Middle schoolers are a different set of students, and it is important to consider how best to engage them in their learning. To support this, today we sat down with National Director, Naneka Brathwaite, to unpack five key strategies to engage middle school students: make progress visible, fuel autonomy with real choice, keep content relevant to age, build discourse for critical thinking, and pace efficiently so every minute counts.
Naneka explains how simple data talks, student-friendly progress trackers, and clear goals help learners name where they are and choose what to try next. From there, we dig into incorporating student choice by providing parallel paths to the same standard to support students deciding how they learn best.
Relevance and discourse go hand in hand. Hear practical ways to pair developmentally appropriate texts with age-appropriate topics, reducing shame while raising curiosity. Naneka shares routines that move teachers from a "sage on the stage" to a facilitator of thinking: structured turn and talk, error analysis, and respectful disagreement that push ideas forward. In math and literacy alike, students learn to explain, question, and refine.
Finally, we talk about pacing. Older learners can revisit foundations quickly, but not at the expense of understanding. Learn how to plan concrete-to-abstract progressions, use quick checks to steer instruction, and avoid whole-class reteaching by leveraging small groups and just-in-time supports. The payoff is fewer disruptions, more buy-in, and a room that feels both calm and energized.