Creating Virtual Third Spaces that Foster Students’ Well-Being

We draw on education and critical geography scholars who take up Bhabha’s (1990, 1994) Third Space theory,¹ which he conceptualized as a tool of political resistance to “open up the possibilities of hybrid cultures that integrate conflicting discourses in less hierarchical ways” (Johnston et al., 2021, p. 360). With Third Space theory, Bhabha was interested in the potential of “the ‘inter’—the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the inbetween space” [emphasis original] (Bhabha, 1994, p. 56), where “marginalised [sic] people negotiate the liminal spaces that come into being between the first space of their traditional culture and the second space of the more powerful and imposed colonising [sic] culture” (Johnston et al., 2021, p. 360). Particularly important to this study, Bhabha argued that third spaces have porous borders where ‘newness can enter the world’ (Bhabha, 1994), making these liminal spaces highly potential collaboration sites (Johnston et al., 2021). As we illustrate below, when the teachers at BMS attempted to create virtual third spaces for and with their students, multiple kinds of newness entered the world: students who typically did not socialize together in person during the school day interacted socially online in very intentional ways; students who normally did not contribute much or at all during an in-person class were suggesting different games they might play during their virtual time together; and students who sometimes did not come to virtual academic classes at all would show up for a Friday Google Meets hangout simply to see who was there. And stay.

Unlike scholars who have taken up Bhabha’s (1990, 1994) concept of the third space specifically as it relates to the colonization of cultural identities and the “inscription and articulation of culture’s hybridity” (p. 56), in this paper, we liken virtual third spaces to those who have used third space theory in ways that are more adjacent to the colonization of cultural identities. In other words, for us, the virtual spaces teachers described during our conversations seemed to be shaped by the ideals and practices of a shared humanity, by a profound obligation to others (students and families and community), and by social and academic boundary crossings (Gutiérrez, 2008). These were the in-between spaces that teachers created based on what was happening in the world at that moment; spaces they made based on their observations of what their students needed at that time because the teachers were so highly attuned to their student’s social and emotional needs. These were spaces the teachers created based on what might support students in some way that would have otherwise looked very different at another time in history (i.e., not during a simultaneous social justice and global health crises). While we describe virtual third spaces here, we want to be clear that we are not attempting to misappropriate Bhabha’s (1990, 1994) Third Space theory or, as Richardson Bruna (2009) argued, fall into the fad of fetishizing third space theory in education research. Instead, we follow those who have taken up this concept in more nuanced and complex ways that complicate education spaces. We explore some of this literature below.

Research has explored the importance of physical third spaces in middle grades education. In a systematic literature review of third space theory in research focused on four-to-twelve-year-old children in multicultural educational settings, Tatham (2023) found that Bhabha’s Third Space theory has gained popularity within educational research “as a meaningful lens through which practitioners can understand and support children to fuse knowledge from home and school contexts, thereby deepening their understanding of new concepts, while also emphasizing their agency to craft their own identities” (p. 2). Tatham described the body of Gutiérrez et al.’s’ work (1995, 1997, 1999) using third space theory in educational settings, first as a space of resistance used to disrupt traditional hierarchies of power in the classroom and then as a space where tensions between competing discourses can be/become potential sites for innovation. In her later work using the third space, Gutiérrez (2008) wrote about how observing students’ participation more closely during a four-week summer residential literacy program pushed her to rethink the complexities within classrooms. Observing differently pushed her to a “view of classrooms as having multiple, layered and conflicting activity systems with various interconnections” (p. 152), noting that what intrigued her most were the borderlines of those activities, which she and her colleagues later referred to as the “underlife” of the classroom (p. 152).

Hice-Fromille and London (2023) also studied physical third spaces in middle schools, focusing on how break times can function as third spaces because they exist at the intersection between home and school discourses, social networks, and school buildings. They found that “breaktime spaces may be marginal to the structure of the academic schedule, but they are central to middle school education” (p. 1537). Further, within these third spaces, the researchers observed how students negotiated race, class, age, and gender dynamics within these less-structured environments. Our study explores how nonacademic spaces, such as break times, can be possible in virtual schooling.

