To meet the unique combination of social, emotional, physical, and intellectual needs of young adolescents, the Developmental Designs for Middle School (DDMS) approach offers an array of strategies designed to keep young people safe, connected, responsible, and engaged in learning. The DDMS approach is based on our research-grounded belief that healthy, enjoyable relationships are the foundation for success in school. In order to establish and maintain those relationships, teachers must know their students; students must come to know and appreciate each other; clear parameters for acceptable behavior must be drawn and consistently maintained; and learning must be engaging, exploratory, relevant, and varied.
The Developmental Designs for Middle School approach is founded upon six researched principles of good practice that form the core of successful teaching and learning.
Social learning is as important to success as academic learning.
We learn best by constructing our own understanding through exploration, discovery, application, and reflection
The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interactions within a supportive community.
There is a set of personal/social skills that students need to learn and practice in order to be successful socially and academically: Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-control.
Knowing the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual needs of the students we each is as important as knowing the content we teach.
Trust among adults is a fundamental necessity for academic and social success in a learning community.
Classroom Practices
Developmental Designs uses ten classroom practices to address developing relationship, engagement, and social skills.
Community-building Advisory
The Circle of Power and Respect (CPR) and Activity Plus (A+) are advisory structures for building community, social skills, and readiness for learning.
Modeling and Practicing
Social competencies are learned by seeing and doing. Nothing is assumed—all routines are practiced.
Power of Play
Play is designed to build community, sharpen thinking skills, and enliven students while restoring their focus—more time truly on task.
Social Contract
Based on their personal goals, students design and sign an agreement that binds the community to common rules. Its principles are modeled and practiced every day.
Goals and Declarations
Students declare a personal stake in school to anchor their learning in a meaningful commitment to growth.
Empowering Teacher Language
Gesture, voice, and words combine to create a rigorous, respectful climate for building responsible independence.
Pathways to Self-control
When the Social Contract is broken, teachers have a tool box of strategies to repair it, such as various kinds of redirection, fix-its, loss of privilege, Take a Break, and Buddy Room. Social skills grow without loss of dignity.
Collaborative Problem-solving
Students and teachers use social conferencing, problem-solving meetings, conflict resolution, and other problem-solving structures to find positive solutions to chronic problems.
POWER Learning and other Engaged Learning Strategies—Social interaction, experiential learning, choice, exhibition, reflection, and other practices help connect young adolescent needs and the school curriculum, so that students are deeply engaged in learning.
Young adolescent development
Middle school is a time of enormous physical change. It is also the dawn of the capacity to think conceptually, and a time of great curiosity about life, the world, and peers. Most of all, it is a time of preoccupation with self, when many young adolescents are swimming in self-doubt. At their most insecure, young people are taken from the safety of self-contained classrooms and asked to switch focus, environment, and teachers every 50-90 minutes.
It is a time when young adolescents declare family to be irrelevant to what's really happening, and yet family has never been more important. In middle school, students whose bones are rapidly growing and realigning, whose proportions seem designed for anything but desks, are asked to sit all day, often without an opportunity to do what their bodies and nerves are asking for most—move!
In the Developmental Designs approach, we draw from Rudolf Dreikurs, Abraham Maslow, William Glasser, and the recent work of psychologist Edward Deci. Here are four needs that must be fulfilled if young adolescent minds and hearts are to be engaged in any learning—social or academic:
Four developmental needs
Relationship: I want to connect with others.
To reduce fear and aloneness, young adolescents need to build and maintain relationships that provide safe ground upon which to make mistakes on their journey. These relationships focus on peers in a way that they never have before, but they also include powerful and reliable adult support. Young adolescents can't make it alone!
Autonomy: I want to be independent.
The adolescent drive to function separate from adults is a powerful motivator. It works for school success when it drives middle level students to show that they can be given big responsibilities and freedom, but against success when it turns into rebellion. They need maps from caring adults to help them find their own way.
Competence: I want to experience success in what I do and feel like a worthwhile, significant person.
Young adolescence feels like a make-or-break time for young people, a time when you have to demonstrate that you've got the right stuff or be seen as a loser. Adult scaffolding can make a crucial difference.
Fun: I want to have a good time.
The need to enjoy moments of pleasure drives much adolescent behavior. Students will find their own fun during school hours (and sometimes pay a big price for it) if adults don't channel the need constructively.
