 (Residential camp)

Deadline : June 5th for session 1. 

10.  California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS)

COSMOS stands as an intensive four-week summer residential Pre-College Program tailored for high school students who showcase a proclivity for academic and professional pursuits within the realm of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

Catering to motivated and gifted students in grades 8 through 12, COSMOS provides an unparalleled opportunity to collaborate with esteemed faculty, researchers, and scientists within cutting-edge facilities,  delving into advanced STEM topics that extend beyond the scope of typical high school courses in California. Through a blend of hands-on activities and laboratory-intensive curricula, COSMOS not only nurtures students' interests and skills but also broadens their awareness of educational and career pathways within STEM fields.

Note: Students apply to ONE of the five University of California’s COSMOS campuses — UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, and UC Santa Cruz. Each campus can only accommodate about 160-200 participants. The selection is competitive. 

Location : University of California’s COSMOS campuses

Deadline : Feb 9th. 

Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a Ph.D. student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.

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Table of Contents

• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: The Mixed Impact of Digital Technologies on Student Research
• Part III: The Changing Definition of “Research”
• Part IV: Teaching Research Skills in Today’s Digital Environment
• Part V: Teachers’ Concerns About Broader Impacts of Digital Technologies on Their Students
• Methodology

Three-quarters of AP and NWP teachers say that the internet  and digital search tools have had a “mostly positive” impact on their students’ research habits, but 87% say these technologies are creating an “easily distracted generation with short attention spans” and 64% say today’s digital technologies “do more to distract students than to help them academically.”

These complex and at times contradictory judgments emerge from 1) an online survey of more than 2,000 middle and high school teachers drawn from the Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) communities; and 2) a series of online and offline focus groups with middle and high school teachers and some of their students. The study was designed to explore teachers’ views of the ways today’s digital environment is shaping the research and writing habits of middle and high school students.  Building on the Pew Internet Project’s prior work about how people use the internet and, especially, the information-saturated digital lives of teens, this research looks at teachers’ experiences and observations about how the rise of digital material affects the research skills of today’s students.

Overall, teachers who participated in this study characterize the impact of today’s digital environment on their students’ research habits and skills as mostly positive, yet multi-faceted and not without drawbacks.  Among the more positive impacts they see: the best students access a greater depth and breadth of information on topics that interest them; students can take advantage of the availability of educational material in engaging multimedia formats; and many become more self-reliant researchers.

At the same time, these teachers juxtapose these benefits against some emerging concerns.  Specifically, some teachers worry about students’ overdependence on search engines; the difficulty many students have judging the quality of online information; the general level of literacy of today’s students; increasing distractions pulling at students and  poor time management skills; students’ potentially diminished critical thinking capacity; and the ease with which today’s students can borrow from the work of others.

These teachers report that students rely mainly on search engines to conduct research, in lieu of other resources such as online databases, the news sites of respected news organizations, printed books, or reference librarians.

Overall, the vast majority of these teachers say a top priority in today’s classrooms should be teaching students how to “judge the quality of online information.” As a result, a significant portion of the teachers surveyed here report spending class time discussing with students how search engines work, how to assess the reliability of the information they find online, and how to improve their search skills. They also spend time constructing assignments that point students toward the best online resources and encourage the use of sources other than search engines.

These are among the main findings of an online survey of a non-probability sample of 2,462 middle and high school teachers currently teaching in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, conducted between March 7 and April 23, 2012.  Some 1,750 of the teachers are drawn from a sample of advanced placement (AP) high school teachers, while the remaining 712 are from a sample of National Writing Project teachers.  Survey findings are complemented by insights from a series of online and in-person focus groups with middle and high school teachers and students in grades 9-12, conducted between November, 2011 and February, 2012.

This particular sample is quite diverse geographically, by subject matter taught, and by school size and community characteristics. But it skews towards “cutting edge” educators who teach some of the most academically successful students in the country. Thus, the findings reported here reflect the realities of their special place in American education, and are not necessarily representative of all teachers in all schools. At the same time, these findings are especially powerful given that these teachers’ observations and judgments emerge from some of the nation’s most advanced classrooms.

The internet and digital technologies are significantly impacting how students conduct research: 77% of these teachers say the overall impact is “mostly positive,” but they sound many cautionary notes

Asked to assess the overall impact of the internet and digital technologies on students’ research habits, 77% of these teachers say it has been “mostly positive.”  Yet, when asked if they agree or disagree with specific assertions about how the internet is impacting students’ research, their views are decidedly mixed.

On the more encouraging side, virtually all (99%) AP and NWP teachers in this study agree with the notion that the internet enables students to access a wider range of resources than would otherwise be available, and 65% also agree that the internet makes today’s students more self-sufficient researchers.

At the same time, 76% of teachers surveyed “ strongly agree” with the assertion that internet search engines have conditioned students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily.  Large majorities also agree with the assertion that the amount of information available online today is overwhelming to most students (83%) and that today’s digital technologies discourage students from using a wide range of sources when conducting research (71%).  Fewer teachers, but still a majority of this sample (60%), agree with the assertion that today’s technologies make it harder for students to find credible sources of information.

The internet has changed the very meaning of “research”

Perhaps the greatest impact this group of teachers sees today’s digital environment having on student research habits is the degree to which it has changed the very nature of “research” and what it means to “do research.” Teachers and students alike report that for today’s students, “research” means “Googling.”  As a result, some teachers report that for their students “doing research” has shifted from a relatively slow process of intellectual curiosity and discovery to a fast-paced, short-term exercise aimed at locating just enough information to complete an assignment.

These perceptions are evident in teachers’ survey responses:  94% of the teachers surveyed say their students are “very likely ” to use Google or other online search engines in a typical research assignment, placing it well ahead of all other sources that we asked about.  Second and third on the list of frequently used sources are online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, and social media sites such as YouTube.  In descending order, the sources teachers in our survey say students are “very likely” to use in a typical research assignment:

• Google or other online search engine (94%)
• Wikipedia or other online encyclopedia (75%)
• YouTube or other social media sites (52%)
• Their peers (42%)
• Spark Notes, Cliff Notes, or other study guides (41%)
• News sites of major news organizations (25%)
• Print or electronic textbooks (18%)
• Online databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR, or Grolier (17%)
• A research librarian at their school or public library (16%)
• Printed books other than textbooks (12%)
• Student-oriented search engines such as Sweet Search (10%)

In response to this trend, many teachers say they shape research assignments to address what they feel can be their students’ overdependence on search engines and online encyclopedias.  Nine in ten (90%) direct their students to specific online resources they feel are most appropriate for a particular assignment, and 83% develop research questions or assignments that require students to use a wider variety of sources, both online and offline.