Crucial to our inquiry is the research literature on middle grades education during the pandemic. During this unprecedented time of COVID-19 schooling (Hughes & Jones, 2020), there were constant multiple, layered, and conflicting activity systems with various interconnections occurring at any given time on any given day. The virtual classroom was shifting and changing on a daily, with new directives from districts, new online platforms for teachers to learn, unfamiliar ways for teachers to present content, different students coming and going, sick students, sick teachers, lack of internet access, loss of internet during class, and on and on and on. The “underlife” of the virtual classroom during COVID-19 schooling was in a constant state of flux, to be sure.

In a survey study of middle school teachers in Spring 2020, Bishop (2021) focused on how teachers saw the pivot to online schooling as improving their instruction. Specifically, Bishop identified that teachers were more attuned to the needs of individual learners and could enact more individualized instruction to meet the needs of those students than they were in face-to-face schooling. Further, she found that teachers could leverage technology in new ways to enable those relationships. Pace et al., (2020) also pointed to the importance of relationships in what they called quaranteaching during the early months of the pandemic. In their article on best practices for middle grades teachers in confronting moves to online schooling amid COVID-19, they pointed to the need for teachers to intentionally replicate the small rapport-building interactions that teachers enact hundreds of times per day in the classroom, such as smiling, nodding one’s head, or making small talk. Some suggestions they forward include establishing office hours for students, creating videos to explain concepts and assignments, and allowing students to express themselves through voice recordings or discussion boards.

Woods et al., (2020) detailed the actions of an individual teacher to grow student engagement during COVID-19 schooling in Spring 2020. They highlighted the initial low participation the teacher experienced in her synchronous class meetings in Spring 2020, with roughly 8% of students logging in. After asking for student input on how she could make the synchronous meetings more responsive and engaging by including educational technologies and games such as Kahoot, Quizlet Live, or Gimkit, she increased attendance by 33%. While the authors acknowledged that these are still low attendance numbers, they highlighted the power of incorporating student voice into instructional decision-making as a critical factor in the significant increase in attendance during COVID-19 schooling.

The concept of third space has been used to make sense of the relationships between home and school during moves to virtual schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic (Johnston et al., 2021). In a Scottish study, researchers noted that a third liminal space emerged during virtual schooling throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but only under particular circumstances. In their context, schools locked down and sent students home on two different occasions, first in March 2020 and then again in January 2021. The researchers found that when teachers had little time to prepare during the first lockdown, meaningful negotiations of home and school cultures emerged, drawing on students’ funds of knowledge in powerful ways. However, during the second lockdown, when formal procedures had been cemented, most schooling happened asynchronously and the previously existing third space did not seem to emerge.

While there has been research on middle school education during COVID-19 and research on third spaces in middle grades, notably, third spaces have yet to be directly applied to virtual instruction in middle grades education. This study aims to address this gap.

The data informing this project come from a more extensive study of how Brookside Middle School’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the school to enact a more just education. As we analyzed data for the larger study, the presence and importance of the liminal spaces teachers created for their students became apparent. Seeking to explore the possibilities of virtual third spaces for young adolescents, we reapproached our data with the research question, “How did COVID-19 act as a catalyst for teachers and administrators at one middle school to enact a more just education?” We designed the project as a single-case study (Stake, 2005; Yin, 2009) to capture the complexities, challenges, and innovations that took place at BMS as they responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Studying a unique school during the highly unusual time of COVID-19 suited itself well for a qualitative case study in which we could examine “the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances” (Stake, 1995, p. xi). In what follows, we will elaborate on the study’s context and the data collection and analysis process.

