Taking a survey of middle schoolers - questions below?

Do you have the following in your school?


A. Cooperative groups - doing assignments in groups


B. Hands-on learning - costumes, texture samples, food tasting, etc


C. Laboratory/experiments -


D. Student-selected books - instead of teacher selecting them

Taking a survey of middle schoolers - questions below?
I teach at an intermediate school (5th and 6th grades). All of these is my answer.





Cooperative groups is the trend right now in education. We employ this a great deal at my school. The grouping can be different depending on the situation or lesson - two-person, three-person, four-person, etc. But we still have individual work, too.





Hands-on learning is also a big trend in my area due to a large ESL population. However, we don't do costumes, texture samples, or food tastings - these are activities that preschool children would do, not middle school children. We use a variety of manipulatives - usually game-type activities or tools needed for the lesson (rulers, compasses, calculators). We also use a lot of technology in the classrooms which is very hands-on.





Laboratory/experiments take place in the science classrooms. Yes, we do a lot of those.





As for student-selected books as opposed to teacher-selected, actually we do both. In our reading classes, the teacher selects the books we read, but we also have an enrichment period each day, and the students pick the books they will read on the days we have individual reading time during that period. Students are tested at the beginning of the school year to see what level books they need to select, then they spend the school year reading books in that level and a little higher to bring their level up by the end of the year.