This appendix is a companion to the report "Evaluation of Departmentalized Instruction in Elementary Schools: Exploring Implementation Experiences." The appendix provides additional information about the study, which sought to explore schools' implementation of departmentalized instruction, teachers' experiences with the strategy, and…

Assigning upper elementary grade teachers to teach their strongest subjects to multiple classes ("departmentalizing"), rather than teaching all subjects to a single class, ("self-contained instruction") could mean more specialized instructional expertise in the classroom or focus for teacher planning time and professional…

Middle school STEM learners require developmentally responsive and engaging curriculum in order to propel them successfully to secondary and post-secondary levels. This article focuses on one teacher team at a suburban public middle school that considered the collective use of space and time as major component of a thriving integrated STEM model.…

Background: The popularised notion of models-based practice (MBP) is one that focuses on the delivery of a model, e.g. Cooperative Learning, Sport Education, Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility, Teaching Games for Understanding. Indeed, while an abundance of research studies have examined the delivery of a single model and some have…

Recently, the Turkish educational system has gone through a transition from the 8+4 educational model to the new 4+4+4 system, which has mandated elective courses to be taken by the students increasing number of class hours taken in a week from 30 to 37 hours. This has caused some problems in scheduling of schools in Turkey where double shift…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the use of a middle school flexible interdisciplinary block schedule would increase eighth-grade students' reading scores, as measured by the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS). A 90-minute middle school flexible interdisciplinary block schedule served as the independent variable and…

Self-determination is the freedom to make choices that impact an individual's life. Many people would agree that self-determination leads to an enhanced quality of life, and choice making is considered a central element in self-determination. Most learn choice making through a gradual release of responsibility by caregivers throughout their…

It is possible to create a literacy block where teachers meet with students for guided reading and writing conferences, and provide daily explicit instruction in both reading and writing. A comprehensive look at literacy and learning, "100 Minutes" shows teachers how to fit balanced literacy into a daily 100-minute literacy block using a framework…

The study examined the impact of participation in an optional flexible year program (OFYP) on academic achievement. The ex post facto study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. The non-probability sample consisted of 163 fifth grade students in an OFYP district and 137 5th graders in a 180-day instructional year school…

Grounded in the best current knowledge, this book shows how to implement response to intervention (RTI) in middle and high school contexts. Detailed guidelines are presented for teaching reading comprehension, vocabulary, and other aspects of literacy across the content areas, and for providing effective interventions for students who require…

Social studies at the middle-level represented a marginalized discipline in South Carolina. Although it was integrated into the state's accountability testing agenda and weighted equally with English, math, and science content in state school and district report card rating calculations, differences exist in the amount of time allocated for social…

Because of increasing student enrollment, a new school was formed in a small low-income Southern California school district. Teachers could choose to transfer to the new school or remain at the existing school. Over five years, quantitative analyses of demographic data showed little differences between the two schools across the years except for a…

Research has shown that certain ways of teaching can make a difference in whether students learn standards-based content. Many strategies have proven to be effective in teaching literacy, mathematics, science and social studies. These strategies have facilitated blending academic and career/technical subjects to make learning more meaningful for…

With the current education climate so focused on accountability, teachers need to ensure that their teaching practices are supported by today's content-specific standards. To meet this need, "A Comprehensive Guide to Readers Theatre" shows not only how to implement Readers Theatre in the classroom but also how to use it to meet current literacy…

This article describes the revised summer school program developed by the Anchorage (AK) School District for students who received poor grades in their core classes or low scores in the Alaska Benchmark Examinations or California Achievement Tests. More than 500 middle school students from the district spent five weeks during the summer honing…