In 2016, the Middle Level Education Research Special Interest Group (MLER SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) published "The MLER SIG Research Agenda," a white paper identifying critical issues and concerns facing the field of middle level education. Since its release, much has changed. This manuscript is a…

Purpose: The purpose of this viewpoint article is to share the reflections of school and university leaders on the success of their emerging school-university partnership for the preparation of middle school teachers. Design/methodology/approach: The article is a reflective paper in which the leaders of the school-university partnership discuss…

Middle school teacher Michael Yell and education professor Geoffrey Scheurman discuss a decades-long partnership of ongoing professional development opportunities that involve teachers, university faculty, and teacher candidates working together to create personalized, meaningful, and sustained initiatives that enhance the growth and skills of all…

In this forum, practitioners reflect on their experiences as they respond to the following question: How can we use literacy to advocate for environmental issues? Three educators across elementary, middle school, and college settings describe using multiple literacies to conduct inquiries and create a deeper awareness of sustainability and shared…

Recruiting schools to participate in research projects has become increasingly challenging in the past several years. Research in schools was next-to-impossible during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of the pandemic has made research a lower priority for schools trying to regain COVID-related academic losses. The School Recruitment…

Effective leadership preparation includes meaningful, experiential opportunities. This article details an effort to provide these opportunities through a school-university partnership. Through involvement in a semester-long action research project, a cohort of teacher leaders increased academic growth for selected students at their middle school…

A critical part of implementing a new instructional program is professional learning. Multifaceted training was planned and delivered to teachers in a Midwestern urban school district prior to and during implementation of an online accelerated English language arts curriculum in four middle schools. Working in partnership with two universities,…

The middle school years are important for social and emotional learning, and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated social-emotional learning needs. At this age, young people are paying attention to the social world and exploring their identities and need learning environments that respond in kind. Jessica Shiller and Inte'a DeShields describe a model…

This document provides both state-specific and nationwide resources related to career and technical education (CTE), career exploration, and postsecondary education and training, including application procedures, enrollment, financing, and students' projected educational, employment and earnings outcomes. It includes checklists that students,…

Promoting pre-service teachers' development of professional dispositions through purposefully designed learning experiences may be middle level teacher education's most important contribution to a novice's development from student to teacher. The 2022 Revised Middle Level Teacher Preparation Standards explicitly address this expectation in…

In this article, we answer the questions 1) What could social justice look like in the middle school curriculum; 2) How do we help young adolescents recognize and repudiate racism and other forms of social injustice; and 3) What are some lessons learned from a middle level teacher preparation with a focus on social justice? By presenting three…

The past two decades have seen a growing de-professionalization of teaching. Combating this educational climate requires music teacher education programs to prioritize both critical pedagogical practices and policy knowhow in order to reestablish a focus on relational engagements and the navigation of the complex tensions lived daily in schools.…

This article describes the process of ecological school consultation within a university's place-based community engagement initiative. Within higher education, place-based initiatives are geographically specific partnerships between community organizations and a university. First, this article explains the collaboration between a middle school…

In the United States during March and April of 2020, more than 50 million K-12 students were impacted by school closures with many forced to engage in online teaching for continuity in their 2019-2020 school year. This disruption to K-12 public and private schools reverberated in programs of teacher education around the country. As…

Sonia Kovalevsky Days (SK Days) are nationally-held outreach events that are commonly organized by local chapters of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) to encourage young women to continue their study of mathematics. The AWM Student Chapter at Worcester Polytechnic Institute hosted virtual renditions of SK Day for middle school girls…