The concept of partnerships between schools and practicing scientists came to prominence in the United States in the mid 1980s. The call by government for greater private sector involvement in education to raise standards in science achievement saw a variety of programmes developed, ranging from short-term sponsorships through to longer-term,…

Goal card sort and ranking task was given to middle school teachers and a sample of sixth- through eighth-grade students to generate data relevant to revising goals of an advisory program. Study categories included advocacy, community, skills, invigoration, academic and administrative. Community and advocacy goals received highest student ranking,…

A study examined the effectiveness of the Title 1 Middle School Summer program that provided students at two middle schools in the Columbus, Ohio public school district with background experiences to help them connect learning to living. Mathematics and literacy lessons were developed around travel experiences to museums, zoos, baseball games, Sea…

Presents (in the form of a conversation with "The Vampire") data on middle school students' attitudes toward literature circles, how they choose their groups for literature circles, patterns in the groups chosen, and how students selected the books they did. (SR)

Describes a school prevention program that emphasizes normal developmental needs of middle school students. The School Families groups, comprised of middle school students, teachers, and adults, met weekly during the school day to discuss issues related to academic performance, decision making, self-esteem, and social skills. Evaluation results…

This evaluation report describes a program designed to reduce substance abuse among students by establishing a comprehensive peer program in the middle schools (grades 6 through 8). The background of the project is reviewed, five important aspects of a peer helper program are listed, and three intervention strategies of peer assistance programs…

Explores a creative middle-school structure that provides a block of about two hours in the school day when one teacher has a group of students engaged in a variety of interdisciplinary activities. The concepts of learning circles and group-dependent projects are discussed. The core of the proposed middle school is constructivism. (SLD)

A study was proposed to determine to what extent a hierarchical structure exists in music and in tests used to measure music ability. The first research question was whether items in the Watkins-Farnum Performance Scale (J. Watkins and S. Farnum, 1954) (WFPS) form a hierarchy, so that early exercises (bars played) are generally easier than later…

The long-term goal of Project SAVE (Stop Alcohol Violations Early) is to reduce underage drinking. When a major revision of the program was initiated, the pilot program was evaluated for statistically measurable changes against short-term goals. The results of that evaluation are presented here. Four elements were included in the evaluation…

The feasibility of the administration, scoring, and reporting of an on-line concept mapping system has been studied in collective research in which concept map construction systems were designed to allow students individually and collaboratively to construct concept maps on the computer to measure content understanding and collaboration. The study…

Teaching strategies that foster academic achievement for special and regular education students in the same classroom are crucial for successful student integration. One such approach is creativity training, which may aid all students in the development of concept mapping, a metacognitive strategy that allows students to integrate creative…

Service learning has been proposed as one strategy to empower youth, engage students, and provide real-life applications for classroom learning. One model of service learning, "The Helper Model," which was designed specifically for use with middle school students, is presented here. Data to test the model were collected from over 500…

Discusses how students acquire curriculum knowledge and beliefs in typical upper-elementary and middle-school social studies and science units, and how the cognitive processes involved in acquiring knowledge are themselves acquired through classroom experiences. Uses evidence from a series of classroom studies to demonstrate how classroom learning…

This document consists of a final report and executive summary. The report is that of a project involving eight college and university faculty who were given the responsibility of developing new versions of introductory level geography courses. The plan of the project involved bringing together college or university professors, local school…

This paper describes the status of the standards movement in relation to the middle grades and in terms of the policy context of the 1990s. It also outlines the potential of standards-guided reform at the middle level. By the early years of the 1990s, two key assumptions characterized the new wave of proposed reforms: that schools needed to…