Proposal development and implementation strategies

Middle School Conversion Proposal

The process of changing the general underlying structure of an entire school is definitely a major burden to undertake. Yet, at the same time, this intense time can be viewed as a positive opportunity to start fresh and to implement innovative strategies aimed at providing the most beneficial educational environment for the students who will be affected by the change. Implementing teaming strategies, block scheduling, and advisory programs will essentially allow students to collaborate with teachers and school staff as a way to empower them and increase their involvement in their own lives.

Teaming is an effective way to structure middle school designs because of the benefits it provides for the students involved. From an academic standpoint, teaming increases the depth and scope of student research, projects and learning for it allows the students to carry over projects into different courses, rather than learning each of the four core competencies from a completely isolated perspective. Such strategy increases the overall learning capacities for the students involved (Wormeli 1999). It helps emotional and cognitive growth of these students during a crucial developmental period and allows students to create stronger relationships and emotional ties with their classmates, because they are with them for longer periods of time (Wormeli 1999). This development will also help address students with particular learning needs by allowing teams to be structured around the common or shared needs of groups of interrelated students.

However, it must be implemented appropriately. Here, the research suggests that "the team solution organizes teachers and students into small groups" (Brown & Knowles 2007 p 227). Programs will be headed by four teachers from each of the major curriculum areas, including math, science, social studies, and language arts (Wormeli 1999). These teachers should govern over a student body of between 100-125 students, allowing the teachers to make decisions based on their more intimate knowledge of this smaller group of students. Teachers should focus on working with students to help choose courses that are best suited for each individual. This will focus on maximizing the benefits of an exploratory curriculum, with "more democratically designed classrooms and student involvement in choosing curriculum" (Brown & Knowles 2007 p xvi).

Additionally, the new design of the school should incorporate block scheduling to increase teaming strategies that can be extended into the larger capacity of four classes, rather than having individual teaching strategies govern each individual class. Course scheduling would "move from teacher to teacher with the same group of peers throughout the school day" (Brown & Knowles 2007 p 227). This enhances the quality and depth of curriculum and instruction through more intimate governance. Empirical studies on the benefits of block scheduling show a general 12-15% increase in vocabulary scores (Wormeli 1999). According to the research, "When teams have some control over the class schedule, students have the opportunity to explore ideas for longer periods of time" (Brown & Knowles 2007 p 229). Each team should be within the context of a block structure, allowing students to be more engaged in that team's strategies and coursework during the shared time that extends over several classes. This would require longer class periods, but the research shows that if managed innovatively by collaborative teaching strategies, the students will most likely respond positively (Wormeli 1999).