This qualitative case study served to investigate teachers' and students' experiences implementing BASE Education, an electronic learning (e-learning) platform for social and emotional learning (SEL), in an urban charter middle school in Paterson, New Jersey. Convenient purposeful sampling was used to recruit seven students and three…

Place-based learning encourages students to explore their local communities, learn about history, and develop critical thinking skills. This article focuses on six middle school students who participated in a History Club and entered the National History Day competition and discovered how history and place liberates learning.

Since zero-tolerance policies were put into effect, suspension rates have risen dramatically in the United States (Ayers et al., 2001). This fact is unsettling because research shows that suspension has a negative impact on both academic achievement and poor life outcomes (Rausch & Skiba, 2005). The goal of this quantitative study was to…

Critical thinkers and proficient readers use a composite of similar cognitive skills that are challenging to assess and difficult to cultivate. Therefore, students and teachers require an instructional model that demonstrates the acuity involved in these proficiencies. This quasiexperimental study aimed to investigate the impact of Equalities as…

This study evaluated the relationship between social-emotional learning (SEL) and peer perceptions of youth leadership in a group of 203 students (38.9% Hispanic; 28.6% Black; 21.2% White; 10.3% Asian; 1.0% Others) in Grades 6th-8th from two diverse urban middle schools in New Jersey. Results indicated that SEL had a significant and positive…

This project-based thesis aimed to facilitate the creation of a collaborative culture quilt that celebrates the diverse cultural backgrounds, heritage, and traditions of students and teachers. The curriculum focused on various artists from different cultures, expanding students' understanding of art and culture both inside and outside the…

In response to the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts Literacy by the New Jersey Department of Education, Chesterport K-8 Public School District implemented a district-wide program to promote reading skills across all academic subjects called the Close Read Initiative (CRI). This study reviews and analyzes the Stanton…

Adolescents in the urban public school system experience childhood trauma that sometimes makes it difficult to focus on learning. Even more so, sometimes trauma experienced by youth manifests in disruptive behaviors in the school setting. Traditionally, urban public schools have focused on teaching and learning academics, generally neglecting the…

This single instrument case study illuminates the aesthetic transactions an adolescent male student constructs in response to an experimental Gothic studies reading unit implemented by his cooperating teacher over a sixth month period in his seventh grade ELA (English/ Language Arts) class. Ray is described as ''lazy' regarding academic reading…

This dissertation analyzes data in order to answer the research question, "Do eighth grade students who have participated regularly in their school band programs for four consecutive years achieve higher scores in New Jersey's Grade Eight PARCC Assessment than students of similar ability who do not play a musical instrument?" Data was…

Over the past 30 years, numerous policies have focused on closing the achievement gap in the United States. Despite this emphasis on mastery and proficiency, students continue to perform below expectations. We use standardized math test performance to explore whether schools have been able to eliminate the achievement gap across middle-level…

This article reviews the development of a qualitative summative assessment based on the National Theater Standards to evaluate theater education classes. The authors examine the current state of the field of theater education; the use of the assessment; an overview of the results of an arts integration U.S. Department of Education project; and a…

A fundamental claim for Common Core State Standards (CCSS)-aligned assessments is that they will lead to better teaching practices. The purpose of this study is to seek evidence in support of this claim by surveying teachers about their instructional practices, test preparation strategies, and test score use both before and after the introduction…

Despite the intuitive appeal of purpose as a subject of inquiry and its associations with positive life outcomes, empirical research on adolescent purpose is limited. This exploratory study examined several dimensions of purpose--classification, engagement, and commitment--based on essay and survey responses from a sample of 124 low-SES and…

The purpose of this case study was to determine the perceptions of students, faculty, and parents about the JostensRenaissance Program® (JRP) on overall school climate in a New Jersey middle school. The population for this research consisted of fifth through eighth grade students who participated in the JRP during the 2011-2012 school year, as…