Most teachers encourage online research, including the use of digital technologies such as cell phones to find information quickly, yet point to barriers in the school environment impeding quality online research

Asked which online activities they have students engage in, 95% of the teachers in this survey report having students “do research or search for information online,” making it the most common online task.  Conducting research online is followed by accessing or downloading assignments (79%) or submitting assignments (75%) via online platforms.

These teachers report using a wide variety of digital tools in their classrooms and assignments, well beyond the typical desktop and laptop computers. Specifically, majorities say they and/or their students use cell phones (72%), digital cameras (66%), and digital video recorders (55%) either in the classroom or to complete school assignments. Cell phones are becoming particularly popular learning tools, and are now as common to these teachers’ classrooms as computer carts.  According to respondents, the most popular school task students use cell phones for is “to look up information in class,” cited by 42% of the teachers participating in the survey.

Yet, survey results also indicate teachers face a variety of challenges in incorporating digital tools into their classrooms, some of which, they suggest, may hinder how students are taught to conduct research online. Virtually all teachers surveyed work in a school that employs internet filters (97%), formal policies about cell phone use (97%) and acceptable use policies or AUPs (97%).  The degree to which teachers feel these policies impact their teaching varies, with internet filters cited most often as having a “major impact” on survey participants’ teaching (32%).  One in five teachers (21%) say cell phone policies have a “major” impact on their teaching, and 16% say the same about their school’s AUP.  These impacts are felt most strongly among those teaching the lowest income students.

Teachers give students’ research skills modest ratings

Despite viewing the overall impact of today’s digital environment on students’ research habits as “mostly positive,” teachers rate the actual research skills of their students as “good” or “fair” in most cases.  Very few teachers rate their students “excellent” on any of the research skills included in the survey.  This is notable, given that the majority of the sample teaches Advanced Placement courses to the most academically advanced students.

Students receive the highest marks from these teachers for their ability to use appropriate and effective search queries and their understanding of how online search results are generated.  Yet even for these skills, only about one-quarter of teachers surveyed here rate their students “excellent” or “very good.”  Indeed, in our focus groups, many teachers suggest that despite being raised in the “digital age,” today’s students are surprisingly lacking in their online search skills.  Students receive the lowest marks for “patience and determination in looking for information that is hard to find,” with 43% of teachers rating their students “poor” in this regard, and another 35% rating their students “fair.”

Given these perceived deficits in key skills, it is not surprising that 80% of teachers surveyed say they spend class time discussing with students how to assess the reliability of online information, and 71% spend class time discussing how to conduct research online in general.  Another 57% spend class time helping students improve their search skills and 35% devote class time to helping students understand how search engines work and how search results are generated. In addition, asked what curriculum changes might be necessary in middle and high schools today, 47% “strongly agree” and 44% “somewhat agree” that courses or content focusing on digital literacy must be incorporated into every school’s curriculum.

A richer information environment, but at the price of distracted students?

Teachers are evenly divided on the question of whether today’s students are fundamentally different from previous generations; 47% agree and 52% disagree with the statement that “today’s students are really no different than previous generations, they just have different tools through which to express themselves.” Responses to this item were consistent across the full sample of teachers regardless of the teachers’ age or experience level, the subject or grade level taught, or the type of community in which they teach.

At the same time, asked whether they agree or disagree that “today’s students have fundamentally different cognitive skills because of the digital technologies they have grown up with,” 88% of the sample agree, including 40% who “strongly agree.”  Teachers of the lowest income students are the most likely to “strongly agree” with this statement (46%) but the differences across student socioeconomic status are slight, and there are no other notable differences across subgroups of teachers in the sample.

Overwhelming majorities of these teachers also agree with the assertions that “today’s digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans” (87%) and “today’s students are too ‘plugged in’ and need more time away from their digital technologies” (86%).  Two-thirds (64%) agree with the notion that “today’s digital technologies do more to distract students than to help them academically.” In focus groups, some teachers commented on the connection they see between students’ “overexposure” to technology, and the resulting lack of focus and diminished ability to retain knowledge they see among some students. Time management is also becoming a serious issue among students, according to some teachers; in their experience, today’s digital technologies not only encourage students to assume all tasks can be finished quickly and at the last minute, but students also use various digital tools at their disposal to “waste time” and procrastinate.

Thus, despite 77% of the survey respondents describing the overall impact of the internet and digital technologies on students’ research habits as “mostly positive,” the broad story is more complex.  While majorities of teachers surveyed see the internet and other digital technologies encouraging broader and deeper learning by connecting students to more resources about topics that interest them, enabling them to access multimedia content, and broadening their worldviews, these teachers are at the same time concerned about digital distractions and students’ abilities to focus on tasks and manage their time.  While some frame these issues as stemming directly from digital technologies and the particular students they teach, others suggest the concerns actually reflect a slow response from parents and educators to shape their own expectations and students’ learning environments in a way that better reflects the world today’s students live in.

About the data collection

Data collection was conducted in two phases.  In phase one, Pew Internet conducted two online and one in-person focus group with middle and high school teachers; focus group participants included Advanced Placement (AP) teachers, teachers who had participated in the National Writing Project’s Summer Institute (NWP), as well as teachers at a College Board school in the Northeast U.S.  Two in-person focus groups were also conducted with students in grades 9-12 from the same College Board school.   The goal of these discussions was to hear teachers and students talk about, in their own words, the different ways they feel digital technologies such as the internet, search engines, social media, and cell phones are shaping students’ research and writing habits and skills.  Teachers were asked to speak in depth about teaching research and writing to middle and high school students today, the challenges they encounter, and how they incorporate digital technologies into their classrooms and assignments.

Focus group discussions were instrumental in developing a 30-minute online survey, which was administered in phase two of the research to a national sample of middle and high school teachers.  The survey results reported here are based on a non-probability sample of 2,462 middle and high school teachers currently teaching in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Of these 2,462 teachers, 2,067 completed the entire survey; all percentages reported are based on those answering each question.  The sample is not a probability sample of all teachers because it was not practical to assemble a sampling frame of this population. Instead, two large lists of teachers were assembled: one included 42,879 AP teachers who had agreed to allow the College Board to contact them (about one-third of all AP teachers), while the other was a list of 5,869 teachers who participated in the National Writing Project’s Summer Institute during 2007-2011 and who were not already part of the AP sample. A stratified random sample of 16,721 AP teachers was drawn from the AP teacher list, based on subject taught, state, and grade level, while all members of the NWP list were included in the final sample.