Developmental Designs implementation in a school
What does a middle school look, feel, and sound like when all of these adolescent needs are taken into consideration? A school implementing Developmental Designs makes the creating of respectful, caring relationships a high priority. Every day begins with a homeroom or advisory in which students circle up to greet each other respectfully, share what's happening in their lives, and sometimes move around a bit in activities that teach important skills in a lively way. The morning meeting (we call it the Circle of Power and Respect) helps students make the transition from home to school and establishes a clear path into the learning day.
Transitions between classes are taught and practiced, as are all the routines of the school day. Nothing is taken for granted. Everything is modeled and rehearsed. The goal is the development of self-control through proactive strategies that put the emphasis on the prevention of rule-breaking. Consequences for all rule-breakers, no matter who or how small the infraction, are carefully introduced and consistently upheld. The consequences clarify the expectations, provide a chance to restore order, safety, and relationship, and maintain the dignity of the rule-breaker.
Each class the students attend uses the same language and routines to preserve a caring community. Each class has an opportunity for students to get to know each other, to do meaningful work, and to reflect on work afterwards. There is respect for the environment and materials. There is closure for students and teacher at the end of each period, and at the end of the day. Students ask and respond to open-ended questions. They have regular opportunities to help design and make choices in assignments that are meaningful to them. There is a balance in each class between teacher-directed lessons and independent and group work on skills and projects.
Process of Implementation
Developmental Designs for Middle School is an approach that when fully implemented creates a caring, challenging climate in which students can do their best work. For most teachers, it takes from three to five years to learn the skills, practice them enough to feel confident, and experience the full results, but with careful implementation you will see some results immediately. Like any comprehensive approach to professional growth, Developmental Designs calls for some paradigm shifts, is built on repeated practice, and thrives in a school climate of reflection and collaboration. Good relationships among adults are carefully cultivated through meeting structures and shared language, as well as through authentic, ongoing assessment of teacher practices.
Research Basis for Developmental Designs
The following categories of pedagogical research and practice create the theoretical framework for the Developmental Designs approach:
Child and Adolescent Development
Piaget, Dreikurs, Glasser, Maslow, Deci, and others Social-emotional Learning (SEL)
Vygotsky, Glasser, Goleman, Elias, Zins, Jensen, and others Engaged Learning
Dewey, Dweck, and others Supportive Learning Communities
Senge, Bryk, and others Multicultural Understanding
Banks, Delpit, and others
New Research for Developmental Designs for Middle School
In a phased research study of the Developmental Designs approach, Origins is working with Dr. David Hough, Dean of the College of Education, Missouri State University, and Director, Institute for School Improvement, and editor-in-chief of the Middle Grades Research Journal.
A descriptive research study was completed in 2008. This first research phase yielded two results: 1) the measured efficacy of Developmental Designs training and practices through teacher pre- and post-workshop surveys and focus group interviews; and 2) statistical data on U.S. schools with three or more teachers trained in the approach.
A second phase of research is taking place in Jefferson County middle schools in Louisville KY. It uses a quasi-experimental design to form a 3- to 5-year longitudinal study measuring the impact of the DDMS approach on student growth and school climate. Data will be collected through student outcomes, including attendance, behavior, and academic performance, along with teacher surveys. The study will examine the effectiveness of workshops 1 and 2, as well as implementation and consulting.
The Developmental Designs for Middle School approach is founded upon six researched principles of good practice that form the core of successful teaching and learning.
Social learning is as important to success as academic learning.
Middle school is a time of enormous physical change. It is also the dawn of the capacity to think conceptually, and a time of great curiosity about life, the world, and peers. Most of all, it is a time of preoccupation with self, when many young adolescents are swimming in self-doubt. At their most insecure, young people are taken from the safety of self-contained classrooms and asked to switch focus, environment, and teachers every 50-90 minutes. 
What does a middle school look, feel, and sound like when all of these adolescent needs are taken into consideration? A school implementing Developmental Designs makes the creating of respectful, caring relationships a high priority. Every day begins with a homeroom or advisory in which students circle up to greet each other respectfully, share what's happening in their lives, and sometimes move around a bit in activities that teach important skills in a lively way. The morning meeting (we call it the Circle of Power and Respect) helps students make the transition from home to school and establishes a clear path into the learning day.
