Scence educational standards are increasingly emphasising on argumentation skills. However, students' argumentation skills are often not developed well as their experience of science knowledge in schools is often in the form of uncontested facts. This research asserts that argumentation skills should be developed through explicit teaching of…

This quantitative study sought to compare the levels of motivation and engagement for middle school students before and after the implementation of both project-based learning and direct instruction. Student participants completed the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory [IMI] (Deci & Ryan, 2017) to assess their levels of motivation prior to and…

In theory, both virtual manipulatives and explicit instruction are viable options to support students with disabilities as they learn mathematics. This study explored the effect of a treatment package--an app-based virtual manipulative (Cuisenaire® Rods) in conjunction with explicit instruction--on students' acquisition and generalization of…

We present results of an evaluation of the first year of a multi-year comprehensive middle school reading program. Four public middle schools in rural Virginia with large populations of students with limited reading proficiency participated in a study to determine the reading program's impact. We evaluated 235 students with low reading achievement…

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. eighth graders score below basic on national assessments of reading (NCES, 2013) and are poorly equipped for the reading demands of secondary school. Struggling adolescent readers cannot summarize a simple passage, use context to determine word meanings, and have difficulties making text-based inferences. In addition,…

Addressing the reading needs of adolescent learners living in rural areas may create challenges for teachers and administrators in the age of accountability. This study addressed this issue by implementing two explicit instructional approaches with struggling adolescent readers (n = 49) in a rural middle school in the southeastern United States.…

This study provides a picture of the instructional practices of a selected sample of first year secondary teachers in two rural school districts with large at-risk student populations. The instructional practices of the beginning teachers were compared to the curriculum of the research-based teacher preparation program by which all were trained.…

Many high schools are encouraging teachers to enhance the level of student engagement by having teachers interact more productively with students. Effective questioning, efficient use of wait time, use of high-quality examples, a clear goal, equitable distribution, and a balance of open and closed questions correlate with higher levels of student…