The online survey was conducted from March 7–April 23, 2012.  More details on how the survey and focus groups were conducted are included in the Methodology section at the end of this report, along with focus group discussion guides and the survey instrument.

About the teachers who participated in the survey

There are several important ways the teachers who participated in the survey are unique, which should be considered when interpreting the results reported here.  First, 95% of the teachers who participated in the survey teach in public schools, thus the findings reported here reflect that environment almost exclusively.  In addition, almost one-third of the sample (NWP Summer Institute teachers) has received extensive training in how to effectively teach writing in today’s digital environment.  The National Writing Project’s mission is to provide professional development, resources and support to teachers to improve the teaching of writing in today’s schools.   The NWP teachers included here are what the organization terms “teacher-consultants” who have attended the Summer Institute and provide local leadership to other teachers.  Research has shown significant gains in the writing performance of students who are taught by these teachers. 1

Moreover, the majority of teachers participating in the survey (56%) currently teach AP, honors, and/or accelerated courses, thus the population of middle and high school students they work with skews heavily toward the highest achievers.  These teachers and their students may have resources and support available to them—particularly in terms of specialized training and access to digital tools—that are not available in all educational settings.  Thus, the population of teachers participating in this research might best be considered “leading edge teachers” who are actively involved with the College Board and/or the National Writing Project and are therefore beneficiaries of resources and training not common to all teachers.  It is likely that teachers in this study are developing some of the more innovative pedagogical approaches to teaching research and writing in today’s digital environment, and are incorporating classroom technology in ways that are not typical of the entire population of middle and high school teachers in the U.S.  Survey findings represent the attitudes and behaviors of this particular group of teachers only, and are not representative of the entire population of U.S. middle and high school teachers.

Every effort was made to administer the survey to as broad a group of educators as possible from the sample files being used.  As a group, the 2,462 teachers participating in the survey comprise a wide range of subject areas, experience levels, geographic regions, school type and socioeconomic level, and community type (detailed sample characteristics are available in the Methodology section of this report).  The sample includes teachers from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  All teachers who participated in the survey teach in physical schools and classrooms, as opposed to teaching online or virtual courses.

English/language arts teachers make up a significant portion of the sample (36%), reflecting the intentional design of the study, but history, social science, math, science, foreign language, art, and music teachers are also represented.  About one in ten teachers participating in the survey are middle school teachers, while 91% currently teach grades 9-12. There is wide distribution across school size and students’ socioeconomic status, though half of the teachers participating in the survey report teaching in a small city or suburb.  There is also a wide distribution in the age and experience levels of participating teachers.  The survey sample is 71% female.

About the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Pew Internet Project takes no positions on policy issues related to the internet or other communications technologies. It does not endorse technologies, industry sectors, companies, nonprofit organizations, or individuals. While we thank our research partners for their helpful guidance, the Pew Internet Project had full control over the design, implementation, analysis and writing of this survey and report.

About the College Board

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success — including the SAT ® and the Advanced Placement Program ® . The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools. For further information, visit www.collegeboard.org .

About the National Writing Project

The National Writing Project (NWP) is a nationwide network of educators working together to improve the teaching of writing in the nation’s schools and in other settings. NWP provides high-quality professional development programs to teachers in a variety of disciplines and at all levels, from early childhood through university. Through its nearly 200 university-based sites serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, NWP develops the leadership, programs and research needed for teachers to help students become successful writers and learners. For more information, visit www.nwp.org .

• More specific information on this population of teachers, the training they receive, and the outcomes of their students are available at the National Writing Project website at www.nwp.org . ↩

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Middle school’s moment: What the science tells us about improving the middle grades

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In a middle school hallway in Charlottesville, Virginia, a pair of sixth grade girls sat shoulder to shoulder on a lime-green settee, creating comic strips that chronicled a year of pandemic schooling. 

Using a computer program called Pixton, they built cartoon panels, one of a girl waving goodbye to her teacher, clueless that it would be months before they were back in the classroom; another of two friends standing six feet apart from one another, looking sad. 

“We have to social distance,” explained Ashlee. Then, as if remembering, she scooted a few inches away from her friend, Anna. 

In classrooms off the hallway, clusters of kids from grades 6 to 8 worked on wood carvings, scrapbooks, paintings and podcasts, while their teachers stood by to answer questions or offer suggestions. For two hours, the students roamed freely among rooms named for their purpose — the maker space, the study, the hub — pausing for a 15-minute “brain break” at the midway point of the session. 

Welcome to Community Lab School, a tiny public charter that is trying to transform the way middle schoolers are taught in the Albemarle School District — and eventually the nation.  

“Traditional middle schools are very authoritarian, controlling environments.” Chad Ratliff, principal of Community Lab School

Here, learning is project-based, multi-grade and interdisciplinary. There are no stand-alone subjects, other than math; even in that subject, students are grouped not by grade, but by their areas of strength and weakness. In the mornings, students work independently on their projects; in the afternoons, they practice math skills and take electives.  

“Our day revolves around giving students choice,” said Stephanie Passman, the head teacher. “We want kids to feel a sense of agency and that this is a place where their ideas will be heard.” 

As a laboratory for the Albemarle district, Community Lab School is charged with testing new approaches to middle school that could be scaled to the district’s five comprehensive middle schools. The school has been held up as a national model by researchers at MIT and the University of Virginia, which is studying how to better align middle school with the developmental needs of adolescents. 

Over the last 20 years, scientists have learned a lot about how the adolescent brain works and what motivates middle schoolers. Yet a lot of their findings aren’t making it into classroom practice. That’s partly because teacher prep programs haven’t kept pace with the research, and partly because overburdened teachers don’t have the time to study and implement it.  

Today, some 70 years after reformers launched a movement to make the middle grades more responsive to the needs of early adolescents, too many middle schools continue to operate like mini high schools, on a “cells and bells” model, said Chad Ratliff, the principal of Community Lab School. 

“Traditional middle schools are very authoritarian, controlling environments,” said Ratliff. “A bell rings, and you have three minutes to shuffle to the next thing.” 

For many early adolescents — and not a few of their teachers — middle school isn’t about choice and agency, “it’s about surviving,” said Melissa Wantz, a former educator from California, with more than 20 years’ experience.  

Now, as schools nationwide emerge from a pandemic that upended educational norms, and caused rates of depression and anxiety to increase among teenagers , reformers hope educators will use this moment to remake middle school, turning it into a place where early adolescents not only survive, but thrive.  

“This is an opportunity to think about what we want middle school to look like, rather than just going back to the status quo,” said Nancy L. Deutsche, the director of Youth-Nex: The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. 

