The purpose of this quantitative ex post facto study was to determine if, and to what extent, differences existed in pre-and-post math scores following the VMath intervention for Title I 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in the Southwestern United States. Three research questions guided this study: (1) is there a statistically significant difference in…

Using the comparative case study (CCS) method, this article compares the findings from a longitudinal ethnographic research project of rural children in Northwest China (2005-2012) and a second longitudinal study of migrant children in eastern China (2015-2019). It examines rural and migrant students' and educators' (re)interpretations and uses of…

Large language models have recently been able to perform well in a wide variety of circumstances. In this work, we explore the possibility of large language models, specifically GPT-3, to write explanations for middle-school mathematics problems, with the goal of eventually using this process to rapidly generate explanations for the mathematics…

English learners (ELs) are a growing demographic in schools nationwide. ELs are expected to demonstrate proficiency in core subjects like their non-EL counterparts. However, an achievement gap exists. To address the achievement disparity for ELs, schools seek certified ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) teachers to provide the support…

Past research has identified factors that help maintain the cognitive demand of tasks, including "drawing conceptual connections." We investigated whether teachers who were engaging in the teaching practice of "building"--and thus focusing the class on collaboratively making sense of their peers' high-leverage mathematical…

Following psychologist Langer's theory, this study aimed to examine the influence of conditional tasks containing inherent uncertainty on the cultivation of mindfulness. It used preceding research to develop conditional mathematics tasks corresponding to integers and rational numbers, within a 10-lesson curriculum. It divided a total of 182 middle…

Using a randomized controlled trial, we investigated changes in both sexual harassment (SH) perpetration and victimization of 2104 middle school students in New York City who received divergent saturation and dosage levels of "Shifting Boundaries," an SH prevention program, which was represented by the length of the program. We assessed…

The present study investigates the correlation between teachers' implementation of Universal or Learning (UDL) in Mathematics and English/language arts (ELA) instruction and students' performance as measured by the state-wide standardised tests. Teacher participants included ELA and Mathematics teachers in grades 3-8 from a district in the United…

Virtual reality (VR) has evolved to include non-immersive to fully-immersive experiences for the classroom. This study seeks to understand the potential effects VR may offer, specifically characteristics associated with how a student experiences a VR intervention and the effects of using a VR device for learning. A group experimental design was…

The need to modernise school physics to encompass the fundamentals of Einsteinian physics is widely recognised. While the ability of students to comprehend qualitative Einsteinian concepts has been demonstrated, little information exists to determine the best student age and the duration of instruction required for introducing Einsteinian physics…

Middle school teachers frequently struggle with positively managing student behavior. However, praise-to-reprimand ratios (PRRs) have received little research attention. PRRs studied in elementary school have been positively associated with improvements in on-task and prosocial behavior, but limited research has been conducted on optimal PRRs in…

The primary purpose of this research study was to evaluate the efficacy of BASE, a self-paced online mental health education preventive intervention with middle school students. Two hundred ninety-five adolescent students were randomly assigned to receive BASE modules (n = 156) in a regular education classroom setting over a 5-week period or to a…

Purpose: Informed by the constructivist learning theory, the purpose of this study was to determine the impact of three continuing professional development (CPD) approaches on student learning in a healthful living physical education curriculum. Methods: Physical education teachers (n = 19) received one of the following CPD trainings: (1)…

Visual comparisons are pervasive in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction and practice. In previous work, adults' visual comparisons of simple stimuli were faster and more accurate when the layout of a display facilitated alignment of corresponding elements--the "spatial alignment principle" (Matlen et al.,…

The professional lexicons of middle school mathematics teachers in communities around the world were documented as part of The International Classroom Lexicon Project. This vocabulary captured teachers' naming of classroom pedagogical practice. Reported in this paper are attributes of the lexicons of teachers from Australia and Chile. A comparison…