Detailing a collaboration between an elementary school teacher and a middle school teacher, this book is about making connections--connections that make learning meaningful for students and teachers. The book describes how the teachers worked to bridge the gap between content area subjects and the gap in their understanding of each other's…

These lesson plans are designed for use by middle school social studies teachers who take their students on a tour of the regional airports of Louisville, Kentucky. Twelve lesson plans are included: "Let's Go There Next, Mom"; "Who Wrote That?"; "The Games They Play!"; "You Flew on What?"; "I Wonder…

This activity guide, developed to provide environmental education through a series of hands-on activities geared to Medoc Mountain State Park in North Carolina, is targeted for grades 4, 5, and 6 and meets curriculum objectives of the standard course of study established by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Three types of…

Considering teachers' thinking about a specific mathematical topic allows one to better understand the broader domain of teachers' mathematical thinking and its influence on teaching and learning. This paper explores the meanings and understandings communicated by one middle school mathematics teacher about mathematics and mathematics teaching in…

This educational program on drugs and alcohol provides a "No-Use" message to students. The curriculum maintains that alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs are unhealthy and harmful, and that society's laws and values are to be respected. The lessons build students' resistance to influences that encourage drug abuse and they promote safe, healthy,…

This collection of student essays provides illustrations of the criteria used to grade the composition portion of the sixth-grade achievement test used in Alberta (Canada). An introductory section describes the procedures for selecting the essays used, establishing scoring norms, and scoring the tests, and offers general comments on the writing…

Hypothesizing that students choosing their own topics would produce significantly more writing, a study examined the writing sample length of 42 sixth grade students who had been divided equally into two treatment groups. Treatments were counterbalanced so that during the first writing period students in one group wrote on topics they had selected…

The effects of a grade 6 reading/language arts curriculum designed to help non-Amish students develop an appreciation and understanding of Amish culture were examined. The study took place in a Pennsylvania township near a large Amish settlement. Two classes (one experimental group, one control group) were administered pre- and post-semantic…

Intended as a resource for instructional planning, this grade 6 language arts curriculum guide purposes to promote greater student achievement through alignment of the written, the taught, and the tested curriculum, and to promote broader and higher levels of thinking through objectives, activities, and strategies which integrate content and…

This teaching unit for fourth to sixth grade history students outlines 20 activities aimed at developing an appreciation in students for a particular time in history. The knowledge goals state that students will gain an understanding of a time period or person in history and will infer how the time period or person influenced the future. The skill…

Using data on mean achievement of third and sixth graders in individual California schools, coupled with salary data for those students' teachers, this study tested whether teacher salary variables are associated with student achievement, when socioeconomic characteristics are controlled. Differences among schools in the amount of teachers' pay…

The Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), Intermediate Level II, was administered to 11,077 sixth grade students during fall 1984. This two-section report presents findings of the SAT's three mathematics subtests. These subtests measured competency related to: (1) mathematics concepts (number, notation, operations, and geometry/measurement), (2)…

This cardiovascular fitness program for grades 1-6 (with emphasis on grades 5 and 6) consists of (1) discussion classes and exercise experiments, (2) discussion of exercise effects during regular activity sessions, (3) required cardiovascular warmup exercises, and (4) evaluation of cardiovascular fitness. (Author/MJB)

Describes imaginative ways to teach "A Wizard of Earthsea," a fantasy novel by Ursula LeGuin, with teaching time limited to one hour a week for six weeks. (HOD)

Discusses issues of Logo learning, including mode and content of learning in Logo and possible results; use of study guide to increase children's learning of powerful ideas in Logo; subprocedures, modularity, and structured programing use and related learning problems; debugging difficulties; and Logo research needs. (MBR)