The Adolescent Brain  

Scientists have long known that the human brain develops more rapidly between birth and the age of 3 than at any other time in life. But recent advances in brain imaging have revealed that a second spurt occurs during early adolescence, a phase generally defined as spanning ages 11 to 14 .  

Though the brain’s physical structures are fully developed by age 6, the connections among them take longer to form. Early adolescence is when much of this wiring takes place. The middle school years are also what scientists call a “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, when the brain is primed to learn from social cues.  

While the plasticity of the teenage brain makes it vulnerable to addiction, it also makes it resilient, capable of overcoming childhood trauma and adversity, according to a report recently published by the National Academies of Science. This makes early adolescence “a window of opportunity,” a chance to set students on a solid path for the remainder of their education, said Ronald Dahl, director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley.  

Meanwhile, new findings in developmental psychology are shedding a fresh light on what motivates middle schoolers.  

Related: Four new studies bolster the case for project-based learning  

Adolescents, everyone knows, crave connections to their peers and independence from their parents. But they also care deeply about what adults think. They want to be taken seriously and feel their opinions count. And though they’re often seen as selfish, middle schoolers are driven to contribute to the common good, psychologists say. 

“They’re paying attention to the social world and one way to learn about the social world is to do things for others,” said Andrew Fuligni, a professor-in-residence in UCLA’s psychology department. “It’s one way you figure out your role in it.” 

So, what does this evolving understanding of early adolescence say about how middle schools should be designed? 

First, it suggests that schools should “capitalize on kids’ interest in their peers” through peer-assisted and cooperative learning , said Elise Capella, an associate professor of applied psychology and vice dean of research at New York University. “Activating positive peer influence is really important,” she said.  

Experts say students should also be given “voice and choice” — allowed to pick projects and partners, when appropriate.  

“Kids have deeper cognitive conversations when they’re with their friends than when they’re not,” said Lydia Denworth, a science writer who wrote a book on friendship, in a recent radio interview . 

Schools should also take advantage of the “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, setting aside time to teach students the skills and mindsets that will help them succeed in high school and beyond, researchers say . 

“You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old.” Peter Gray, Boston College

Yet many schools are doing the opposite of what the research recommends. Though many teachers make use of group learning, they often avoid grouping friends together, fearing they’ll goof off, said Denworth. And middle schools often spend less time on social and emotional learning than elementary schools , sometimes seeing it as a distraction from academics . 

Meanwhile, many middle schools have abolished recess, according to Phyllis Fagell, author of the book “ Middle School Matters ”, leaving students with little unstructured time to work on social skills. 

“When you think about the science of adolescence, the traditional model of middle school runs exactly counter to what students at that age really need,” said Ratliff. 

A Developmental “Mismatch”  

The notion that middle schools are misaligned with the needs and drives of early adolescents is hardly a new one. Efforts to reimagine education for grades 6 to 8 dates back to the 1960s, when an education professor, William Alexander , called for replacing junior highs with middle schools that would cater to the age group. 

Alexander’s “Middle School Movement” gained steam in the 1980s, when Jacquelynne Eccles, a research scientist, posited that declines in academic achievement and engagement in middle school were the result of a mismatch between adolescents and their schools — a poor “ stage-environment fit. ” 

Propelled by Eccles’ theory, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included interdisciplinary team teaching, cooperative learning, block scheduling and advisory programs. 

But while a number of schools adopted at least some of the proposed reforms, many did so only superficially. By the late ’90s, policymakers’ attention had shifted to early childhood education and the transition to college, leaving middle school as “the proverbial middle child — the neglected, forgotten middle child,” said Fagell. 

For many students, the transition from elementary to middle school is a jarring one, Fagell said. Sixth graders go from having one teacher and a single set of classmates to seven or eight teachers and a shifting set of peers. 

“At the very point where they most need a sense of belonging, that is exactly when we take them out of school, put them on a bus, and send them to a massive feeder school,” said Fagell. 

And at a time when their circadian rhythms are shifting to later sleep and wake times, sixth graders often have to start school earlier than they did in elementary school. 

No wonder test scores and engagement slump. 

Related: Later school start time gave small boost to grades but big boost to sleep, new study finds  

In an effort to recapture some of the “community” feel of an elementary school, many schools have created “advisory” programs, in which students start their day with a homeroom teacher and small group of peers.  

Some schools are trying a “teams” approach, dividing grades into smaller groups that work with their own group of instructors. And some are doing away with departmentalization altogether. 

At White Oak Middle School, in Silver Spring, Maryland, roughly a third of sixth graders spend half their day with one teacher, who covers four subjects. Peter Crable, the school’s assistant principal until recently, said the approach deepens relationships among students and between students and teachers.  

“It can be a lot to ask kids to navigate different dynamics from one class to the next,” said Crable, who is currently a principal intern in another school. When their classmates are held constant, “students have each other’s backs more,” he said. 

“Don’t go back to the old normal.” Denise Pope, the co-founder of Challenge Success

A study of the program now being used at White Oak, dubbed “Project Success,” found that it had a positive effect on literacy and eliminated the achievement gap between poorer students and their better-off peers.  

But scaling the program up has proven difficult, in part because it goes against so many established norms. Most middle school teachers were trained as content-area specialists and see themselves in that role. It can take a dramatic mind shift — and hours of planning — for teachers to adjust to teaching multiple subjects.  

Robert Dodd, who came up with Project Success when he was principal of Argyle Middle School, also in Silver Spring, said he’d hoped to expand it district-wide. So far, though, only White Oak has embraced it. (Dodd is now principal of the district’s Walt Whitman High School.) 

“Large school systems have a way of snuffing out innovation,” he said. 

Even Argyle Middle, where the program started, has pressed pause on Project Success. 

“Teachers felt like it was elementary school,” said James Allrich, the school’s current principal. “I found myself forcing them to do it, and it doesn’t work if it’s forced.” 

Restoring recess, and other pandemic-era innovations  

But Argyle is continuing to experiment, in other ways. This fall, when students were studying online, the district instituted an hour-and-a-half “wellness break” in the middle of the day. Allrich kept it when 300 of the students returned in the spring, rotating them between lunch, recess and “choice time” every 30 minutes. 

During one sixth grade recess at the end of the school year, clusters of students played basketball and soccer, while one girl sat quietly under a tree, gazing at a cicada that had landed on her hand. Only three students were scrolling on their phones. 

“I thought when we got back, students would be all over their cellphones,” said Allrich, over the loud hum of cicadas. “But we see little of that. Kids really want to engage each other in person.” 

Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College who has found a relationship between the decline of free play and the rise of mental illness in children and teens, wishes more middle schools would bring back recess. 

“You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” he said. 

