Designed to give middle school teachers some of the tools necessary to prepare their students to do well on the performance based Missouri Assessment Program (MAP), this booklet provides released items from the 1997-1998 MAP Communication Arts test. MAP consists of three reading passages followed by constructed-response items, a formal writing…

Discusses the importance of creative thinking in the geography classroom. Suggests that such thinking can be achieved through the integration of content and creative problem solving. Describes a seventh grade world geography class activity which illustrates this integration. Steps for applying the activity are given and student efforts are…

This study reports the instructional effects of issue investigation and action training on the environmental behavior of middle school students. Discussed are the methodology including training and modules, the design of the study, instruments used, scoring protocols, and analysis of results. (Author/CW)

Presents research findings regarding motivation's role in music education. Explains that students in grades five through eight provided reactions to a fictitious band student's experience with failure. Reports that many respondents believed that the student would perform better, try harder, and receive the teacher's and fellow students' support in…

Maine was the first state to put laptops in the hands of an entire grade of students. This interpretive case study of two middle school science-math teachers was driven by the general question: Given ubiquitous computing, how do teachers use computers in constructing curriculum and delivering instruction? Specifically, the researchers sought to…

This unit begins by examining the problem of rural poverty in China in the 1940s. A variety of solutions attempted by the Chinese government between the mid 1940s and the present all aimed at the improvement of peasant living standards in the countryside. Because 80 percent of China's people are peasants, the Chinese Communist party saw the…

This document from the Virginia Department of Education reports on a project to enable public schools to meet requirements of two laws. The first law required public schools to emphasize instruction on the documents of Virginia and United States history and government. The second requested that all public schools be urged to display copies of the…

This booklet comprises the seventh grade component of a series of curriculum guides on fire and burn prevention. Designed to meet the age-specific needs of seventh grade students, its objectives include: (1) practicing responsible decision-making regarding fire and burn hazards, including peer pressure related to fire risks; and (2) practicing…

This supplementary math curriculum guide for use with Spanish-speaking students in Chicago public schools' seventh and eighth grade classes employs a contrastive analysis approach. Lessons are presented for objectives for which the instructional strategies used in the United States differ from those in Spanish-speaking countries. (Objectives for…

This module is an activity and film-oriented unit focusing on the importance of mangroves in the South Florida ecosystem. The module is part of a series designed to be used by teachers, students, and community members to help them utilize community resources in developing and teaching environmental concepts and responsibility, and in seeking ways…

This project was designed to prepare curriculum materials that can be used to teach general computer literacy and rudimentary programming for grades 7 and 8. The intended audience for these materials is the grade 7 and 8 teacher who is not experienced in computer literacy or programming. Materials provided include, in separate sections for the two…

This project was designed to: (1) assess 7th-graders' metacognitive beliefs and processes and investigate how they affect problem-solving behaviors; and (2) explore the extent to which these students can be taught to be more strategic and aware of their own problem-solving behaviors. The primary assessment was conducted by analyzing video tapes of…

The purposes of this study are to describe teacher-student interaction in a seventh-grade mathematics class and to examine the relationships between teacher-student interaction and achievement by race and sex. Sixteen students taught by a black male were studied. For 10 days near the middle of 45 classroom days, quantitative teacher-student…

The state of New Mexico requires all sixth grade students to take the year-long social studies course entitled Eastern Hemisphere Studies. Seventh grade students are required to take two semester-long courses, are in Western Hemisphere Studies and the other in New Mexico History and Geography. The year-long social studies course on U.S. History is…

This curriculum guide supplements the Alabama "Health Education Course of Study," which offers a comprehensive planned sequential curriculum for grades K-12. The largest section of the guide consists of classroom activities which are tied to specific student outcomes. A list of materials needed to carry out the activities is provided.…