A Game to Help Students Navigate the Jump to Middle School

​The first weeks of middle school ask a lot of a student at once, starting with something as ordinary as not knowing many people in the room yet. Most of it plays out quietly, and a student is often well into struggling by the time an adult notices.

​Tales from the Middle is a free narrative game about those first weeks. A student picks one of three characters and plays through three or four school days of the situations that define the transition. A friend asks them to laugh at someone, and going along stops being the same thing as being kind. The story turns on how the student answers, and each character's story ends with a hard-won shift in how that kid understands themselves. A single sitting fits a class period, and getting through a full character's story takes several sittings over a week or two.

​In our first study, the readiness question students scored lowest before playing was whether they understood what middle school would be like. That was also where they gained the most after playing. Students found the game easy to pick up, the strongest result anywhere in the survey, and the teachers who ran it rated themselves well prepared to do it. These are early findings from a first study, and we'll say plainly which parts are solid and which aren't.

​Who you'll hear from

​Edward Metz, Ph.D., host. A developmental psychologist and former edtech director at the U.S. Department of Education, now a visiting scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University. He leads the research behind the game and will walk through what the first study found.

​Dan Norton, Filament Games, the studio that built the game. How she recommends using it with a class.

​Brendon Trombley, Games for Change, the game's publisher. Why this approach suits students at this age.

​Eden Xenakis, Bezos Family Foundation, which funded the project. Why it matters and what comes next.

Kelly Cannon, Kelly's class participated in the Spring pilot of TFTM. Kelly is an elementary educator with over a decade of experience in Calvert County Public Schools.

​What you'll leave with

​What the research on this age group says to watch for in a student's first few weeks, and a way to talk a student through a rough social moment. Most of it is useful whether or not you ever open the game.

​Bring questions for the panel. If you work with students making this move, or you know someone who does, you're welcome here.