Allrich said he plans to continue recess in the fall, when all 1,000 students are back in person, but acknowledges the scheduling will be tricky. 

Related:  How four middle schoolers are struggling through the pandemic  

Denise Pope, the co-founder of Challenge Success, a school reform nonprofit, hopes schools will stick with some of the other changes they made to their schedules during the pandemic, including later start times. “Don’t go back to the old normal,” Pope implored educators during a recent conference . “The old normal wasn’t healthy.” 

Prior to the pandemic, barely a fifth of middle schools followed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. (Community Lab School started at 10 during the shutdown, but plans to return to a 9:30 a.m. start.) 

But if the pandemic ushered in some potentially positive changes to middle schools, it also disrupted some of the key developmental milestones of early adolescence, such as autonomy-building and exploring the world. Stuck at home with their parents and cut off from their peers, teens suffered increased rates of anxiety and depression.  

When students return to middle schools en masse this fall, they may need help processing the stress and trauma of the prior year and a half, said author Fagell, who is a counselor in a private school in Washington, D.C. 

Fagell suggests schools survey students to find out what they need, or try the “iceberg exercise,” in which they are asked what others don’t see about them, what they keep submerged.  

“We’re going to have to dive beneath the surface,” she said. 

Deutsche, of Youth-Nex in Virginia, said teachers will play a key role in “helping students trust the world again.” 

“Relationships with teachers will be even more important,” she said. 

Fortunately, there are more evidence-based social-emotional programs for middle schoolers than there used to be, according to Justina Schlund, senior director of Content and Field Learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. A growing number of states are adopting Pre-K through12 social and emotional learning standards or guidelines and many districts and schools are implementing social and emotional learning throughout all grades, she said. 

At Community Lab School, middle school students typically score above average on measures of emotional well-being and belonging, according to Shereen El Mallah, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia who tracks the school’s outcomes. Though the Community Lab students experienced an increase in perceived stress during the pandemic, they generally fared better than their peers at demographically similar schools, she said.   

Anna and Ashlee, the sixth graders on the settee, said the school’s close-knit community and project-based approach set it apart. 

“We’re still learning as much as anyone else, they just make it fun, rather than making us read from textbooks all the time,” Ashlee said.  

This story about early adolescents was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter .  

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Evidenced-Based Practices for Literacy Intervention in Middle School

These practical strategies for building up struggling middle school readers’ literacy skills can help them read more fluently.

As a middle school English language arts teacher for 15 years, I saw my share of struggling adolescent readers. I was often perplexed by how my students could have made it to sixth, seventh, or eighth grade without ever having learned how to read fluently or even crack the alphabetic code with automaticity.

When I moved to instructional leadership at the elementary level, I discovered so much about how kids learn to read and what middle-grades teachers might do to help support their struggling readers.

I was lucky to come to the elementary world when I did. An added perk to the more frequent hugs, faster rates of development, and gentler attitudes, there were some really exciting shifts in primary literacy instruction. A year or two into my work at the elementary level, these shifts had just reached nationwide turning points, helped along by the work of journalist Emily Hanford. Her podcast, Sold a Story , exposed the lack of scientific research supporting the multimillion-dollar balanced reading programs that most elementary schools like mine had been using for decades.  

Due in large part to Hanford’s work and recent state legislation , K–2 literacy teachers are making some pretty big shifts that we can all learn from. Namely, we’re discovering how to get better at teaching kids to read with direct and explicit instruction in reading foundations skills. This looks like more focus on decoding (determining spoken sounds from printed text) and encoding (writing printed text from spoken sounds), among other evidence-based practices that are rooted in neuroscience.

So what can middle-grades teachers do with students who may not have received the evidence-based structured literacy instruction most kids need to learn how to read fluently by third grade? The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has put together an educators’ practice guide with recommendations that can help. Here are three.

Teach kids how to decode multisyllabic words 

I remember one student—we can call him Tyler—who wrote in the oversized letters of a much younger child. When reading aloud in small groups, Tyler would use all of his mental capacity to struggle through each word, often trying to guess using the word’s first letter. Unfortunately for Tyler, and so many others like them, his inability to decode graphemes (letter symbols) with their corresponding phoneme (unit of sound) left him at a loss as words and sentences grew more and more complex.

For adolescent readers who struggle with decoding, the goal now must be rapid acceleration in learning. They have so much time to make up; we cannot keep them working at the primary level of consonant-vowel-consonant decoding (CVC)—e.g., cat . These students need to now work with multisyllabic words in order to access grade-level texts. 

This means first assessing our struggling older readers and then creating an inventory of sound patterns they do know, in order to build off their successes and breed more success. Tyler despaired regularly with the same line: “I can’t read.” If I had had a list of letter-sound patterns at the time, I would have been able to point to what Tyler could read and then armed him with a routine of word attack.

This routine of word attack might include teaching students how to systematically break words into syllables and then determine the meanings of each word part. These smaller, meaningful parts of words are often called morphemes . For students like Tyler, learning common prefixes, suffixes, and Greek/Latin roots can help give them strategies to decode longer multisyllabic words in context.

Teach kids How to read fluently 

Students like Tyler who struggle with decoding are rarely able to read fluently. Since working in an elementary school, I have learned that fluency includes three components: rate, accuracy, and prosody, or reading with appropriate expression.

Teachers of older students who struggle with reading can help them become fluent readers by using repeated readings of grade-level complex texts. Each new reading should be purposeful and intentional and should provide opportunities for students to engage in new thinking while gaining practice with becoming fluent readers of text that will become more familiar and accessible with each repeated reading.

Teachers can also prepare students for building their reading fluency by supporting their work with word attack strategies before they read the complex text in its entirety. This will allow students the opportunity to practice decoding multisyllabic words and prepare them for understanding longer words in context, so that they don’t stumble when they come to them. Modeling fluent reading of text and choral reading routines will also serve to help support older students who are still working toward becoming fluent readers of their grade-level texts.

teach comprehension strategies while building knowledge 

For Tyler, many grade-level texts were incomprehensible. He spent so much mental energy trying to eke out each individual word, his reading was choppy and halting, and he had limited cognitive capacity left for understanding. 

What we are learning now is that comprehension is not a skill taught in isolation, but rather the result of having strong background knowledge in a topic. A colleague of mine has often used the example of reading complex medical texts compared with texts on pedagogy. We know enough about pedagogy to understand the jargon, make inferences, connect to new ideas. Reading new research on appendectomies, however, would leave many of us with some gaping holes in our understanding.

Likewise, background knowledge is critical for developing our students’ comprehension skills. This is why, in addition to supporting students’ accelerated development in decoding and fluency, middle-grades teachers should focus on reading a lot about a single topic rather than a lot of texts about a variety of unrelated topics. 