Our study took place at Brookside Middle School (a pseudonym), a Title I school located in the southeastern United States whose mission statement reflects the school’s commitment to culturally responsive and restorative practices to serve students from historically marginalized populations. In previous studies, we have discussed Brookside leaders’ commitment to creating a community grounded in culturally responsive commitments (Hughes et al., 2022) and the teachers’ enactments of engaged pedagogies to respond to students’ social and emotional needs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (Hughes et al., 2023). In the years preceding the study, several research team members had relationships with the school, including teaching university classes on-site, supervising student teachers at the school, providing professional development to teachers, and collaborating to support initiatives in the school. Because of this ongoing relationship, we were invested in the teachers’ and students’ well-being and experiences as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Further, we were familiar with the administrators’ commitments to justice- and equity-oriented practices and were eager to see how those orientations were embodied in virtual spaces.

Brookside Middle School is located in a mid-size city with a population of roughly 125,000, and over 80% of the students are eligible for free and reduced lunch. Approximately 800 students attend BMS; of those students, 48% identify as Black/African American; 35% identify as White; 10% identify as Hispanic, less than 5% identify as Indian, Asian, or Pacific, and less than 5% identify as Multiethnic. There are approximately 70 faculty on staff at BMS. Among them, the vast majority identify as White (80%). The rest of the faculty identify as Black (15%), Asian (3%), and Hispanic (1%).

The study took place between July 2020 and April 2021. We invited all faculty and staff at Brookside Middle School to participate in the study during Summer 2020. Of those, 23 participants consented to participate in the study: 13 grade-level teachers, two connections teachers, three administrators, one restorative practices leader, two counselors, one paraprofessional, and one media specialist. While the more extensive study of Brookside’s response to COVID-19 included interviews, focus groups, collection of email communications, and observations of faculty meetings, for this paper, we focus on a series of interviews and focus groups which were conducted online between July 2020 and October 2020 and again in January 2021 with BMS teachers.

The first semi-structured interviews, which took place over Zoom in July 2020, asked members of the BMS community to discuss how they experienced pivoting so quickly from in-person to online instruction in Spring 2020. We asked participants to discuss the concrete decisions and practices they implemented, their emotional responses to the ongoing crisis, and their observations of students over the spring semester. With the Fall 2020 semester one month away at the time of our interview, we also asked participants to reflect on what they would do differently in the fall based on what they noticed about students’ engagement and social and emotional well-being in Spring 2020.

In October 2020, we invited the same participants to engage in focus groups to discuss how they navigated the return to online schooling in Fall 2020. Due to the isolating nature of the pandemic, we wanted to provide BMS educators with an opportunity to share their reflections on teaching during the pandemic with their peers and us. We divided the focus groups based on the participants’ roles within the school, with teachers and administrators participating in separate discussions. We conducted the focus groups at a critical time of the year as the school district was planning a return to in-person schooling. With this in mind, we asked questions such as, “Planning for the return to in-person, what kinds of support structures are you all considering for students’ academic needs and social-emotional well-being?” Finally, we met again with the participants for semi-structured interviews between January 2021 and March 2021 to discuss their experiences of returning to in-person learning. Since this paper focuses on a subset of our larger study, we include abbreviated interview protocols in the Appendix, which include questions related to this present study on virtual third spaces.

In our initial review of the data, we conducted several close readings of the transcripts, calling upon inductive coding to make general observations about patterns, commonalities, and dissonances that became apparent in the data (LeCompte, 2000). Across the data, and specifically in the early interviews from Summer 2020, numerous participants described how they created non-academic spaces for students to interact, socialize, and be with others. Recognizing these spaces as a kind of liminal third space, we identified these virtual third spaces as moments in the interview transcripts where participants described virtual spaces they created for non-academic interactions with students to support their social and emotional well-being and interests. In subsequent analyses, we used theory-driven codes (Yin, 2018) adapted from Gutiérrez’s (2008) use of sociocritical literacy and Bhabha’s (1994) notions of the third space. When analyzing the data using theory-driven codes, for instance, we identified teachers’ descriptions of virtual spaces shaped by the ideals and practices of a shared humanity, a profound obligation to others (students and families and community), and social and academic boundary crossings to consider the development, implementation, and experiences of BMS’s virtual spaces for students. In what follows, we explore how BMS teachers created and recreated third spaces to foster more responsive, equitable virtual schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we will share the types of spaces the teachers created and how they observed students engaging in them.

