Young adolescents undergo rapid physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and sexual development, including puberty, sexual awareness, gender identity, physiological brain and cognitive growth, complex emotions, and impulse control. Tragically, thousands of adolescents die daily from mostly preventable causes such as violence, sexual health problems…

Effective educators value young adolescents, are prepared to teach them, and are knowledgeable about this age group. Middle level educators' understanding of adolescent brain development and developmentally responsive teaching strategies can help to support all adolescents' cognitive and social-emotional development in school. This article…

Research examining the effects of track placement in the USA has predominantly focused on racial/socio-economic differences in access to learning opportunities. However, track assignment might also create academic social groups within schools that shape students' social-cognitive processes. This article provides a conceptual model that describes…

Gifted individuals have unique social and emotional needs that often manifest as challenging interpersonal behavior. Chief among these needs are the fact that gifted students tend to be quite emotionally intense and that they tend to be quite cognitively rigid. Emotional intensity is defined as having stronger, more frequent, more complex, and…

Researchers attempting to show that music has positive effects on children need to understand and control for preexisting differences between those who do and do not select into musical participation in the first place. Within a large-scale, communitywide, prospective, longitudinal study of predominantly low-income, ethnically diverse students (N…

Video games have the potential to be contexts for moral learning. We investigated whether "Quandary," a video game designed to promote ethical thinking and moral considerations for decision-making, would help promote positive skills such as perspective taking and empathy in adolescents. We examined the effect of playing…

What is active learning and what does it look like in the classroom? If students are participating in active learning, they are playing a more engaged role in the learning process and are not overly reliant on the teacher (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2003; Petress, 2008). The purpose of this article is to propose a framework to describe and…

Brain growth and change is a key factor in adolescent development, influencing cognitions, emotions, and behavior. As technology has improved, so has the research on the adolescent brain. School counselors working with adolescents need to be familiar with recent literature to be more effective in their work with middle and high school students.…

This article illuminates the current status of our understanding regarding the academic and social-emotional needs of gifted, early adolescent females in the United States. A synthesis of both theoretical and empirical studies addresses two foundational questions. First, how do we describe the unique population of gifted, female, adolescent…

In 1996, Paul Deering, now a National Middle School Association West Region Trustee and University of Hawaii professor, established the Masters Degree in Education with a Middle Level Emphasis Program (MLMED) at the University of Hawaii. The MLMED is a two-year program that focuses on five standards that encompass the research-based middle level…

They are adolescents--and those who work with them must understand them, connect with them, and make learning relevant to their lives. This article looks at recent theories and educational practices identified as appropriate for supporting the educational learning experiences of students ages 12 to 15. In this article, the author also discusses,…

This article presents a framework for school administrators developed by Mesa Unified School district used in identifying and assisting the subtly struggling adolescents. Mesa's "safety net" approach targets middle grades students in the midst of their formative, pre-high school experience. Here, it is stated that the first step to identify a…

Noting factors that have contributed to an increased emphasis on developmentally responsive middle level schools, this revised monograph examines early adolescence as a developmental period and explores the physical, psychosocial, and cognitive characteristics of 10- to 15-year-olds. In addition, the monograph provides recommendations concerning…

The middle school concept was devised to counteract the tendency of junior high school programs to mimic those of the high school at the expense of addressing the developmental needs of students who are in the process of physical maturation. This book on curriculum design focuses on the importance of the middle school and understanding…

Describes three perspectives from which middle school teachers can plan laboratory activities for the purpose of improving students' scientific literacy. Perspectives are the learning cycle approach categorizing activities by stages of development; problem-solving skills approach categorizing activities according to the amount of teacher control;…