By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–The “process” is working at Union City Middle School.
Robyn Doyle’s Transitions 5 classes are continuing to serve their designed purpose of bridging the maturation and responsibilities gap for those students who came over from UC Elementary.
The class’s most-recent exercise – writing informative essays and presenting them in speech form to their peers – is the latest example of the ongoing social skills development of the group.
“They’re learning to trust themselves and their attention to detail is getting better every day,” Mrs. Doyle said of her students. “They’re becoming more responsible and less teacher-dependent as we’ve began the second semester and you can see their maturity level begin to change.”
Doyle is in her third year of teaching Transitions to first-year middle school students. The class was instituted by Director of Schools Wes Kennedy and is designed to help with adjustment and improvement in social, organizational and communicational skills needed for middle school students who move over from the elementary school.
She has most every fifth-grader in one class or another as part of a cross curriculum involving all subject matter and has developed many activities to assist with their maturation.
In their latest project, students chose their own subject matter from either science or social studies, researched that topic and presented their essay to classmates. Each student recorded the speech topic, rated it and offered tips on the presentation – such as eye contact, body language and any nervous habits – before also many times then asking follow-up questions.
“They’ve done a good job with everything from delivering their speeches to paying attention to the next students to being constructive with their comments,” Doyle added. “They are finding out and using these different skills for the rest of their classes and they’re getting more comfortable in different settings.
“It is truly a transition to come into this building as a middle school student. It’s more of a ‘you’re on your own’ environment and age level. A good part of that is the maturation process and is a good part of what this class is for.
“It truly is ‘filling in the gaps.’”