While Brookside Middle School has always championed students’ social and emotional well-being, during COVID-19 schooling, they made intentional efforts to carve out responsive virtual third spaces to support students’ needs. To prioritize both learning and downtime, the school organized each day so that there were asynchronous times throughout the day for students to work independently or in breakout groups. In Fall 2020, Brookside reserved Fridays for asynchronous instruction, differentiation, personalization, and/or small group sessions, which allowed many possibilities for creating virtual third spaces outside the academic space’s confines. Based on their existing knowledge of students’ interests and needs, as well as some of their interests, BMS teachers designed a wide variety of non-academic activities that they offered to students virtually, including cooking classes, nature walks, typing games, trivia, and video game play. In the following sections, we will explore some of the teachers’ observations about what happened in the virtual third spaces during Spring 2020 at BMS.

During the asynchronous time on Fridays, the teachers at BMS experimented with various ways to support students. Some offered content-based study sessions for students to ask for help on their schoolwork. However, many others offered sessions where students could participate alongside the teacher as they explored a variety of topics that appeal to young adolescents. In these sessions, we found that teachers carved out spaces in COVID-19 schooling that fostered students’ interests.

The Agricultural Education teacher engaged students in various virtual activities designed to engage middle school students. For example, since COVID-19 schooling started during the spring, she did a foraging lesson in which she showed students foods they could find in their backyards, such as wild garlic, and they made a salad dressing online together. She spoke about how the sessions changed based on students’ interests:

These examples illustrated this teacher’s willingness to engage in newness and try new ways to build students’ engagement in third spaces.

An eighth-grade science teacher described using the asynchronous time on Fridays to have a “chill session where I’ll pull up random pop culture quizzes where we can all do it or just talk.” He elaborated that the experience made him consider the need for teachers to “go to the world of young youth culture and meet them where they’re at.” Stemming from this thinking, he shared that in the future he hoped to create a special teacher account on social media where he could share his interests and connect with students’ interests.

The school’s media specialist used virtual third spaces to approximate activities that took place within the physical walls of the school’s media center, a hub of the school where students love to hang out. She shared, “I did like a weekly book talk…kids could come and pop into my book talk and hear about what I was reading, and they could talk about what they were reading and [we had] some shared time.” She shared that the book talks tended to draw the same group of students again and again who she said, “needed that connection” and enjoyed sharing their reading with their peers. In addition to continuing library book talks, the media specialist also supported students in sharing the morning news from the school.

A sixth-grade science teacher designed an opportunity for students to share their opinions on a variety of topics by creating a weekly Padlet, a site that acts as a sort of digital bulletin board. She described that she would share a weekly question that students could respond to:

Through soliciting students’ interests and then sharing her own on the Padlet board, this teacher sought to create an asynchronous third space where students could connect spurred by the teacher’s prompting and sharing.

