This article focuses on the ways the authors incorporate a transformational resistance framework in their ninth-grade ethnic studies curriculum. While literature on transformational resistance often highlights external forms of resistance, there is a need to examine the internal transformation youth experience when engaging in resistance. The…

As outlined by many of the social and political movements happening around us today, now more than ever, youth need to be critically conscious of their world in order to navigate it successfully. The Toronto District School Board, where Armen Shahnazarian teaches uses the hybrid model of culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy (CRRP), based on…

Narrative inquiry has a long tradition in qualitative educational research, although it remains a relatively untapped method of investigation in English curriculum and pedagogy studies. This paper presents one experimental narrative approach through the use of song lyrics as a musical method for storying interview data. Working with non-linear and…

The growing awareness of the importance of the first year of high school for future success has prompted schools and districts across the country to develop interventions designed for ninth-graders. "Growth mindset" is an intervention that aims to increase students' desire to take on challenges and to enhance their persistence in school…

This article discusses how mathematics didactics can be inspired by and further developed through responsive pedagogy, understood as feedback directed at self-regulation and self-efficacy, in mathematics teaching. The authors explain the rationale behind an intervention model for improving mathematics teachers' feedback practices. The model is a…

In this article, the author, a ninth grade teacher at a Title I high school, describes how she began her algebra classes with an open-ended research project, entitled Why Math? This project offered opportunities for students to reflect on why mathematics is important and to determine its relevance to them as individuals, that is, why…

Students who are blind or visually impaired (BVI), like all students, need to conduct scientific investigations that involve measurements and reading experimental procedures. Best instructional practices for BVI students include touch and hearing experiences. Related strategies and tools include electronic textbooks, assistive technologies such as…

This article describes in some detail aspects of the Student Voice initiative funded and championed by Ontario's Ministry of Education since 2008. The project enables thousands of students to make their voices heard in meaningful ways and to participate in student-led research. Some students from grades 7 to 12 become members of the Student…

The author describes the Link Crew transition program that she implemented in 2012 as assistant principal for curriculum and guidance at Villa Park High School in California. She states that administrative and counseling teams at her school had noticed that ninth-grade students struggled in their transitions to high school, with over half of the…

The authors investigate how innovative research assignments based on students' personal interests can help them want to develop their research skills. They find that multimodal communication and representation, including film, written scripts, comic strips, music, and photography, encourage students to carefully select information from the…

This Data Point utilizes data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), a nationally representative, longitudinal study of more than 23,000 ninth-graders in 2009. HSLS:09 surveyed students, their parents, math and science teachers, school administrators, and school counselors. The study included information about students who were…

This article is an account of a creative learning project conducted in the author's school in which she worked with a storyteller to engage a class of 14-15-year-old students in exploring other worlds, inspired by the "His Dark Materials" novels by Philip Pullman. The project was conceived as teacher-led action research in which the author…

When evaluators plan site-randomized experiments, they must conduct the appropriate statistical power analyses. These analyses are most likely to be valid when they are based on data from the jurisdictions in which the studies are to be conducted. In this method note, we provide software code, in the form of a SAS macro, for producing statistical…

This paper summarizes the historical and legislative backgrounds leading to statewide testing of health-related physical fitness in Texas children grades 3-12 as mandated by Texas Senate Bill 530. The rationale and goals for an associated research project (the Texas Youth Fitness Study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) to evaluate…

Physics First is offered to ninth graders at high schools in Aurora, CO. A unique new asset of this school system is an embedded research lab called the "Innovation Hyperlab." The goal of the lab is to connect secondary school teaching to ongoing university scientific research, supporting the school district's aim to create opportunities to…