It's winter! While it is frosty outside, one can at least think warm thoughts by starting now to plan ahead for summer information literacy programs. This article is designed to provide some ideas for planning next summer's reading, sleuthing, and research programs. It features a variety of programs organized by academic librarians this past…

This is the first of two reports that summarize the findings from an impact evaluation of a violence prevention intervention for middle schools. This report discusses findings after 1 year of implementation. A forthcoming report will discuss the findings after 2 years and 3 years of implementation. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Education (ED)…

"Accelerated Reader"[TM] is a guided reading intervention used to supplement regular reading instruction in K-12 classrooms. Its aim is to improve students' reading skills through reading practice and quizzes on the books students read. The "Accelerated Reader"[TM] program calls for students to select and read a book and then…

This study contributes to the field by identifying a broad range of traditional and newer middle grade policies and practices, and determining in California which of these differentiate higher- from lower-performing schools serving similar student populations, with performance measured by the state's standards-based tests. Based on a sample of 303…

In the 2008-09 school year researchers from EdSource and Stanford University conducted a large-scale study of 303 middle grades schools in California. The team surveyed 303 principals, 3,752 English Language Arts (ELA) and math teachers in grades 6-8, and 157 superintendents of the districts and charter management organizations that oversee the…

This study examined cyberbullying in three distinct phases to facilitate a multifaceted understanding of cyberbullying. The phases included (a) a quantitative survey, (b) a qualitative focus group, and (c) development of educational scenarios/simulations (within the Second Life virtual environment). Phase III was based on adolescent feedback about…

US schools fail to engage a significant proportion of adolescent students. Although student engagement is significantly related to academic achievement, there is a dearth of longitudinal research simultaneously examining the impact of personal and contextual factors on student engagement at both individual and school levels. Using a…

Background/Context: Technological and economic changes have put a high premium on developing students' information literacy and research skills. Previous attempts to deploy educational technology toward these ends have proved disappointing because K-12 teachers have difficulty integrating shared computers into instruction. In response, numerous…

The research involved examining the nature of the transition that students experienced in progressing to junior high school from primary school. Students' experiences were chosen as the focus of the research because the issue of substance being investigated was that of alienation. The main methodology that was used was the qualitative procedure of…

When the author was teaching in an elementary foreign language exposure (FLEX) program several years ago, she completed a research project that documented student learning gained from student dialogue journals. The action research initiative taught her the value of being reflective about her teaching practices. Her thesis research requirements…

This technical report and user's guide is designed to provide researchers with an overview of the design and implementation of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), as well as with information on how to access the PISA 2009 data. This information is meant to supplement that presented in Organization for Economic Cooperation…

This article describes a curriculum integration project designed to help students better contextualize their learning: The High M.A.R.C.S. Project linked mathematics, art, research, collaboration, and storytelling. The article explains the project in detail, discusses sample student work from the project, and describes how the project work was…

This paper explores a middle school teacher's and his students' perceptions of the differences between online synchronous literature discussions and face-to-face literature discussions. Each member of this literature group participated in two face-to-face and two online literature discussions. Participants were interviewed twice to discuss their…

This article reports on findings from a school-based action research project with aboriginal adolescent students attending an alternative school in Canada. As a Freirean response to these marginalized students' school failures, the researcher engaged students in a critical multiliteracies approach to language and literacy learning. Based on…

The paper describes the integration of web resources and technology as instructional and learning tools in oral history projects. The computer-mediated oral history project centred around interviews with community elders combined with new technologies to engage students in authentic historical inquiry. The study examined learners' affective…