Importantly, the administration also sought to create virtual third spaces that mirrored the whole-school activities they organized throughout the year to celebrate young adolescents’ interests and autonomy. During regular, in-person schooling, BMS offered a quarterly incentive through their PBIS plan, which allowed students without disciplinary consequences for the quarter to have a free afternoon where they could choose to read, watch movies, play outside, dance, or engage in various other activities. Students had the run of the school: they could bounce back and forth between activities during incentive days. This was an important space for BMS students and faculty to celebrate youth. In Fall 2020, the BMS faculty worked to replicate this space for students with a virtual “ZOOMbie” incentive day (the event took place near Halloween and over Zoom). During this time, students could select from various Zoom rooms, including a dance party, pet costume competition, chat room, movie room, music/chill room, trivia, spooky stories, cake decorating, improv comedy, makeup tutorials, Among Us video games, crafts, and workouts. Unlike their policy during in-person schooling, this incentive day was open to all students, regardless of grades, attendance, or disciplinary issues. Each room was hosted by a group of faculty, staff, and community volunteers who sought to engage students in entertaining activities and give them space to relax and talk.

Beyond the more structured third spaces described in this section, many teachers also hosted open Google Meet sessions on Fridays so students could come and interact in unstructured ways. In fact, several teachers dropped in on other teachers’ asynchronous sessions to check in with students in an unstructured environment. One eighth-grade social studies teacher reflected on the variety of sessions offered to students and shared:

This teacher shared that in the same way teachers can learn about their students through connecting in physical third spaces in schools (such as greeting them in the cafeteria or observing the hallway), teachers could also interact casually with students in the various spaces created during virtual schooling.

Through these varied spaces, newness entered the world of interactions between students and teachers in the virtual space. These spaces were created with minimal preparation, and teachers tried out various activities and technologies to find structures and topics that would resonate with students. Their creativity and commitment to supporting their students’ social and emotional well-being are commendable.

Several teachers who created non-academic virtual third spaces noticed students interacting differently from the typical classroom interactions they observed. Many of these third spaces were open to students from any class, and students could choose to attend the sessions that most appealed to them (if they decided to attend). As a result, students who did not typically interact with one another, either due to social dynamics or class groupings, could connect.

For instance, one eighth-grade teacher described an optional Google Meet session where students could hang out or interact as they chose. The session’s attendance ebbed and flowed over time, ranging from 2 to 14 students. In reflecting on this space, the teacher drew attention to the possibilities for engaging varied groups in virtual third spaces:

This excerpt illustrates how, much like a physical third space such as a schoolyard, hallway, or cafeteria, Google Meet allowed students to engage with others they did not interact with academically and were not typically part of their social circles. Further, the teacher draws particular attention to tracking students—enrolling certain students in “honors” classes and others in “regular” classes—as a powerful force in eliminating students’ interactions with others. In a virtual school space, where students may only interact with those in their classes, making space for students to be with others who are not tracked in the same way is powerful. In this way, these Google Meet sessions not only supported students’ social and emotional well-being but also allowed students to encounter a more diverse group of peers than they may have in their typical course schedule.

Another sixth-grade teacher described a group of students who attended an open Google Meet session but did not typically socialize or have class together. She recalled that students entered the session with their videos off and did not respond when she asked, “So, how’s it going?” She waited a bit, “and three minutes later, I chatted with them, and then they started responding, then they turned their video on, and then we had a great conversation.” In this interaction, the teacher described the students as initially reticent to engage. Still, she was able to use the chat feature of Google Meet to write messages to the students, which ultimately got them to engage positively with one another. Like the first teacher, she described the virtual third spaces as sites where students could interact with those outside their typical social circles. However, in this case, the teacher guided students into interacting with one another.

In some instances, teachers facilitated activities that drew students from across the school who had not previously interacted. For example, a seventh-grade math teacher hosted opportunities for students to create and play Kahoot online competitive quizzes together during virtual schooling. In those spaces, the teacher noticed that students from multiple grade levels participated, as well as their family members who attended other schools:

In the virtual Kahoot sessions, this teacher saw the generative possibilities for newness in third spaces. While a cafeteria or schoolyard might enable students from across grade levels to interact, the Kahoot spaces welcomed family members, young and old, seemingly facilitating school-community connections.

In these examples, virtual third spaces revealed the potential to break down barriers between students in virtual schooling spaces and foster connections between students who may not typically interact. The ability to interact across classes, grade levels, and even family members showed the possibility to create a sense of community that transcends traditional classroom boundaries, supporting students’ social and emotional well-being and promoting a more interconnected school environment.

