School counselors and special educators in rural areas working together can be a powerful team to help schools create a positive school community. In one rural school community, they partnered with faculty and staff to implement a School Wide Positive Behavior support program to improve student outcomes. The counselor and special educator, through…

In this article, the authors report on usage of 21st-century technology, and a collaborative project that allowed middle school art students and preservice teachers to share their artwork and receive feedback in a constructivist learning environment. Middle school students often deal with issues such as bullying, divorce, and depression; they can…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether middle school teacher attitudes on personal teaching efficacy and responsive teaching and their descriptions of their principal's leadership behaviors in the areas of leader social relationships, leadership/goal setting, and collaboration for learning differ for high- and low-achieving Grade 8…

The Canisius College Summer Science Camp is a successful and effective annual outreach program that specifically targets middle school students in an effort to increase their interest in science. Five broadly defined science topics are explored in a camp-like atmosphere filled with hands-on activities. A 2010 module focused on chemistry topics of…

This brief presents findings from a study on Urban Advantage (UA), a collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), other New York City informal science institutions, and the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) to improve the science literacy of NYC public school students. The analysis draws on a rich longitudinal…

This article describes the development and evaluation of a classroom-based, low-cost intervention to increase parents' involvement in their children's education. In Phase 1 of the study, 17 parents of 8th grade students in a low-income, high immigrant and minority school district were interviewed to conduct a qualitative assessment of factors…

This article explores collaboration between a rural school in upstate New York and an international school in Amman, Jordan. The authors describe how they provided their students with real audiences for their writing, and, over time, built an international community of writers. Classroom walls were blurred as the authors "team-taught"…

This paper describes a workshop led by female Engineering Technology students, with support from female faculty, to provide an introduction to Engineering Technology to 4th-7th grade girls through a series of interactive laboratory experiments. This outreach program was developed to improve attitudes towards science and engineering in middle…

Schools are finding effective ways to engage students totally in learning by addressing students' minds, personalities and behaviors. They are designing curricula and instructional strategies to generate interest and challenge students to stay in school and do their best. The goal is to graduate a "complete student" who will be ready for…

Steve and Tina Nabinger rely on one another not only as man and wife, but also in professional life... as practicing librarians in Upstate New York. They are librarians in love, who love to collaborate. Together they make up a dynamic duo spawning creative library lessons for their elementary and middle school students in Upstate New York. In this…

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 article reports the results of the second phase of a three-phase study on the impact of the New York State's school libraries' services and resources on student achievement and motivation. A representative sample of more than 1,600 classroom teachers, students, and school library media specialists (SMLSs) from 47 schools throughout New York…

The Foundation for Excellent Schools supports a nationwide project, the Century Program, to link 100 rural and inner city schools middle schools with 100 colleges and universities. The TDP goal is to increase college going awareness among middle school students from families where going to college is not a family or community tradition. This paper…

This article describes the Veteran's Oral History Project, a collaboration between students at Isaac Young Middle School and pre-service teachers enrolled in the author's middle school education class at the College of New Rochelle. The pre-service teachers developed and taught an integrated interdisciplinary unit on the Vietnam era, culminating…

In September 2005, the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) launched the Out-of-School Time Programs for Youth (OST) initiative to provide young people throughout New York City with access to high-quality programming after school, on holidays, and during the summer at no cost to their families. Working closely with…