Best Practices - Middle

In addition to the recommendations for Best Practices in Mathematics, the following concepts are particularly important for Middle School Students (grades 6-8):
http://www.nctm.org/middle/

Understand the Developmentally Challenged:

Middle-grades students are unique with physical, emotional and intellectual changes that challenge their teachers. But students develop at different rates. Most adolescents are sensitive to the influence of their peers. Teachers should create classroom environments with clearly established norms that support the learning of mathematics by everyone.

Create Positive Lifelong Attitudes:

Mathematics learning at the middle grades can influence how students perceive their competence and may influence life choices in high school. Students should learn to deal with quantitative situations in their lives outside school and develop a solid foundation for their study of mathematics in high school.

Provide Challenging Problem-Solving:

Middle-grades students can acquire an appreciation for, and develop an understanding of, mathematical ideas if they have frequent encounters with interesting, challenging problems. Students should regularly engage in thoughtful activity tied to their emerging capabilities of finding and imposing structure, conjecturing and verifying, thinking hypothetically, comprehending cause and effect, and abstracting and generalizing.

Include Algebra and Geometry:

Algebra and geometry should be taught to all middle-graders as interconnected with each other and with other content areas in the curriculum.

Provide On-Going Teacher Training:

Teachers in the middle grades need to know much more mathematics than is required in most elementary school teacher-certification programs. Middle-grades teachers need to know much more about adolescent development, pedagogical alternatives, and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching than most secondary school teacher-certification programs require.