In addition to students interacting with different individuals in virtual third spaces, teachers also observed that some students who did not participate or minimally participated in formal online class meetings actively engaged in the informal virtual third spaces the teachers created. Specifically, some teachers noted that students who experienced behavioral challenges in traditional classrooms were especially engaged in third spaces. One eighth-grade teacher who hosted an open Google Meet during students’ asynchronous time observed this phenomenon and recalled one student who had not attended academic sessions for her class nor other eighth-grade classes:

This anecdote highlights the impact of virtual third spaces on student engagement and connection. In this case, a particular eighth-grade student who had not actively participated in regular online class sessions suddenly started attending virtual meetings to chat or have lunch with a teacher. This behavior change indicated that the virtual third space provided a welcoming environment for the student to connect with the teacher in a way that may not have been possible during in-person classes.

The Agricultural Education teacher noted a similar pattern related to academic engagement compared to virtual third space engagement. She expected students who she had already built relationships with to attend her informal Google Meet sessions. What she did not expect was that her “most challenging students,” the students that she “went head-to-head with all the time, showed up the most.” She explained that these students did not turn in any schoolwork for her, but they would attend her informal sessions and “just wanted to show up and talk, and they would stay like two and a half hours.” She was especially surprised on the last day of virtual schooling:

This teacher describes these open Google Meet sessions as places where the high emotions that can get tied to performance in the academic classrooms are alleviated, allowing students, as well as students and teachers, to enjoy each other. In the context of a middle school, virtual third spaces can be particularly beneficial. Young adolescents are experiencing a time in their lives when social and emotional well-being is crucial, and they may be more sensitive to their relationships with teachers and the school environment dynamics. It is particularly notable that the virtual third spaces offered an opportunity to interact with teachers in a more relaxed manner, promoting a sense of belonging and providing additional support for their social and emotional growth. Notably, at BMS these spaces and the connections within them seemed to be particularly beneficial for students who experienced behavior challenges in the classroom.

While several teachers created virtual third spaces centered on their skills, hobbies, or interests, others allowed the middle grades students to structure the spaces in ways that felt relevant to them. For instance, one English-Language Arts teacher described how students suggested playing different games on Fridays during the asynchronous time. She shared that it “was encouraging that even students are suggesting ways to connect” as they talked about anime and video games. She went on to explain the importance of allowing students to design informal spaces outside of the academic space:

In this teacher’s scenario, virtual third spaces allowed students to explore common interests and engage in shared activities. She noted that even the spaces for interaction in virtual classrooms were “quick and school-related.” Thus, teachers needed to make intentional space for students to engage in non-academic conversations with one another.

Another teacher allowed her students to have spaces where they could exercise freedom in a virtual setting. She explained that when her synchronous class ended, students could log off. However, several students asked instead if the teacher would put them into breakout rooms. She agreed to do this and described how she checked on them:

In the student-requested breakout rooms, she saw students engaging around course content and engaging with one another socially. While there are risks in unsupervised online spaces for young people, the teacher was able to monitor students. She noticed that this time not only brought students a sense of togetherness but also increased their engagement during class time.

The school’s media specialist gave students agency in creating third spaces by creating an optional summer book club where the students could choose the books they read in e-book form available from the school’s media center. The book club met each week during the summer, and the media specialist explained, “Some of my kids that were my regulars for my book talks ended up being in this summer book club with me.” Rather than directing the students to select from texts she suggested, she allowed them the freedom to select their texts. She commented, “Every book they’ve chosen, I’ve been like, ‘Seriously?’ But I’m like, ‘Okay, you can choose.’” The media specialist committed to providing freedom for students to shape the virtual third space by choosing books from the school’s collection, even if she did not prefer them. She commented that the students consistently attended the book club, indicating that it was a positive space for them.

