VAMLE Newsletter
July 2025 Edition
Congratulations to Woodstock Union Middle School for becoming an Association for Middle Level Education School of Distinction! This honor is presented to schools for "their outstanding commitment to young adolescent education and continuous improvement. These schools set a powerful standard for middle grades best practices, inspiring educators worldwide." VAMLE is incredibly proud of the work that our member school has done to achieve this recognition!
Please read this excerpt from a press release from the Mountain Views Supervisory Union. The full press release can be found at the link below.
"The Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU) announced today that its Woodstock Union Middle School (WUMS) has won recognition as a 2025 School of Distinction by the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) – the only middle school in Vermont to land such an honor.
AMLE is the only international organization of its kind for middle school educators. With a community of more than 35,000 members, AMLE is a respected source for peer-reviewed research, best practices, and professional development in middle-level education.
This year, WUMS and just 23 other middle schools across the United States received the distinguished designation. WUMS will join other 2025 Schools of Distinction at AMLE’s 52nd Annual Conference for Middle Level Education in Indianapolis, Indiana, this November to celebrate their awards.
In congratulating the Woodstock Union Middle School on its AMLE School of Distinction award, AMLE Chief Executive Officer, Stephanie Simpson, said that WUMS’s dedication to fostering a thriving middle-school community sets a powerful example – one worthy of sharing with educators worldwide."
To provide learning opportunities for young adolescents that are "challenging, exploratory, integrative, and diverse," it is critical that educators partner with their students to design and engage in a collaborative curriculum. By offering students a voice and choices in the design process, we not only acknowledge the value of their ideas and contributions, but we also encourage and support their' autonomy, perseverance, problem-solving, and communication skills in authentic ways. However, despite common misconceptions, personalized learning is not about handing the reins over to the students. For this work to be successful, educators must provide thoughtful, intentional guardrails to ensure that students have the structures they need to feel safe and supported as they pursue these exciting and innovative learning opportunities. The following are just a few of the ways that you can embed practical personalized learning opportunities in your classroom:
- Personalizing "The What": As we engage in learning design, it is important for us to take a step back and think about what aspects of our content is truly "essential." In an age when most facts can be found with a quick Google search, is it really critical for students to memorize facts and figures? Or, rather, is it most critical for them to learn the skill of identifying potential biases in sources of information so they can determine which sources are most reliable? If the latter is true, and I believe that it is, then this opens up far more options for what students can pursue in terms of content. By taking a thematic approach to unit design, students can have set parameters within which they can receive some foundational, grounding instruction, but then explore the pathway forward that speaks to them the most. For instance, in a Humanities unit that is focused on "Navigating Internal Conflict," students may read and discuss the same short story in which internal conflict is a central theme, but then they are free to examine that theme through a variety of other texts, films, artwork, music, or other media. The number of choices and the quality of the sources is still limited by the teacher (or determined collaboratively), but students have far more autonomy in choosing which story and/or presentation is most engaging and meaningful to them. Here are two sources that focus on thematic unit design to get you started (General Framework for Unit Design and Teaching History Thematically).
https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-history-thematically/
- Personalizing "The How": Middle level students benefit from having input in both the process of learning and the ways in which they demonstrate what they have learned. Whether it is as simple as allowing students to choose from a menu of choices when it comes to reading about a topic, offering several multimedia sources (charts, graphs, infographics, etc.) when asking students to interpret data, or even allowing students the option to listen to a text while reading along, these opportunities for students to make choices will help them to reflect on their learning process and analyze which approaches best meet their needs. This is powerful information to know about oneself and empowers students to take a more active role in their education. Additionally, providing options for how students communicate their learning to you and each other is also a game-changer. The goal of an effective assessment should always be to accurately measure a student's learning and growth. However, traditional assessments often unintentionally create barriers for some students to be able to communicate what they know and what they can do. For example, if the end-of-unit assessment on symbiotic relationships in an ecosystem is a written report on the topic, then students who struggle with writing may not be able to communicate their deep understanding of that topic as effectively. However, the option to present their knowledge through images, speech, or other modes would. Here's a list of 15 "less traditional" ways to approach assessment in the classroom. Introducing these options to students and allowing opportunities to practice them in low-stakes situations will lead to greater success when it's time to utilize them for lesson-level or unit-level assessments.
- Personalizing "The When": Though it may not be possible in all situations, utilizing self-paced learning tools is an excellent way to promote perseverance, self-reflection, and responsible decision making in our students. When tools allow students to move forward when they are ready or slow down and receive additional practice when they need it, students begin to recognize the ebb and flow of the learning process within themselves. This creates a classroom culture in which it is known and understood that every learner has strengths and challenges, and that those things will be unique to each individual. As students make progress, consider allowing them to collect "badges" for each stage of their mastery of a particular skill. These can be tangible items collected in a folder/binder, or digital items kept in an online portfolio. Either way, they act as natural celebrations for students as they progress, clearly articulate the stages of growth within a specific skill, and serve as a great reflective tool when it comes to student-led conferences. Here is an overview of some tools for independent, self-paced learning compiled by me and a colleague. We used each of these with our middle level students in grades 5 through 8, and we saw the benefits that they could offer to the overall learning experience in our classrooms.
Find AMLE's This We Believe: The Successful Middle School here.
Read VAMLE's guiding document, "Middle School is Not a Building," here.
Promote student leadership by attending the NELMS Student Leadership Conference.
It's difficult to get through a single day without hearing stories about AI and how it is impacting not only our schools, but our world at large. Many educators are left wondering how they will navigate the art of teaching and learning in a world that has widespread access to AI tools. However, there are exciting opportunities for using AI in the classroom as well. And, if we can teach students to use the technology ethically and responsibly, imagine the incredible things we could design and create together!
- MagicSchool.ai: MagicSchool supports educators with creating targeted formative assessment tools, adapting resources to a range of reading levels, putting standards into student-friendly language, building assessment rubrics, creating supporting visuals, and much more.
- Code.org: Though these lessons are targeted to high school students, they can certainly be adapted for use with middle level students. Through these interactive lessons, students build an understanding of what AI is and how it can be used responsibly in a variety of contexts.
- Khanmigo: This AI tool from the makers of Khan Academy allows students to get personalized advice and support on specific topics and skills in real time. The videos, lessons, and tools from Khan Academy make this a trustworthy and effective source of instruction and feedback for students.
- Attend the Middle Grades Collaborative's monthly "Conversations" to discuss problems of practice and strategies for overcoming them.
- Attend the Association for Middle Level Education's (AMLE) Annual Conference: This year it is being held in Indianapolis from November 6th-8th.
- Attend the New England League of Middle Schools' (NELMS) Annual Conference. In 2026 it is being held in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 19th & 20th.
- Join the VAMLE board! More information about board membership can be found here on our website. We would love to have you as part of our team!
Contact VAMLE:
Kyle Chadburn (he/him)
Executive Director
P.O. Box 62
Newport, VT 05855