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Middle school math achievement during the pandemic, but the root problems have existed far longer. 

Here鈥檚 a typical scenario 鈥� a student thrives in elementary math, enjoying manipulatives, games and kid-friendly word problems. Then, the tides change. When more abstract thought enters the equation, the student鈥檚 once-favorite class becomes a source of anxiety and defeat.

In middle school, students also can hit a learning wall due to unaddressed learning gaps. Even before the pandemic, students were arriving in middle school with learning gaps in basic math concepts, according to Shelly Burr, who supports 42 Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, school districts through the Allegheny Intermediate Unit and serves as a certified coach through Harvard. Those basics that weren鈥檛 create barriers to learning new, more complex skills.

Filling those skill gaps while moving through grade-level content is tough.  鈥淚t鈥檚 challenging for teachers to be able to be teaching grade-level content,鈥� Burr says, noting that sometimes they are having to reteach skills from two or three grade levels prior. Middle school math timelines typically involve learning a new skill daily, which doesn鈥檛 account for the progression of skill acquisition, she says.

 While a fresh approach to teacher training is part of the solution, innovative classroom teachers are already making strides in the right direction. Their strategies include using concrete tools to help young minds grasp abstract concepts, giving students choices and shifting mindsets to see mistakes as part of the process.

Teachers Need Guidance to Focus on Key Skills

Burr points out that teachers aren鈥檛 necessarily trained to identify the must-have skills at each grade level to remain math-proficient later. If teachers must prioritize mastery of certain skills over others, knowing which are most essential is key.

 A by the Regional Educational Laboratory Program alongside some Missouri education leaders identified five broad categories: ratios and proportional relationships, the number system, expressions and equations, geometry and statistics/probability. Mastery in these areas was most associated with Algebra I success. 

Burr says, 鈥淭he biggest predictor of algebra success is all the way in terms of their number sense.鈥� 

Concrete tools build abstract understanding

It鈥檚 less likely you鈥檒l see students in middle school playing with tiles, making art and working with their hands, but students at this age still need such activities to succeed in math. Burr encourages teachers to use manipulatives, even during middle school, to help students transition from concrete to abstract understanding. She points to tools like base 10 blocks through fifth grade, a fraction manipulative to help kids 鈥渟ee it in different ways鈥� and . 

If a school could choose only one hands-on tool for middle school, she says, algebra tiles are a must-have for everything from helping to visualize integers to solving multi-step equations. The pandemic also showed educators that virtual algebra tiles could work too.  

Classroom Snapshots Light the Way

We took a look at top practices in middle schools around the country, where teachers are actively working to engage students in math and close learning gaps. Here are some of their go-to strategies for reaching middle-schoolers:

Give Gen Z the immediate feedback they鈥檙e used to 鈥� mistakes and all

Kat Abe, eighth-grade math teacher, Northbrook Middle School, Houston

Using tech tools without direction is like using a Tesla without knowing your destination, Abe jokes. Instead, intentional and immediate feedback through tools like NearPod and Socrative increases engagement and timely improvement in her classroom. She anonymously displays multiple students鈥� work at once with these tools, working with students to identify what went wrong.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e used to being stimulated by technology and wanting that instant feedback, that immediate gratification that comes from some of these tech tools I鈥檓 using,鈥� she says. For Nearpod, she uploads all her lessons, giving feedback in real time. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a lot different from pen and paper 鈥� where I鈥檓 not reaching all 30 students in the classroom.鈥� She says catching mistakes immediately leads to 鈥渋ntentional discourse鈥� around their work, rather than presenting her own. 

Building a culture where 鈥淢istakes Are Totally Hot,鈥� a math acronym she uses, is normalized because every day students see both mistakes and exemplars. The tech tools she uses lend themselves to naturally catching mistakes as they happen, so students are used to both making them and getting that immediate feedback. She also doesn鈥檛 use homework, as students get so much practice and feedback during class.

Drawing from non-math subjects to make the abstract concrete 

Elisa Murphy, director of teaching and learning, New York City Charter School of the Arts

Negative numbers can be challenging for middle-schoolers, Murphy says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard to understand why when you subtract a negative number, it becomes positive 鈥� that doesn鈥檛 make any sense.鈥� But it鈥檚 easier when kids have concrete analogies like submarines going underwater, or making soup hotter or colder with ice cubes. 

Kids also are encouraged to create their own real-life examples of math in action, often with a music or art connection. For example, seventh-grade math teachers wanted students to use proportions in a project. Some used scale factors to enlarge their own drawings. Others played a piece of music to demonstrate  intervals, or the ratio of frequencies in the pitches that make up a musical chord. In a third option, students scaled up a recipe to feed the entire class and then cooked it for everyone to enjoy.

In eighth grade, math teachers used an art project to cement students鈥� understanding of transversals, lines that intersect two parallel lines, and the angles they create. Students had to look outside the classroom to find examples of transversals in their home or neighborhood. After photographing their example, they used an online protractor to measure the angles formed, observing whether they were complementary or supplementary to each other.

Solving real-world problems 

Jeanne Huybrechts, chief academic office, Stratford School, with multiple California locations

According to a 2022 student poll conducted by Gradient Learning, over usually don鈥檛 see the relevance of what they are learning in school. 

鈥淲hen Stratford middle school students ask their math teachers, 鈥榃hy do we have to learn this?鈥�  we think they deserve an answer,鈥� Huybrechts says. 鈥淭eachers regularly integrate real-world problems that illustrate the usefulness of the principles, thus making the math courses seem much more relevant.鈥�

For example, one popular exercise is to design a smartphone and calculate the amount of storage needed.  In another unit, students design a solar panel-covered roof, calculating the pitch necessary to optimize energy capture. She says this helps to alleviate the abstractness of both algebra and geometry courses in middle school.

Setting goals and tracking mastery

Sarah Breslin, assistant principal, Brooklyn Lab Middle School, New York

When Breslin saw a discrepancy between students鈥� classroom 鈥渆xit tickets鈥� and their interim assessment performance, she worked with teachers to build a professional development plan. The program, called Shift the Lift, refers to moving the mental load of solving the problems from the teacher to the student. It鈥檚 designed to help teachers spot the specific standards that stump students most often and to help them embrace a growth mindset as they work to master them.

Teachers set 鈥渉yper-specific goals鈥� for each student, push independent practice and use exit tickets two to three times a week to measure progress toward those goals, she says. The exit tickets measure how well students master the topic at hand and evaluate their work habits. Breslin says that when students begin Shift the Lift, on average, only about 55% meet expectations. Just five weeks later, that number routinely grows to 89%.

Letting students decide how to demonstrate their understanding

Ashley Barattini and April Regan, eighth-grade co-teachers, The Urban Assembly School for Leadership & Empowerment, Brooklyn

It鈥檚 not every day you see a summative assessment in the form of a podcast, brochure, Tik Tok or sewing project. But that鈥檚 the norm for Barattini and Regan鈥檚 students, where choice is a fundamental aspect of increasing engagement in middle school math. Barattini recalls a student last year who looked at the options for testing and instead proposed an embroidery project demonstrating her new math knowledge. The teachers were more than happy to oblige. 

From scavenger hunts to stations, mini-lessons with the whole group to smaller learning groups, 鈥済iving them options to show their knowledge and show the way they鈥檙e learning math and making sense of it鈥� is key, Regan says. Lessons in their classroom last a maximum of 10 minutes, and they give homework only every few weeks, around five to six questions, one from each lesson they鈥檝e recently taught for extra practice. 

Says Regan, 鈥淚 love hearing at the end of an activity, a student being like, 鈥楢ctually, this was really fun today.鈥欌��

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