For example, in one high-quality curriculum resource, EL Education , seventh graders spend a quarter of the year digging deep into epidemics. They spend the first three weeks reading a wide variety of nonfiction texts, building their domain-specific vocabulary, applying close-reading skills, and engaging in discourse around this single topic. The added benefit to this topic-based learning is the potential for collaboration with science, social studies, or arts teachers, which could aid students’ reading comprehension in other classes as well.

And their success breeds success: When students know something about what they’re reading, they will recognize the words and syntax, read more fluently, and ultimately better comprehend what they’re reading.

Teachers of early adolescents can take heart that the recent changes in elementary school should mean that fewer and fewer students will come to them as struggling readers. In the meantime, these age-appropriate, evidence-based practices can help shore up students’ reading skills if they missed explicit phonics, fluency, and knowledge-building instruction in primary grades. These practical strategies can help empower teachers to support their students’ independence as they prepare for high school reading and beyond.

Best Reading Comprehension Strategies for Middle School Students

Does your child often struggle with reading comprehension in school?

This can affect their grades, as well as their self-esteem. If your child is finding it hard to absorb the contents of their texts in class, they may need a few extra reading tactics.

These can help them digest materials and enjoy reading more. When they enjoy reading more, they’ll naturally improve their reading comprehension.

To find out which reading comprehension strategies for middle school can help your child, keep reading.

Active Reading

Active reading means becoming an engaged participant in the reading process rather than a passive observer. Encourage middle school readers to interact with the text actively.

Encourage them to underline key points, highlight important sentences, and jot down notes or questions in the margins. This process helps students not only keep information but also better comprehend the material.

When students actively engage with a text, it’s as if they’re having a conversation with the author. This interaction leads to a deeper understanding of the content. This fosters a more thoughtful and critical approach to reading.

Previewing the Text

Before delving into a text, students should preview it by examining the title, subheadings, and any bold or italicized words. This initial scan gives them an idea of what the text is all about. It’s like getting a sneak peek before watching a movie – it helps them prepare mentally and activate their prior knowledge.

As your middle school student previews the text, encourage them to think about what they already know related to the topic. This helps them make connections and gives them a head start in understanding the new material. Think of it as setting the stage for the main performance, making the reading experience smoother and more enjoyable.

Asking Questions

Asking questions while reading is a powerful strategy for enhancing comprehension. Teach them to inquire about the who, what, when, where, why, and how aspects of the text. These questions help guide their thinking and promote critical examination of the material.

When your child asks questions while reading, they’re actively seeking answers and engaging with the text. These queries can be as simple as “Who is the main character?” or “Why did the author say that?” By doing so, they’re actively exploring the content, leading to a deeper understanding.

Vocabulary Building

A strong vocabulary is essential for comprehension. Encourage students to keep a vocabulary journal where they record unfamiliar words and their meanings. This not only enhances their understanding of the current text but also builds a valuable skill for future reading.

Think of vocabulary as the building blocks of comprehension. When your middle schooler encounters a new word, it’s like discovering a new tool in their toolbox. This tool helps them unlock the meaning of the text and expands their ability to understand and communicate effectively.

Summarizing

After reading a section or a chapter, encourage students to summarize what they’ve read in their own words. This forces them to process the information and identify the main ideas and supporting details.

Summarizing helps your middle schooler distill the essential points from the text. It’s like making a condensed version of a long movie into a trailer.

This skill is particularly valuable when studying. It allows students to review the material more efficiently and understand it more thoroughly.

Visualizing

Visualization is a powerful tool for comprehension. Encourage students to create mental images of the scenes or concepts described in the reading. This can make the material more relatable and memorable.

When your middle school student visualizes what they’re reading, it’s like creating a movie in their mind. These mental images bring the text to life and help them connect with the content on a deeper level.

For instance, if they’re reading about a character in a story, they can imagine what that character looks like, where they live, and what they do. This visualization aids in understanding and retention.

Making Connections

Help students make connections between the text and their own experiences, other texts they’ve read, or current events. This enhances comprehension by providing reading context and relevance to the material.

Encourage your middle schooler to think about how the content relates to their own life. This could be as simple as connecting a character’s feelings to their own experiences. Making these connections brings the reading to life and makes it more meaningful.

Encourage students to predict what will happen next in a story or what the author’s main argument will be in an informational text. This keeps them engaged and encourages them to anticipate the direction of the text.

Predicting is like trying to guess the plot of a movie based on the first few scenes. When they do, they become active participants in the narrative. It’s not just about reading words; it’s about making educated guesses and being engaged in the storyline or the author’s argument.

Inferencing

Inferencing is the art of drawing conclusions based on evidence in the text. Middle school students should be taught to identify clues. They can use them to make educated guesses about character motivations, plot developments, or the author’s purpose.

When your child makes inferences while reading, they’re like detectives piecing together a puzzle. They gather clues from the text and use their reasoning skills to make sense of the information.

This not only improves comprehension but also sharpens critical thinking abilities. Reading tutoring can provide extra practice in making inferences, helping students become more adept at this skill. 

Critical Reading

Teach middle school students to read critically. This means analyzing the author’s tone, biases, and the credibility of the information presented. Critical reading promotes a deeper understanding of the text and encourages students to question what they read.

They’re not just accepting everything at face value. They’re evaluating the information and considering the source. This skill empowers them to be effective readers who can separate fact from opinion and identify potential biases.

Effective Reading Comprehension Strategies for Middle School Students

Reading comprehension strategies for middle school can help them excel. By using the strategies discussed, students can become more confident and independent readers.

So, let’s encourage our young learners to practice these strategies and watch them thrive in their reading abilities. Try incorporating these strategies in your classroom today! Please take a look at our blog for more educational articles.

Please take a look at our blog for more educational articles.

This article is published by NYTech in collaboration with Syndication Cloud.

Money blog: Apple overtaken as world's second most valuable company

Nvidia has overtaken Apple to become the world's second most valuable public company; Disfrutar in Barcelona has been named the world's best restaurant; there's a new cola-flavoured Jaffa Cake launching. Read these and the rest of today's consumer news in the Money blog.

Thursday 6 June 2024 20:00, UK

• ECB cuts interest rates - and it could boost your holiday money
• McVitie's launches first ever non-fruit flavoured Jaffa Cake
• There's a new best restaurant in the world - this is how much it costs to eat there
• Now is the time to lock some of your cash away - here's why
• Asda goes from cheapest to most expensive supermarket for petrol

Essential reads

• How brands get you to buy more, more, more
• Top chef shares his take on an Italian classic - and Warwickshire Cheap Eats
• Ed Conway : Claim of £2k tax rise under Labour is over four years - same maths suggests Tories have raised taxes by £13k in last four years
• How much are student loans, when do you start paying back and what is the interest?
• Best of the Money blog - an archive

Ask a question or make a comment

Amazon is now giving all its UK customers - not just Prime members - access to its grocery delivery service.

