This study examines secondary mathematics and science teacher perceptions of teacher leadership during the first year of a professional development program focused on preparing teacher leaders in rural schools. It also begins to offer details as to what content-focused teacher leadership looks like and how teachers in rural schools enact teacher…

Educators participate in extensive preparation for the role of principal, including teaching and principal licensure. Nevertheless, educators may find a lack of a global framework for the principalship leading to both job dissatisfaction and early exit, as pre-role conceptualizations rely heavily on anecdotal knowledge from supervisors and peers.…

Early adolescents undergo immense developmental changes which consequently impact their middle level educational experiences. These changes are also mediated through social forces such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. Despite the intersection of early adolescent development with social and institutional forces, critical concepts such as race…

Much research has been done on the development of an intelligent tutoring system (ITS), and small empirical studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of ITS at promoting student learning. However, large-scale implementation of ITS in school settings has not been researched thoroughly. In this paper, we describe an ongoing randomized controlled…

In this paper we report on a project integrating social justice pedagogy in a professional development program training mathematics coaches to work in grades kindergarten through eight. The goal of our research was to study the coaches' growth in understanding of and commitment to social justice pedagogy in the mathematics classroom after…

Transescence is marked not only by disrupting acceleration in physical development and physiological change, but also by emotional and social pressures resulting from the transfer of authority from the family to the peer group. At no time in the schooling of our children do we find greater differences in the physical, social, emotional, and…

This article briefly describes the current status of middle schools in Ohio and attempts to establish a rationale for the development of the middle school. The author's central thesis is that curricular considerations for a middle school are basically identical to those of most junior high schools, and that in order to significantly improve the…

The extent to which the middle school becomes a true educational alternative is directly related to the ability of middle school educators and researchers to identify and investigate the developmental needs and learning capacities of students. Three important developmental characteristics of early adolescents are a high need for peer friendships,…

According to recent research data, a successful reading program in the middle school requires a change in educational emphasis from content (skill orientation) to a curriculum determined by the cognitive, moral, and social-emotional development of the child. Three developmental models that provide tools for educators in developing such a…

Long considered by its community and the Richmond County Schools' district administration "the worst middle school in the distict," the school (unnamed in the study) began a process of change in spring 1987. The instructional staff embraced a schoolwide staff development program designed to help both student achievement and school…

Library Power seeks to activate an underutilized resource--a school's library program--in ways that promote schoolwide changes in the curriculum and instruction. This three-year initiative of the DeWitt Wallace-Readers' Digest Fund, located in 19 sites across the country, connects elementary and middle school libraries more directly to classroom…

This study examined the types of support, resources, and professional development that teachers considered the most beneficial in implementing curriculum reform. Participants were 185 literacy teachers from urban, suburban, and rural middle schools in a northwestern state. The study used questionnaires to collect information about teachers'…

This document cautions against high expectations on the part of educators for rapid cognitive growth during middle school years--and urges a rethinking of curricular structure for those years--based upon neurological data concerning brain growth patterns. Empirical research (case studies, autopsy studies, cadaver research) conducted by Epstein has…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influenced five middle school science teachers as they implemented and integrated instructional technology in their curricula, along with determining the effects that implementation and integration of instructional technology had on their pedagogy and curricula. The study involved…

This paper examines the issues that emerged in the first six months of a collaborative program initiated by the Massachusetts State Department of Education for simultaneously developing or improving middle school teacher preparation programs and restructuring middle schools. The literature on interorganizational collaboration provides a framework…