• Marcus Newcomb Middle School

    Pemberton Township Schools serve over 5,000 students from Pemberton Township, Pemberton Borough, and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. As one of two middle schools in the district, Marcus Newcomb Middle School provides exemplary education for approximately 365 sixth grade students. We offer a rigorous academic curriculum with digital resources in math, language arts, science, and social studies that is supported by a 1:1 technology initiative. This is balanced by a variety of electives and enrichment courses including coding, Spanish, art, and music. Other offerings include intervention services in math and language arts which help prepare students for academic success. 

    With the support of administrators and coaches, teachers have developed formative and summative digital assessments for all content areas, as this is an area in education and classroom practice in which we have made great strides. The assessments include multimedia components, visual manipulatives, long- and short-form response types, and real-time dashboards for the review of data. In addition to helping prepare students for state summative assessments, the assessment tools provide the learner and educator with an efficient and effective evaluation of the individual’s progress towards mastery. A priority of Newcomb Middle School is keeping our students safe, even while browsing the internet. We strive for them to exercise digital citizenship. Areas of focus for the upcoming year include flexible instruction, student choice and student personalized learning plans.  We are working on personalizing student learning through our school PDP which includes strategies to improve student engagement through differentiation. 

    At Newcomb Middle School, our focus is always on student learning. Academically, our core subject areas are all using digital platforms for student learning. Our teachers follow the New Jersey Student Learning Standards and develop rigorous academic curriculum for student achievement. Our teachers meet every other day in professional learning communities to discuss strategies and individual students progress with the analyzation of data to inform instruction. With the support of one another and through ongoing collaboration, our teachers are constantly looking for tools to enhance student learning. Throughout this school year, majority of our teachers have been using Google Classroom to both communicate with students and also allow students the opportunity to access resources and submit assignments. In addition, our teachers use Remind and Class Dojo for classroom management and communication with parents, while Flocabulary, Kahoot, Nearpod, Naviance, EverFi, Quizizz, ConnectEd, Webquests, Show Me, and Brainpop are used as curricular resources, as well as other internet resources. We continuously evaluate and our resources to see if they are helping our students to be future ready and make revisions as necessary for overall academic success.

    In the 2016-2017 school year, Newcomb Middle School made a commitment to a 1:1 technology program where all students have an iPad supplied by the Pemberton Township School District. In the 2019-2020 school year, students and teachers are using Chromebooks in all content areas as we have transitioned to digital platforms for all of our core classes. To maximize learning, we allow our students to take their devices home with them to complete learning tasks. Students at Newcomb Middle School are all transitioning their mindsets from elementary (5th grade) to middle school (6th- 8th grade). Technology has assisted our students in making these transitions a little easier and has allowed us to survey our students regarding the needs of our current and future 6th graders. The purpose of the technology initiative at Newcomb Middle School is to provide students and staff with tools and resources to create a comprehensive 21st century learning environment. Our goal is to prepare students to be successful in middle school, high school, college, and ultimately career ready. Technology integration is personalizing learning and allowing our students to create, think critically, problem solve, collaborate, and communicate in a variety of methods. The technology program is also helping our teachers transform curriculum and teaching practices so that students can “discover their potential” in an evolving global economy.