The Soccer Coaching Club program used the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model in an after-school soccer program for sixth grade boys between 11 and 12 years old in a local middle school. Soccer, as the featured physical activity, provided the "hook" for regular attendance. Desired outcomes included improved…

This article describes findings from a faculty-in-residence program at a Southern middle school in the United States. The goal of the school-university partnership was to increase digital media and learning (DML) integration in classrooms and provide the university with contextualized experiences to strengthen its teacher education programs.…

Teacher expectations for student behavior and academic performance have a lasting effect on student academic achievement--not only in the immediate school year, but also many years later. Yet, we know very little about how students interpret and understand teachers' expectations for them. This article expands the literature on teachers'…

Online education is unique in part for the relatively high degrees of autonomy afforded learners. Self-direction and self-regulation, along with support, are essential for students to succeed. The site of this action research project was a new, small online public charter school for middle and high school students, Foothills Academy Connected…

We investigate factors influencing student sign-ups for Washington State's College Bound Scholarship (CBS) program. We find a substantial share of eligible middle school students fail to sign the CBS, forgoing college financial aid. Student characteristics associated with signing the scholarship parallel characteristics of low-income students who…

The purpose of this study is to explore Lebanese teachers' perceptions of the factors determining their integration of technology into literacy classrooms. A quantitative survey examining literacy teachers' individual characteristics and their perceptions of contextual factors was conducted at Lebanese schools. The survey collected data on the…

Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) proposed by Mishra and Koehler is a theoretical construct of teacher knowledge that describes how teachers teach subject matter content using certain instructional methods with specific technology in particular contexts. This study aims to explore the interface between TPACK and SLA, intending to…

Drawing on theoretical and empirical research concerning the relationship between academic work and student learning, this article explores the following questions: What skills are required to execute the academic tasks teachers assign on a daily basis? How do teachers and administrators interpret the task demands represented in instructional…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficiency of learning plan implementation prepared with the cooperative learning method. In particular, the study addresses the effect of cooperative learning on students' achievement and their views regarding the "Systems in Our Body" unit of the 6th grade Science and Technology lesson.…

Purpose: Despite evidence that adolescents become addicted to nicotine even after limited use, adolescents believe they can experiment with or smoke cigarettes for a few years and easily quit. The goal of this study was to examine adolescents' understanding of the definition and process of nicotine addiction using a mixed-methods approach. Method:…

This study investigates learners' perceptions of the benefits and the difficulties of group work (GW) in EFL (English as a foreign language) classes. The purpose of this study is to explore the possible effects of GW, in order to better understand learners' attitudes towards GW, and to inform language teachers of students' views of using GW. A…

The article shows methods and concepts of analysis of the nature of science in science curricula through an exemplary study made in Portugal. The study analyses the extent to which the message transmitted by the Natural Science curriculum for Portuguese middle school considers the nature of science. It is epistemologically and sociologically…

The Dynabook research project was a collaborative effort aimed at developing and evaluating a new interactive Web-based resource for use in teacher education to improve how teachers learn to teach middle-school mathematics. This paper describes the outcomes of research during a three-year project to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of the…

This study investigated proportional reasoning and the related concepts of decimal, percent, and ratio. In particular, the research focused on analyzing the gaps and understandings that grades 6, 7, and 8 students have and advanced factors for such gaps and understandings. The study employed a mixed method approach in which quantitative data was…

Though science education has been prominent in the Canadian educational system, researchers increasingly recognize the scientific and educational value of integrating traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into their curriculum. Despite national strategies to integrate TEK, Canada has yet to initiate a comprehensive study of its prevalence and…