Middle School Today: Current Best Practices for Adolescent Learners

Middle School Today is clustered into major themes: adolescent development and identity, the adolescent learner, curriculum and instruction, and the contemporary middle school. The book describes the components related to adolescent development starting with simple principles from psychology regarding the physical, cognitive, and social development of adolescents. The book then explores current trends in research regarding contemporary topics such as trauma informed practices, social emotional learning, and social justice. A large section of the book is devoted to curriculum and instruction. This section will reach both broadly and deeply to the ins and outs of designing instruction, implementing instruction, and assessment across all content areas. Readers will have access to resources for teacher candidates and teacher educators to utilize in practice. Finally, the book explores the historical grounding of middle level education, relying on foundational principles from the Association of Middle Level Education (AMLE) and address how teachers can connect best practices to school settings where implementing best practice may be absent.

Holly Henderson Pinter, Ph.D. is an associate professor of middle grades education at Western Carolina University. Holly completed a PhD in 2013 at the University of Virginia. Her teaching and research center on the implementation of standards based mathematical teaching practices, pre-service teacher education policy and practice, and developmentally responsive teaching at the middle level. Holly teaches methods and pedagogy courses in the elementary and middle grades department as well as serving as the Math 1 teacher and instructional liaison at the university’s laboratory school, The Catamount School, and serves as program coordinator for the middle grades education.

Kim K. Winter, Ph.D., is the Dean of the College of Education and Allied Professions at Western Carolina University. She is a former Associate Dean at Western Carolina. Kim has also had roles as Associate Professor, Associate Chair and Middle Level Program Director at the University of Texas at Arlington. At the university level, Kim has taught a variety of courses: middle level curriculum, instruction, and assessment, language arts and literacy methods, young adolescent development, ELL methods, and young adult literature. She has taught Language Arts and Writing to both elementary and middle school students in Texas and Indiana. During 2007-2008, Kim took faculty leave and returned to the classroom to teach seventh and eighth grade English/Language Arts. Recent research projects include digital video analysis of and reflection on teaching among pre-service teachers; alignment of state and national English standards; the study of deficit thinking among teacher candidates; and the induction and retention of teachers.

Kayleigh Kassel, MAEd serves as the English Language Arts Teacher Leader at The Catamount School (TCS), a lab school, in Western North Carolina. In addition to teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, she also is an adjunct professor for the College of Education at Western Carolina University (WCU). Kayleigh has earned both a bachelor's and master's degrees from WCU in Middle Grades Education with a concentration in literacy. Her research focus is studying trauma-informed practices and the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) on students' needs and success.