Background: At school, physical education (PE) teachers and coaches may be key supports for physical activity. Unfortunately, PE teachers may endorse negative stereotypes and attitudes toward overweight youth. These biases may influence the amount of instruction physical educators provide to students and their participation in PE or other physical…

Based on a framework of identity-as-narrative and multiliteracies, this article describes "Graphic Journeys," a multimedia literacy project in which English learners (ELs) in middle school created graphic stories that expressed their families' immigration experiences. The process involved reading graphic novels, journaling, interviewing, and…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of the investigation was to determine the effects of visible cheese on selection and consumption of food groups to encourage (FGTE) in middle school students. Methods: Study 1 was conducted in three middle schools with 145 students (Boys=67, Girls=78, 30% minorities). The regular monthly menus were altered to…

Within this article, we introduce our conception of text accessibility. First, we synthesize recent research on informational text quality and present key attributes proven to contribute to comprehension of science texts beyond the readability formula. These features include (a) the concreteness of text, (b) the voice of the author, (c) coherent…

Visual representations are ubiquitous in modern-day science textbooks and have in recent years become an object of criticism and scrutiny. This article examines the extent to which changes in representations in textbooks published in the USA over the past six decades have invited those critiques. Drawing from a correlational analysis of a corpus…

Aerial imagery has a great capacity to engage and maintain student interest while providing a contextual setting to strengthen their ability to reason proportionally. Free, on-demand, high-resolution, large-scale aerial photography provides both a bird's eye view of the world and a new perspective on one's own community. This article presents an…

Asking students to manipulate digital photos on the computer is one of the easiest ways the author knows to engage their attention. It's fabulous fun for them and a great teaching tool for educators. In this article, the author presents 10 ways to impress students with image-editing software. These are: (1) filters are fascinating; (2) get a move…

Middle school teachers tend to rely heavily on texts that have become increasing more visual. There is little information available about the graphical demands of general middle grades' science texts. The purpose of this study was to quantify the type and quality of the graphical representations and how they interacted with the textual material in…

This article illustrates the effects of embedding a common language derived from research, conducted through Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, into teachers' documentations of classroom experiences. It suggests that documentation can be enhanced by using shared professional vocabularies that describe categories important in…

Taking Action Opportunities (TAO) is a curriculum that combines guided reflection, a focus on the local environment, and innovative use of wildlife technology to empower student action toward improving the environment. TAO is experientially based and uses remote cameras as a tool for schoolyard exploration. Through TAO, students engage in research…

Many teachers and researchers have found that motivation and engagement seem to decline as students enter adolescence, and one of the causing factors is limited opportunities for creative expression. Moviemaking a text undoubtedly encourages students' creative expression to a great extent. This article explores the integration of moviemaking in an…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore why some low-income minority students were academically successful in school using a three-tiered approach to research including individual student interviews, classroom observations, and photographs and follow up interviews on photographs to identify factors contributing to academic…

This study reports middle school astronomy classes that implemented photographs and classroom response systems (CRSs) in a discussion-oriented pedagogy with a curriculum unit for the topics of "day-night" and "cause of seasons." In the new pedagogy, a teacher presented conceptual questions with photographs, her 6th grade…

This article reports on the first stage of a study that uses Young People as Researchers methodology to investigate the phenomenon of middle-year student disengagement. The study obtains student perspectives on the meanings of engagement and disengagement using a variety of innovative research methods. The first stage of the study focused on a…

The shift from analog to digital video transformed the system from a unidirectional analog broadcast to a two-way conversation, resulting in the birth of participatory media. Digital video offers new opportunities for teaching science, social studies, mathematics, and English language arts. The professional education associations for each content…