Middle Grades Training Materials and Classroom Modules: Science, Math, Social Studies/History

To address middle grades teachers’ commitment to rigorous standards and acknowledgment that young adolescent learners learn in different ways, Different Ways of Knowing has developed arts-infused, literacy-infused modules to enhance and accelerate mastery of content learning middle across the curriculum.

Science

Module 1. Scientific Inquiry Foundation Module: How do we move from curiosity to scientific understanding?
This module launches the school year and provides a foundation for thinking like a scientist in standards-based curriculum, assessment, and instruction in earth, life, and physical science. Students engage in hands-on, minds-on experiences through arts-infused inquiry stations to experience the habits and skills of scientific inquiry. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Module 2. Plant Structure and Function: How are plants designed to survive?
With rigorous reading, writing, photography, the visual and media arts, and digital microscopes, students investigate plant structure, function, and survival, providing a foundation transferable to the study of animal structure, function, and adaptations. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Module 3. Forces and Motion: How can we explain the way things move?
In this module, students and teachers develop solid understandings of the laws of forces and motion through writing, reading, and discussions—all aided by music, creative movement, video, and mime. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Module 4: Plate Tectonics: What makes mountains, earthquakes, and volcanoes?
In this module, students read, write, and research key questions, aided with the visual and media arts, in order to develop a profound understanding of how heat flow and movement of the material within the earth cause earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, mountains, and ocean basins. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Math

Module 1. Problem Solving Foundation Module: How can mathematics help us to be creative?
This module launches the school year and provides a foundation for “thinking like a mathematician” in standards-based curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Students develop a problem-solving plan, a variety of problem-solving strategies, and a definition of mathematics as they model a real-world situation involving the completion of a musical instrument. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Module 2. Ratios and Proportions: How can we use ratios to create aesthetic and functional designs?
In this module, students use and master the concepts and skills of ratio, rate, and proportion as they design a park. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Module 3. Statistics: How can we use the tools of a statistician to predict and persuade?
By designing a new product and proposing a statistically valid marketing plan, students successfully use the tools of a statistician to describe and predict the behavior and characteristics of a population using sampling, measures of center and spread, and graphical representations. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Module 4. Algebra: How can algebra help us to solve problems and make discoveries?
Through a hands-on visual project, students successfully use the tools of algebra to explore the relationships of variables related to photography in the process of the planning and producing a photograph of an indoor scene. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 7–8

Module 5. Geometry: How can the language of geometry help us to adapt our environment to our needs?
All students successfully use the tools and language of a mathematician by putting on the hat of an architect and analyzing great structures through the lens of geometry, learning to precisely describe and mathematically calculate various aspects of three-dimensional shapes. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Social Studies/History

Module 1. Cultural Inquiry Foundation Module: What tools can we use to learn about ancient and modern cultures and how they can help us to understand our own culture?
In this module, which launches the school year and provides a foundation for standards-based curriculum, assessment, and instruction in world history and geography, students examine a “mystery” culture to explore ways in which we define and understand cultures. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–7

Module 2. Historical Inquiry Foundation Module: How can we understand history as a living story of discovery, insight, and imagination, rather than a summary of past events?
In this module, which launches the school year and provides a foundation for “thinking like a historian” in standards-based curriculum, assessment, and instruction, students “do history” by participating in a dynamic process of historical investigation in which they question, imagine, analyze, synthesize, and make personal connections to an historical document. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 6–8

Module 3. The Civil War: How do people’s choices affect war; how does war affect people’s choices?
In this module, students develop historical empathy and make connections to the people and events of the Civil War era by assuming the role of a character representative of a person living in the United States during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Working with the classroom textbook and primary documents, students engage in content learning and demonstrate their understanding of the people and events of the time by representing a composite character at the 1876 celebration of the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence. Teachers are supported with workshops, coaching, and on-line professional development.
Grades 7–8