People living in more than 100 towns and cities will also be able to access same-day delivery without needing to be a member of its subscription service. 

This covers items from Amazon Fresh, Morrisons, Co-op and Iceland. 

It comes amid efforts from the online giant to grow its grocery business in the face of tough competition within the sector.

Prime members, who used to be the only ones who could access the service, will be given more delivery options and free shipping, subject to a minimum spend. 

US regulators are investigating the notorious meme stock investor known online as Roaring Kitty.

Keith Gill shot to fame in 2021 after he fuelled a buying spree of shares in beleaguered video game retailer GameStop. The stock passed $120 from as little as $3 in three months and saw hedge funds' positions rack up big losses.

Gill returned to online chat forum Reddit on Sunday with a post revealing he had a $116m (£90.8m) position in GameStop, telling his followers that he controlled 1.8% of the company's available stock plus call options that gave him the right to buy more.

This fuelled investor confidence in GameStop, with its market value surging as much as 75% before settling around 30% higher.

Gill's trading activities are now being examined by the Massachusetts securities regulator, while the e-trade division of US bank Morgan Stanley is considering banning Gill from its platform, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The renewed interest in GameStop has gathered plenty of momentum, as our business reporter James Sillars outlined here this week...

Some Lloyds, Halifax and the Bank of Scotland customers will be charged more to use their overdrafts as of August. 

The three major banks, which are all part of Lloyds Banking Group, are set to launch a new tiered system for determining interest rates which could see some customers paying an extra 10%. 

At the moment, Lloyds has a standard rate of 39.9%, but the overhaul will see some forced to pay 49.9% for using their overdraft. 

The new rates are set to be: 

The 27.5% rate currently being offered to Club Lloyds customers will also be axed. 

There will be specific criteria for each tier based on a customer's credit information and account activity. 

For those who will see a rise, the banks will introduce a temporary tier for six months, which means the initial impact will be no more than 7.4% of what they are paying at the moment. 

"We are writing to our customers to let them know we're introducing new interest rate tiers on our overdrafts," a Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson said.

"The changes mean many will continue to pay the same or less than they do today, while some may see an increase." 

Nvidia has overtaken Apple to become the world's second most valuable public company.

The AI microchip maker's share price has risen to be worth more than $3trn (£2.34trn) for the first time. 

Only Microsoft is a more valuable company listed on a stock exchange, while Apple has fallen into third place.

Nvidia shares rose 5% after a year of growth - with one share now costing $1,224.40 (£957).

Nvidia's chips are powering much of the rush into AI, which has seen it become a poster child of the AI boom.

Demand for its processors from the likes of Google, Microsoft and Facebook owner Meta have been outstripping supply. 

Nvidia's shares - up nearly 150% so far this year - are also being boosted by an upcoming move to split its stock by 10-to-one on Friday. 

Ian Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell, said the stock split will "bring its share price down and make it more affordable to investors". 

Tech companies - including Microsoft and Apple - have been racing to develop AI and embed it in their products.

Nvidia is a younger company than some of its peers, having been founded in 1993. Similar to many tech giants, it was founded in California in the US.

Britain is less likely to lose power this winter than it was last year, according to the company that runs the grid.

National Grid's Electricity System Operator (ESO) said it expects power plants, wind farms and other generation methods to be able to provide more than enough power to meet demand this time around. 

In an early outlook, it said the grid would have an average margin - the difference between supply of electricity and demand for it - of 5.6 gigawatts (GW) this coming winter. 

This means the period when demand might outstrip supply is just 0.1 hours.

The increased margins are in part because of improved capacity, thanks to a new 765km high-voltage cable that connects the UK's electricity network with Denmark.

The cable, called an interconnector, is known as the Viking Link, and started transporting wind power between the two countries in December.

New gas generation, growth in battery storage capacity and increased generation connected to the distribution networks have also contributed to the higher margins. 

Despite this, ESO's chief operating officer Kayte O'Neill has said it will still need to be "vigilant" due to uncertainties around global energy markets.

"As a prudent system operator we remain vigilant, continuing to monitor potential risks and working closely with our partners to establish any actions necessary to build resilience," she said.

The continent's energy system has been forced to reinvent itself in recent years, faced with potential gas shortages due to the war in Ukraine.

The 20 countries using the euro currency have seen interest rates cut from record highs following progress in the battle against inflation over the past two-and-a-half years.

The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank (ECB) said it was "appropriate" to trim its main deposit rate from 4% to 3.75%.

It followed an assertion last month by its president, Christine Lagarde, that the pace of price increases was now "under control".

But the Bank declared in a statement that the battle was not won - signalling data-driven caution on future policy decisions in the months ahead.

Its staff even revised upwards their forecasts for inflation this year and next.

As we have been discussing in Money this week, the cut before the US and UK could weaken the euro - potentially making Britons' holiday money go further.

McVitie's is selling a new flavour of Jaffa Cake - and it marks the first ever non-fruit flavour since the treat launched in 1927.

Shelves across the country will soon be stocked cola bottle flavoured cakes.

The new flavour will launch in Asda stores from 10 June and be available in other UK supermarkets - including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Iceland and Co-op - in the coming weeks.

Adam Woolf, marketing director at McVitie's, said: "Jaffa Cakes Cola Bottle is certainly one of our more unexpected product launches – stepping away from fruit flavours for the very first time. 

"Jaffa Cakes have always stood out from the crowd (and the biscuit aisle), but we really wanted to try something new with this one. It's no doubt going to cause some debate among our Jaffanatics, and we can't wait to hear what they think."

By  Sarah Taaffe-Maguire , business reporter

Are we entering an era of interest rate cuts? Probably not. Or at least, not yet. 

But the European Central Bank (ECB) which controls the euro currency does look set to make their first cut in four years this afternoon. 

And Canada yesterday became the first country in the club of G7 industrialised nations to bring down borrowing costs by lowering their benchmark interest rate. 

The UK, however, isn't currently expected by markets to make a cut until September. 

Elsewhere, oil prices remain below $80 but are slightly more expensive than earlier this week. A barrel of the benchmark Brent crude oil costs $79.10.

The good news for people going on holidays to countries using the euro continues - the pound is still doing well against the currency with £1 equal to €1.1757. 

