Background: Research clearly points toward a relationship between teaching behavior and students' affect. The relations between teaching behavior and middle school students' mental health, in the form of positive and negative affect, are particularly important to understanding how school-based clinicians can provide support for teachers and…

This case follows a middle school principal as she moves through a rather typical day at work. As the narrative unfolds, this principal is consistently faced with teachers and staff who choose to not fulfill their professional obligations, ignore in-role directives, and generally behave in ways which erode school culture, encourage student…

The concept of scaffolding in the learning process refers to teacher assistance to all students in the class when they are unable to solve math problems correctly, which is identified by errors in solving the issues. The assistance in question is temporary. The diversity of students' academic abilities in the class influences the teacher's…

While once forbidden in classrooms, laughter is increasingly encouraged as contributing to a positive learning environment. However, analyses of laughter in conversation show that laughter performs multiple social functions, some of which are not necessarily positive. Applying this lens, this study investigates the interactional functions of…

Racial disparities are consistently present in the office discipline referral data for schools. Beginning in primary grades, African-American students are frequently punished more severely and more often than their peers who display similar behavior. Nationally, during the 2017-1018 school year, over two million K-12 public school students were…

This study examined the ways in which an equity analytics tool -- the SEET system -- supported middle school science teachers' reflections on the experiences of diverse students in their classrooms. The tool provides teachers with "equity visualizations" -- disaggregated classroom data by gender and race/ethnicity -- designed to support…

What does it mean to teach in a school that claims commitment to both culturally sustaining pedagogy and high-stakes test achievement? This study explores how ELA teachers perceive and navigate that tension over a school year. Specifically, it examines how teachers describe their instruction before and after the April state exam. Analysis of…

Promoting pre-service teachers' development of professional dispositions through purposefully designed learning experiences may be middle level teacher education's most important contribution to a novice's development from student to teacher. The 2022 Revised Middle Level Teacher Preparation Standards explicitly address this expectation in…

Declining national assessment scores and continuous critiques of Common Core curricula have presented persistent challenges for stakeholders within the American education system. This study was an investigation of the existence of parallelism in five commonly used Common Core middle school mathematics curricula. An embedded mixed methods research…

This study employed a qualitative research design to describe and analyze self-regulation processes (monitoring and control) of the novice middle school mathematics teachers in terms of teaching activities. The participants consisted of six mathematics teachers with five or less years of teaching experience. The data of the study were mainly…

This study was designed to examine teachers' self-efficacy as a potential mediator to understand the relations between innovative school climate and implementation of cognitive activation strategies during instructional practice. The data of this study are derived from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) conducted by the…

This study examined changes in teachers' perceptions of external barriers, internal barriers, and their integration of digital educational resources across two years through variable-centered and person-centered approaches. Participants included 301 in-service middle and high school teachers from 18 schools in the United States. The results of…

There is a growing emphasis on social justice pedagogy as a predominantly White teacher labor force infiltrates classrooms in urban schools. Using "critical race theory" (CRT)--and the construct of interest convergence--this study examines how White teachers working in an urban school apply and enact teaching for social justice during…

Robotics education is valuable for developing students' 21st century competencies. It is of significant importance for teachers and researchers to explore its effective pedagogies. Robotics learning is interdisciplinary, and the most effective pedagogy is problem-oriented instruction. This type of instruction requires students to independently…

This mixed methods case study dissertation research aimed to examine specific characteristics of general education teachers (non-arts-based, non-gifted-education-based) related to how teachers foster creative classroom ecologies in their traditional classroom environments. The targeted characteristics involve two dimensions potentially related to…