In previous publications, we have discussed how the teachers at BMS were particularly responsive to students’ needs and well-being during the shift to virtual schooling (Hughes et al., 2023). Their willingness to listen to students and to allow them to shape the existing virtual third spaces demonstrate how thoroughly they enacted those commitments.

It should be noted that the virtual third spaces the teachers at BMS created were not without complications. For instance, several teachers noted that while they saw positive engagements in the third space they created, numerous students in the school did not engage in either the third space or the synchronous class meetings. An eighth-grade English Language Arts teacher explained, “20 to 40 kids were radio silent the whole time and [administrators] became almost case managers for them…doing what they could within their social existent power to reach out to those kids,” going as far as making home visits. Ultimately, many of those students could still not participate in virtual schooling for various reasons. While these same limitations may not exist in schools that are fully virtual (and not shifted to virtual under duress), it is worth noting that the existence of the third spaces was not a complete remedy for student absence or disengagement.

Further, one teacher noted that the particular platforms and technologies used to facilitate virtual third spaces presented limitations and challenges that differed from those of physical spaces. She explained:

The technological capabilities of Google Meet hampered the connective possibilities of virtual third spaces in particular ways by allowing only limited synchronous conversations. Of course, in the case of BMS, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the teachers were using the technology available to them and attempting to support student’s social and emotional well-being as thoroughly as possible in such a chaotic moment. However, as more permanent versions of virtual schooling continue to grow and take shape, instructors and leaders must consider how best to work within the bounds of extant technologies to support students’ connections.

While the importance of non-academic social spaces for young adolescents has been made clear in research on physical middle school buildings and spaces (Hice-Fromille & London, 2023), less has been written about how those spaces might be lost in virtual instruction or how they might be reimagined to support student growth, learning, and well-being. Our study sought to document, highlight, and investigate the ingenuity of Brookside Middle School teachers in seeking to replicate these third spaces and to allow “newness to enter the world” (Bhabha, 1994) through these spaces in the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In The Successful Middle School, Bishop and Harrison (2021) laid out essential attributes and characteristics for effective, purposeful middle grades education. Our study demonstrates how Brookside embraced these attributes as they took on the challenge of COVID-19. Teachers demonstrated developmental responsiveness to their student’s interests and social and emotional needs during this historical moment of uncertainty and pain which guided how they designed these virtual third spaces from beginning to end. Further, by creating innovative third spaces, the school developed a student-friendly virtual school environment that was inviting, safe, inclusive, and supportive of all. The teachers’ explanations of how they developed these spaces illustrate a type of third space where the students were not constrained to their home or school ways of being, but rather able to hybridize these experiences and explore other parts of themselves, their experiences, and their interests. In this way, the teachers demonstrated their commitment to what Gutiérrez (2008) described as shared humanity, an obligation to their students, and social and academic boundary crossing.

While these types of third spaces may emerge organically in school hallways, cafeterias, or outdoor spaces, in virtual middle grades education, educators must intentionally dedicate time and space to this type of third space engagement. Notably, the virtual third spaces at BMS would not have happened without the school leaders’ commitment to making literal space in the school week to foster students’ personal development. Valuing these spaces and allowing young adolescents to engage during school hours in ways that are not explicitly embedded in teacher-student relationships is, perhaps, countercultural to broader pushes for efficiency or accountability in education.

Importantly, this study is limited in several ways, which opens possibilities for future research. First, this inquiry into third spaces does not consider the voices of the youth at BMS because the data for the broader study was limited to teachers and administrators in the school. Understanding how youth experienced these third spaces would offer a meaningful expansion of the study. Additionally, the third spaces that emerged at Brookside Middle School happened quickly and out of necessity as the school pivoted online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the teachers’ work to develop these spaces was responsive to students’ needs, it would be interesting to see how these teachers might develop third spaces given more time for planning and additional resources.

