After taking over a course on adolescent learning theory, two professors recognized the need for radical change -- specifically with regard to the ethical considerations of a required project that involved interviews with middle level learners. The interviews, embedded within a service-learning assignment for this undergraduate course, were…

Today's world is equipped with media and media messages. It has become impossible to prevent all kinds of information in social life from reaching audiences of all ages. Media content attracts children and adults, especially children, who are the most open to interaction and sensitive group under the information bombardment they are exposed to,…

This article explores the challenges of enacting reform-oriented curriculum in science classrooms. We use the concept of figured worlds to analyze a case study of an eighth-grade science class where the teacher reported that the students were resistant to changes she was trying to make. By examining stimulated recall interviews with the teacher…

Amidst increasing concerns about children's mental health, this paper explores the integration of interdisciplinary nature journaling within a middle school English Language Arts classroom as a method to enhance student well-being and environmental literacy. 61 5th-7th students in Garrison, NY engaged in a 75-minute nature journaling activity. We…

Fostering creative thinking and promoting metacognitive processes are two major goals of 21st -century education. Recent research has pinpointed the essential role of meta-creativity in the process of creative thinking. Nevertheless, the concept of meta-creativity has not been widely adopted. The purpose of the present study is, therefore,…

Schools are focusing more on promoting physical activity (PA) before, during, and after the school day, to combat the risk factors associated with sedentary behaviors. Since attitudes impact decisions to be physically active, identifying how PA attitudes relate to established attitudes toward physical education (PE), as well as PA intentions and…

This study aims to develop guidance materials on the topic of evaporation and boiling within the Science course, to use the materials with 5th grade students, and to find out the students' opinions about the implementation of these materials. The participants consist of 10 students studying in a public middle school in the 2020-2021 academic year.…

The objective of this project was to address design gaps in previous programs that address scientific argumentation in middle schools. We adopted gamification mechanics (e.g., stimulus and response and progression) to design a computer-assisted program to better support students' development of scientific argumentation. In this paper, we describe…

Background/purpose: This study investigates the integration of Islamic values into the general curriculum at SMP Unismuh Makassar, addressing the evolving educational need that combines academic excellence with spiritual and moral development. Using the Stake Countenance Model, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of this integration in…

Over the past decade, the arts' potential role in advancing mainstream transdisciplinary curriculum models, like STEM, has been more overtly recognized, both within arts and STEM communities. In this study, we explored STEAM curricula centered around data visualization, a transdisciplinary practice commonly utilized in design and STEM fields and…

Students' motivation has often been the subject of discussion in the field of music education. This article reports on an exploration of students' motivation during their first year of attending music lessons in Cypriot lower secondary schools (Year 7). This study was a longitudinal study tracking the students (N = 170) over one academic year. The…

Guiding teachers to customize curriculum has shown to improve science instruction when guided effectively. We explore how teachers use student data to customize a web-based science unit on plate tectonics. We study the implications for teacher learning along with the impact on student self-directed learning. During a professional development…

The purpose of this collaborative action research project was to examine eighth- and ninth-grade female (assigned at birth) students' perspectives of their singing voice when implementing a practitioner/researcher designed curriculum titled "Supporting Adolescent Female Vocal Development: Teaching Anatomy and Physiology in the Middle School…

I developed a new global curriculum, Schoobio, in which middle and high school students become citizen scientists and change agents as they engage in transdisciplinary activities culminating in their advocacy for biocultural diversity on their school grounds. The foundation for this place-based learning curriculum is pragmatic constructivism, a…

In this article, we answer the questions 1) What could social justice look like in the middle school curriculum; 2) How do we help young adolescents recognize and repudiate racism and other forms of social injustice; and 3) What are some lessons learned from a middle level teacher preparation with a focus on social justice? By presenting three…