In constructing a theoretical framework for an art education curriculum of the future, the primary objective is promoting awareness, mutual understanding, and collective responsibility to one another and the world in which we live. In arriving at this framework, the author found direction in the ethicist Kwame Appiah's (2017) suggestion that…

Physically stepping foot into the middle and high school classroom is the opportunity teacher candidates (TCs) most look forward to as they enter their final year in our middle and secondary teacher preparation program. It is in this internship year when TCs practice the theory they have learned and start making their own pedagogical choices. The…

According to the authors, we live in a society that is deeply influenced by technology, and social studies classrooms are ideal places for students to conduct inquiries into timely and relevant technological issues. In this article, the authors describe an approach that can be used across many situations to teach students to think critically about…

Adolescence offers an opportunity for increased learning, but it also is a period of heightened stress due to the many biological and social changes students face. These various stressors can both directly and indirectly disrupt learning processes in still-developing adolescent brains. This Alliance for Excellent Education report underscores the…

A handful of technological episodes: fire, wheel and axle, Industrial Revolution, Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction, the transistor, and the digital age, have historically altered humanity. We are now witnessing/participating in the next transformational technology: 3D printing. Although dating back nearly 30 years, the technology…

This article illustrates how action research can be used as a model for professional development with middle grades educators in rapidly changing and technology-intensive schools. Drawing upon ten years of using this model, the authors present three examples of educator action research to highlight five characteristics of effective projects: (1)…

At grade 7, Common Core's content standards call for the use of long division to find the decimal representation of a rational number. With an eye to reconciling this requirement with Common Core's call for "a balanced combination of procedure and understanding," a more transparent form of long division is developed. This leads to the…

The education system has changed dramatically over the years, but the basic process still involves teachers conveying information and insights to students. The tools and strategies that help teachers accomplish this goal have evolved, and schools are continually in search of the piece of equipment that will enable them to educate more students…

And so a middle school language arts teacher begins her Saturday. Before coffee, Facebook. In this themed issue on professional development in an era of nick.com, the authors propose that teachers' new literacy learning is as close as their own screens. Teachers, too, live literate lives online in this new age of composition, with impulses to…

Much current debate in 21st century education centers on the relevance of the humanities because of the emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines and their role in workforce preparation. For the educators the question becomes, What can the humanities offer students in the 21st century? This is the generation that…

Research in four areas has the potential to dramatically improve how practitioners address the challenges of integrating digital texts and tasks into their literacy curriculum. Advances in defining and measuring key components of online reading comprehension are rapidly emerging. In addition, instructional models, such as Internet reciprocal…

This article synthesizes 15 years of research in middle school classrooms that have started to integrate new literacies into their daily teaching and learning. Trends of the data suggest there are certain salient characteristics of middle school teachers and students in these grade levels that make such innovations more successful with them than…

Humans by their very nature are users of tools, materials, and processes as a part of their survival and existence. As humans have progressed over time, their civilizations and societies have changed beyond imagination and have moved from hunters and gatherers of food and materials for survival to sophisticated societies with complex social and…

E-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook are beginning to make their way into school libraries and classrooms. It's about time. E-readers have tremendous potential to entice reluctant readers to read more. A study that the authors recently conducted among low-reading-ability middle school students demonstrated that potential.…

Technological advances have created amazing opportunities for people throughout the world to access and share information. These opportunities have helped to create a generation of young adolescents who want to make the most of each minute of the day, seizing opportunities to seek information and communicate at the same time. This generation is…