That could go even higher after the ECB decision at 1.15pm. A pound also can buy $1.2783. 

Like in the US, the UK's most valuable companies have become more valuable as the FTSE (Financial Times Stock Exchange) 100 and 250 indices are up 0.33% and 0.41% respectively.

Every Thursday  Savings Champion founder Anna Bowes  gives an insight into the savings market and how to make the most of your money...

Can you believe we are almost halfway through 2024?

Although the rate rises that we have seen this year have slowed compared with the previous couple of years, and we have even seen some falls, savers are now able to find hundreds of savings accounts that pay an interest rate higher than inflation.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics showed inflation was still higher than predicted, however - which means the anticipated base rate cut is likely to be pushed back again – into the second half of this year.

While bad news for borrowers, this is great news for savers.

Incredibly, the latest statistics from the Bank of England show there is over £253bn sitting in current accounts and savings accounts earning no interest at all.

With top rates available paying 5% or even a bit more, that is potentially £12.65bn of gross interest that is not being claimed by savers.

So now really is the time to move your money if you have cash languishing, earning less than inflation, especially if you can lock some away with a fixed rate, as a base rate cut will happen at some stage, we just don't know when.

Easy access

If you think you'll need access to your money, an easy access account is a wise choice.

The base rate cuts that we have been waiting for are yet to start, so the top rates on offer are still paying almost as much as they were at the beginning of the year.

Fixed-term bonds 

There is a strange phenomenon with fixed-term bond rates at the moment: the longer you tie up your cash, the lower the interest rates on offer.

Normally, you'd expect to be rewarded for tying up your cash over the longer term - but base rate forecasts have flipped this.

Fixed-term cash ISAs

A frequent complaint that I hear from savers is that the tax-free rates on ISAs are usually lower than the pre-tax rates on the equivalent non-ISA accounts – and this is particularly true with fixed-term accounts.

As many more savers are paying tax on their interest once again, cash ISAs are more popular than ever, as the tax-free rate of the ISA can still be considerably more than the interest earned after tax has been deducted on the non-ISA bond equivalents.

The renowned "50 Best" list of the world's best restaurants was revealed in Las Vegas last night - with a new restaurant taking top spot.

Disfrutar in Barcelona took the crown from Central in Lima, Peru (previous winners are ineligible and instead join a Best of the Best list).

Eating the standard menu costs £247 (€290) - with an extra £136 (€160) if you want the wine pairing.

To be fair, you do get around 30 courses.

They also offer a unique menu for your table for between €1,050 and €390 per person - the more people, the less it costs.

The 50 Best list says: "The combination of brilliantly imaginative dishes, unsurpassed technical mastery and playful presentation results in the dining experience of a lifetime, as full of surprises as it is memories."

Dishes include:

• Caviar-filled Panchino doughnut
• Frozen gazpacho sandwich
• Thai-style cuttlefish with coconut multi-spherical
• Squab with kombu spaghetti, almond and grape

Two UK restaurants made the top 50 but the UK was eclipsed by countries from across South America as well as Thailand, Italy, France and Spain.

London's Kol moved up slightly to 17, while Ikoyi, which we reported on a few weeks ago following a link-up with Uber Eats, came it at 42.

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International Programs

Anne frank initiative welcomes over 250 clear creek amana eighth graders to university of iowa campus.

On Thursday, May 30, 2024, the Anne Frank Initiative (AFI) , an International Programs affinity group, welcomed 250+ eighth graders from Clear Creek Amana (CCA) Middle School. A strong mission of the AFI is to create outreach opportunities to share Anne Frank’s story, spirit, and her humanitarian message with our youngest generation. Some CCA students have read portions of Anne Frank’s diary during the spring semester. The AFI is directed by Kirsten Kumpf Baele, lecturer in the University of Iowa (UI) Department of German.

“As part of the English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum at CCA, Tollie Lancaster and I were able to teach the students about the Holocaust,” said Lindsay Herr, eighth grade ELA teacher and one of the organizers of the event. “We are honored that Dr. Kirsten Kumpf Baele partnered with us and took the time to teach our students about Anne Frank, and we are excited they were able to meet with and learn from other University of Iowa professors and current University of Iowa students.”

The middle school students began their day with an introduction to Anne Frank, her legacy, and her special connection with Iowa. Throughout the morning, students were divided into breakout sessions which ranged from a virtual reality tour of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and Little Free Library design, to artificial intelligence, writing and identity, and learning about German/Jewish heritage in Iowa City. They also had a tour of the Iowa campus.

At the end the day, students gathered at the Anne Frank sapling on the Pentacrest where Andrew Dahl, the head UI arborist, talked about the white horse chestnut tree, the 13th sapling to be planted in the United States.

“This annual engagement with Clear Creek Amana brings eighth grade students face-to-face with pieces of history that most of them have only encountered through educational texts,” said Mallory Hellman, director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project and AFI advisory committee member. “By visiting the Anne Frank sapling, walking a path of significant locations in Iowa City's Jewish history (and present!), and learning of Anne Frank's Iowan pen-pal , students cement a lived connection between Anne's story and their own.”

The AFI is committed to investigating Anne Frank’s literary contributions, her ongoing legacy, and all that she represents in a more globalized, international, and contemporary context.

“Iowa has a special connection to Anne Frank and her story,” remarked Natoshia Askelson, associate professor in the UI College of Public Health and AFI advisory committee member. “The AFI works to highlight and strengthen that connection. It is vital that Iowans understand how interconnected all our stories and lives are, so that we can prevent violence.”

Organizers of this event included AFI Director Kirsten Kumpf Baele; Lindsay Herr, CCA eighth grade ELA teacher; AFI Advisory Committee members Natoshia Askelson, Carl Follmer, Mallory Hellman, Shereena Honary, and Ana Laura Leyser; and other UI faculty, staff, and students including Andrew Dahl, Glenn Ehrstine, Colleen Kollasch, and Kevin Zihlman. 

International Programs  (IP) at the University of Iowa (UI) is committed to enriching the global experience of UI students, faculty, staff, and the general public by leading efforts to promote internationally oriented teaching, research, creative work, and community engagement.  IP provides support for international students and scholars, administers scholarships and assistance for students who study, intern, or do research abroad, and provides funding opportunities and grant-writing assistance for faculty engaged in international research. IP shares their stories through various media, and by hosting multiple public engagement activities each year.

• Anne Frank Initiative

International Programs at the University of Iowa supports the right of all individuals to live freely and to live in peace. We condemn all acts of violence based on race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and perceived national or cultural origin. In affirming its commitment to human dignity, International Programs strongly upholds the values expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights .