This technical report describes the process of development and piloting of reading comprehension measures that are appropriate for seventh-grade students as part of an online progress screening and monitoring assessment system, http://easycbm.com. Each measure consists of an original fictional story of approximately 1,600 to 1,900 words with 20…

This "Stated Briefly" report is a companion piece that summarizes the results of another report of the same name. REL Northeast and Islands, in collaboration with the Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance and the New Hampshire Department of Education conducted a study of the implementation of new teacher evaluation systems…

REL Northeast and Islands, in collaboration with the Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance and the New Hampshire Department of Education, conducted a study of the implementation of new teacher evaluation systems in New Hampshire's School Improvement Grant (SIG) schools. While the basic system features are similar across district…

The robotics field represents the integration of multiple facets of computer science and engineering. Robotics-based activities have been shown to encourage K-12 students to consider careers in computing and have even been adopted as part of core computer-science curriculum at a number of universities. Unfortunately, for students with visual…

The Sustainable Food Center, which promotes healthy food choices, partnered with six middle schools in Austin, Texas, to implement Sprouting Healthy Kids. The pilot project was designed to increase children's knowledge of the food system, their consumption of fruits and vegetables and their access to local farm produce. Most students at these…

This article presents three studies that provide an in-depth examination of STEM-related supports and barriers. These studies constructed an instrument to identify male and female perceptions of the barriers and supports for pursuing coursework and/or careers in mathematics and sciences domains; to pilot test and refine that instrument; and then…

Students who struggle academically often struggle with assignment completion. Poor assignment completion is attributable to both student cognitive and motivational barriers. This study evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention designed to improve assignment completion for middle school students who struggle academically. Seventh graders with…

The Boston Middle School Corner Store Initiative (CSI) brought together schools, businesses, and community partners to develop, implement, and evaluate a multicomponent pilot program designed to promote healthier beverage purchasing at corner stores among 3,500 middle school students living in Boston, Massachusetts. Healthy drinks were defined for…

This is a qualitative study addressing the question: In what ways does a sixth grade middle school teacher show evidence of behaviors that fit the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework in the classroom? The researcher observed in this class, interviewed the teacher, and looked for evidence of the interplay between…

Perception of Competence (POC) has been studied extensively in physical activity (PA) research with similar instruments adapted for physical education (PE) research. Such instruments do not account for the unique PE learning environment. Therefore, an instrument was developed and the scores validated to measure POC in middle school PE. A…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate student understanding and application of computational thinking patterns to novel situations. Over 500 students, who had just designed and programmed a Frogger-style game using the AgentSheets platform, responded to a newly developed video-prompt survey instrument administered in the Fall 2010 semester.…

History is an important but often overlooked content area for all students in this current era of accountability. Yet instruction in history can help students become problem solvers and learn to make interpretations from multiple perspectives. This article reports the results of a pilot study examining history learning across three groups of…

Westside Middle School, located in Omaha, Nebraska, serves 950 seventh- and eighth-grade students. Over the last few years, the school's teachers and administrators have evaluated its technology status and needs. As part of this process, the staff members engaged in many activities, including developing a building-level technology plan, organizing…

Computer games as new media culture have become increasing popular among young people. Today most children play a different genre of games at different times depending on their age, maturity, and opportunity. While some researchers advocate that similar to computer literacy and information literacy, game literacy will be one of the requirements…

High-stakes assessments have encouraged educators to ignore the needs of the top performers. Therefore, the Oakwood School District decided to implement a mathematics pilot enrichment program in order to meet the needs of the advanced mathematics students. As a result, this study used quantitative data to determine if there was a significant…