EDME 409

I. Course Title: Young Adolescents and the Middle School

II. Course Number: EDME 409

III. Credit Hours: 3 credits

IV. Prerequisites: Admission to Teacher Education Program and a minimum 2.5 GPA.

V. Course Description: 

The purpose of this course is to help prospective middle level teacher candidates develop in-depth knowledge and understanding of young adolescents’ characteristics and needs at this particular time of development. An important component of the course is learning how schools can be organized and classroom environments created to best serve all young adolescents in their diverse abilities and cultural backgrounds. The course will also address working with the families of young adolescents.

VI. Detailed Description of Content of the Course:

1. Development of the early adolescent

        (a) Physical

        (b) Emotional

        (c) Social

        (d) Cognitive

2. Exceptional students

        (a) Recognizing their needs

        (b) Examining differentiated instruction

3. Factors placing young adolescents at-risk- trauma, bullying

        (a) Individual factors

        (b) Familial factors

        (c) Societal factors

5. Impact of grouping practices on students

        (a) Teachers’ grouping practices

6. Ethical responsibilities of teachers to students

        (a) Knowledge development

        (b) Moral development

7.  Supporting adolescent learning

        (a) Providing all students with equity in the classroom

        (b) Providing all students with service learning opportunities in the classroom

        (c) Developing appropriate instructional strategies

        (d) Examining Social Constructivism as a theoretical framework for learning 

8.    Practice skills that positively support

        (a) Community Building

        (b) Positive behavior supports

        (c) Behavior management techniques

        (d) Individual interventions

VI. Detailed Description of Conduct of Course:

This course will be conducted in lecture, activity, and discussion formats and will include opportunities for experiential projects.

This course examines the intersection of young adolescence development with middle school curricula and explores the instructional methods for designing and teaching developmentally appropriate programs in middle school. Teacher candidates will understand the different aspects of adolescent development and how that impacts middle school student’s learning, motivation, and behaviors in the classroom. Pre-service teachers will also understand the various risk-factors associated with this age group and how those risk factors adversely impact adolescents and their success in school. Pre-service teachers will examine how understanding this period of adolescent development impacts differentiation and flexible grouping. Finally, throughout this course, teacher candidates will develop the necessary reflective and critical thinking skills necessary to become researchers and reflective practitioners. 

VII. Goals and Objectives of the Course:

Goals, objectives, and assignments address the Virginia Department of Education regulations as well as the Association for Middle Level Education recommendations for preparing middle level educators with concentrations in Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science. Candidates successfully completing this course will be able to demonstrate developing knowledge, skills, and dispositions of the following:

Goal 1: Identify the different aspects of adolescent development and their impact on middle school students. 

Goal 2: Identify the factors that put adolescents at-risk for negative behaviors. 

Goal 3: Develop skills in promoting the development of all students' abilities for academic achievement and continued learning

Goal 4: Identify how to use differentiated instruction and flexible groupings to meet the needs of pre-adolescents at different stages of development, abilities, and achievement

Goal 5: Develop skills as researchers and reflective practitioners

Having successfully completed this course, the teacher candidate will be able to:

1. Examine the physical, emotional, moral, social and cognitive development of adolescents
2. Identify how aspects of adolescent development impact instructional development.
3. Identify individual, familial, and societal factors that put students at-risk for behaviors that negatively impact their success in school. 
4. Examine how Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs relates to at-risk behaviors 
5. Examine how trauma and bullying impacts middle school students 
6. Identify key resiliency skills middle school students need to ameliorate at-risk factors
7. Examine how social constructivism relates to the developmental nature of adolescents
8. Identify and practice the skills that will enhance middle school classroom community building, positive behavior supports, behavior management techniques, and individual interventions, including techniques that promote emotional well-being and teach and maintain behavioral conduct and skills consistent with norms, standards, and rules of the educational environment.
9. Develop strategies for creating service learning opportunities for students
10. Develop a variety of instructional methods including whole class, small group, think pair share, which supports flexible grouping 
11. Examine various discussion models which support differentiated instruction
12. Identify elements of differentiated instruction 
13. Develop frameworks, strategies and skills to implement differentiation in the middle school classroom
14. Examine their own history and background as it relates to teaching and middle school
15. Develop reflective skills regarding issues middle school students deal with as they move through adolescence
16. Examine the importance of various roles that  middle school students play( student advocate, role model, life long learner)

VIII. Assessment Measures:

The assessments may include but are not limited to:

1. Class attendance and participation. Given the interactive nature of the class and its correlation with field experiences, students will make peer evaluations in regard to attendance and contributions to the group.
2. Writing Tasks. Students will keep written reflections on their experiences and/or readings. These will be evaluated in terms of their promptness, relevance, and insightfulness.
3. Case Study Analyses. Written responses to selected case studies will be required. These will be evaluated on the inclusion and appropriate use of knowledge about young adolescents. 
4. Shadow Study. Students will make observations of a young adolescent and submit written reflections about this data. 

Other Course Information: None

 

Review and Approval

April 2020 Reviewed Dr. Ann Mary Roberts

2013

January 30, 2013        Reviewed       Dr. Elizabeth D. Dore, Coordinator

November 10, 2008    Reviewed        Dr. Elizabeth D. Dore, Coordinator

August 14, 2006         Reviewed        Dr. Elizabeth D. Dore, Coordinator