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Bring Passion to Your Class

The benefit of 20% Time or Genius Hour for middle schoolers In my first year of teaching, I was actively looking for new ways to renew my students’ excitement for learning. My search led me to Google’s 20% Time initiative, where employees are given 20% of their working time to work on personal projects. This

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Student Agency

Research Summary A typical middle school classroom includes young adolescents with a range of skills, interests, abilities, and personalities. One student may relate any topic of study to a favorite sport or video game. Another stretches her digital skills with each assignment and spends time outside of school learning how to code. Yet another emerges

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Teaching Failure

How learning to fail can produce the biggest gains in life We absolutely love walking into kindergarten classrooms. There is a richness in colors that cover the walls, activities, and learning stations can be found scattered across the room, and let’s face it, those cubbies are so cute and smell so much better than the

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What Does It Mean?

Promoting divergent thinking with digital storytelling Imagine a photo of the Grand Canyon, jagged peaks under a summer sky. In the foreground, a father holds a round-bellied little girl in a yellow shirt and sandals. Feet dangling, the girl stares at his collar, while he looks past her, eyes fixed on the horizon. When you

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No More Assemblies

How to make engaging with outside professionals count An exploding mixture! A cloud in a bottle! Every student’s hand in the air to volunteer. Everyone’s laughing. Sounds like an educator’s dream. But when the dust (or simulated volcano) settles, it is often difficult to pinpoint what students learned. Did they leave with a stronger understanding

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AMLE Celebrates Inaugural Schools of Distinction

AMLE recognized its inaugural class of Schools of Distinction earlier this month, in conjunction with the organization’s 49th Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. The twelve schools were selected for their fervent commitment to implementing the essential attributes and characteristics of successful middle grades schools. In addition to being celebrated during a special awards ceremony, each

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Reimagining School – What should it look like and who is it for?

Cornelius Minor and Kass Minor help #AMLE22 attendees find their bottom lines as educators Cornelius and Kass Minor believe that kids don’t just learn in school. They become. It’s an attitude reflective of what we know about middle grades best practice, making them the perfect keynoters for #AMLE22 and our return to in-person conference. We

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Kindness is harder than it looks.

Houston Kraft reminds #AMLE22 attendees that connection doesn’t happen by accident. Houston Kraft, author and co-founder of CharacterStrong, took the main stage at #AMLE22 yesterday for his keynote address on Deep Kindness. From the outset, he made clear that he had a mission for those in attendance. “If we want more kindness on our campus,

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