Given how these third spaces developed, it is particularly notable that they were largely designed by teachers with some student input rather than being fully co-created alongside students. As a result, the third spaces operated within existing power structures rather than disrupting those structures in ways that elevated student voice and agency. Future research on co-creating virtual third spaces with students would be particularly powerful. Despite these limitations, we contend that the findings of this study demonstrate the possibilities of virtual third spaces in middle grades education.

This paper explored how teachers at one middle school attempted to create virtual third spaces for their students during full-time virtual instruction in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid a national conversation about the fear of learning loss due to COVID-19, Brookside not only attended to students’ academic needs but also to their needs as young adolescents. In an interview with the school’s assistant principal, she stated she was “glad [BMS] focused on enrichment and connection opportunities too. That’s so much of middle school…sometimes when you’re removed from the classroom for too long, you forget that.’’

The findings of the study indicated that teachers observed young adolescents making use of these virtual third spaces in many of the same ways that they might make use of physical third spaces in school buildings, such as cafeterias, libraries, courtyards, or hallways. In the virtual third spaces, middle grades students interacted with one another, engaged with new and established interests, and connected with friends and peers with whom they did not typically interact. Because these third spaces were always mediated by adult advocates in the school community, the teachers also participated in meaningful relationship building less constrained to strict teacher-student hierarchies than classroom time allowed. Thus, the development of these spaces responded to students’ needs and allowed teachers to develop greater insight into student experiences to create environments that better met their needs.

Incorporating virtual third spaces into middle grades education holds immense possibilities for enhancing the overall educational experience of young adolescents. Virtual third spaces complement traditional classroom learning and nurture a dynamic and inclusive learning ecosystem by offering a holistic approach supporting social and emotional growth alongside academic experiences. As the landscape of virtual and blended education continues to evolve, educators need to explore and adapt virtual third spaces to foster students’ educational social, and emotional well-being, ultimately contributing to a more fulfilling and purposeful middle school experience.

As we move further away from the chaotic outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lessons learned from the pivot to virtual schooling in 2020 can inform better ways to move forward in both school-based and virtual schooling. Specifically, where virtual schooling is concerned, the findings of this study point to the need for additional explorations of how non-academic school spaces can be replicated in online schools. Considering how teachers’ presence may positively impact young adolescents’ development within these spaces is imperative. These explorations might foster the well-being of students enrolled in virtual schooling and better equip teachers and school leaders in the case of future needs to enact online schooling during times of crisis.

1. What was the experience of teaching during COVID-19 schooling like for you last spring?

   • How did you make decisions about engaging with students last spring? Academically? Socially? How do you think you will make decisions about engaging them this fall? Academically? Socially?

2. What challenges did you notice your students experienced over time last spring? What could have been impacting those challenges?

   • How did you respond to challenges? Please provide a few examples.

   • How did you revise your instruction to respond to those challenges?

3. What did you learn about your students during COVID-19 schooling? How did they surprise you?

4. Knowing that young adolescents have their own lived experiences and perspectives of how the world works, what did you learn from your students during COVID-19 schooling?

5. Were there students who did not engage (e.g., did not join online meetings, did not turn in work)? If so, why do you think that was the case?

   • Based on what you learned last spring from students’ engagement (or lack thereof), what are you thinking you can do differently this fall?

6. What can you take from what you learned about your students’ social and emotional well-being during COVID-19 schooling into the 2020–2021 school year?

7. Ideally, what do you think middle school online learning should look like? (In a pandemic)

1. Talk about your experience teaching when you all transitioned to in-person and online.

   • What differences did you notice between that experience and when you were fully online?

   • What kinds of things did you do to cultivate relationships with students after the transition? How did you notice students building relationships with each other?

2. What did you notice about students’ social-emotional well-being once they were back in the building or still online?

3. What do you feel like we should be talking about regarding what has been going on with COVID-19 schooling that we aren’t talking about