During the COVID-19 pandemic, many youth felt disconnected from on-the-ground engagement with their peers, their communities, and the wider society. School closures also impeded progress in some students' abilities to write, speak, and express themselves through various media. A team of interdisciplinary and intergenerational faculty and…

To build a sustainable future, science and engineering education programmes should emphasise scientific investigation, collaboration across traditional science topics and disciplines, and engineering design, including design and evaluation of solutions. While some research studies articulate the shifts that are needed to realise classroom learning…

This case presents how the leadership team and faculty of a small, independent school used design thinking to respond to a competitive marketplace and desire for enrollment growth in the middle grades. The new middle school head came in with a mandate for substantial change and sought to engage all stakeholders in a process of redesign and program…

The CORE Districts, a nonprofit formed by large urban districts in California, received a Networks for School Improvement grant from the Gates Foundation to launch a network focused on improving ninth-grade on-track rates. CORE based its approach on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Breakthrough Collaborative model, where a hub identifies…

Sonia Kovalevsky Days (SK Days) are nationally-held outreach events that are commonly organized by local chapters of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) to encourage young women to continue their study of mathematics. The AWM Student Chapter at Worcester Polytechnic Institute hosted virtual renditions of SK Day for middle school girls…

There is a growing interest in the value of teachers guiding students to generate their own representations to support conceptual learning in science and across complementary subjects such as mathematics. However, this approach to an interdisciplinary focus poses challenges for programme design and learning assessment. In this paper, we report on…

Background: For years, physical activity settings had portrayed a discourse that does not allow to add new and different elements in its practice. This discourse established a status quo that has affected in many ways the structure, the pedagogy and practice of physical activity settings. This is the case of out-school programs. Purpose: The…

Many adolescent readers experience difficulties comprehending informational text, which may result from underlying difficulties with foundational skills (e.g., word recognition and fluency), knowledge demands (e.g., background, text structure, and vocabulary), and/or reading motivation. Supplemental interventions for adolescents targeting only…

The effects of transitions impact students across academic levels in many ways. The transition to high school can be a vulnerable time; moreover, it may be an optimal time for preventive interventions. As students matriculate and transition from middle to high school, a concentrated effort must be made to improve the practices to best support…

This case study examines the motivations of, and processes used by teacher leaders to establish a peace program at their middle school. These teacher leaders creatively engaged students in transforming school culture using empowering strategies to build positive peace among students, administrators, and teachers. Theories of peace education are…

This systematic review examines the social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention literature to address questions of whether and how students with disabilities are considered in studies of universal SEL interventions in middle and high schools. From the articles identified for initial review (n = 4,355), 166 met the inclusionary criteria. Among…

We used a discrete choice conjoint experiment to model the anti-bullying (AB) program preferences of 1080 junior kindergarten to Grade 8 educators. Participants chose between hypothetical AB programs that varied combinations of 12 design attributes. Multi-level latent class analysis yielded three classes: "All-in Supervisors" (21.5%)…

This study reports the findings from a year-long randomized evaluation assessing the impact of assigning 62 classrooms in Nigeria to receive either blocked or interleaved math problem sets. Blocked practice sessions focused on a single skill at a time. Interleaved problem sets alternated between different skills within a practice session. On tests…

As part of the design and development of an informal learning environment meant to increase urban middle school students' interest in technology-focused STEM careers, and to support their twenty-first century skill development, researchers developed and administered the ICT/Twenty-First Century Skills Questionnaire. Both STEM-ICT professionals and…

The opportunity gap between Black and Brown students and their White counterparts in math performance is present in our middle school math classrooms. This opportunity gap creates an urgent need for educators to prepare middle school math teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to build the math content and math identity of…