The main objective of this study is to revise and validate the assessment of self-presentation skills of middle school students. The assessment is based on existing self-assessment scales and adaptively modified for a more accurate assessment of middle school students' self-presentation skills. Considering the characteristics of middle school…

Middle school students are old enough to be capable of abstract thought and critical thinking while still being playful and joyfully goofy! Through music composition in general music classes, middle school students can be challenged to make musical decisions. Composition can be especially exciting in middle school because they will be motivated to…

In contemporary ways of thinking about education there is an enhanced focus on individual students' results and less on students' collaborative processes for attaining good results. This may appear peculiar, given that the Swedish curriculum for the nine-year compulsory school states that students should be given opportunities to compose texts…

This mixed methods study explored the development of elementary and middle school preservice teachers' (PSTs) learning to assess student thinking through analysis of students' written work. Six sections of the first mathematics content course for teaching implemented two writing assignments focused on analysis of student work aligned to the…

This study employed student choice and tiered worksheets as strategies of differentiated instruction on Quadratic Equations in addressing students' non-compliance with assignments in a flipped classroom. In each lesson, students choose among the instructional materials with guide questions to assist them in focusing on key areas during the…

Recent work has demonstrated that having students study worked examples and answer self-explanation prompts as part of their problem-solving practice improves learning on researcher-developed measures of mathematical proficiency. However, little work has been done to date to investigate whether these benefits translate to improvements on the types…

Recent work has demonstrated that having students study worked examples and answer self-explanation prompts as part of their problem-solving practice improves learning on researcher-developed measures of mathematical proficiency. However, little work has been done to date to investigate whether these benefits translate to improvements on the types…

The purpose of this multiple intrinsic case study was to describe how Northeastern United States middle school teachers and students engaged with a new automated writing evaluation tool used to score and provide feedback on extended essay assignments to improve teaching and learning writing. Richard Elmore's (1993) instructional core framework is…

New research points to the future of education as online, student-centered, collaborative, and community-based--all largely absent from today's educational landscape. This timely guide shows middle, high school, and college students how to undertake research to address challenges in their curriculum and communities. The approach is deliberately…

This study explores the possibilities for learning content that might accompany the use of an historically accurate graphic novel as part of a language arts instructional unit. During a 6-day unit, 16 sixth grade students engaged in graphic novels in ways that support comprehension, both in the context of a graphic novel text set and a specific…

In searching for alternatives to multiple choice tests and document-based questions, the authors were inspired by the common practice of "do-nows" (also known as "bell work") in which teachers give students a brief task at the beginning of class to prepare them for the day's lesson. Could these minutes at the start of class be…

To celebrate a milestone in eighth-graders' lives--leaving middle school and moving on to high school--the author assigns them the "Coming of Age" project, which examines the big idea of identity and promotes the move from self-reflection to self-expression. The project also includes writing components that correspond to each of the nine…

Most teachers spend more time "looking" at student work outside of class than anything else they do. As a teacher, the author relates spending many evenings and weekends visually scanning the work of his students. Although he knew that the students' effort deserved his careful attention, the volume of homework, essays, tests, and research papers…

Use formative assessment to dramatically improve your students' writing. In "Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment", educator and international speaker Harry G. Tuttle shows you how to guide middle and high school students through the prewriting, writing, and revision processes using formative assessment techniques that work.…

The characteristics of written comments on assignments as well as the process of writing them were studied. Interviews to three case-study middle school students, observation of lessons and content analysis of their assignments show that features that promote learning are: comments located next to what needs revision must be reviewed; use of…