This study compared the acquisition of an initial place value skill when presented in a concrete, semiconcrete, abstract teaching sequence to acquisition of the same skill when presented at the abstract level only. The 24 subjects were elementary and middle school students (ages 8-13) with learning disabilities who were randomly assigned to…

This document contains a set of activity sheets designed to enhance the self-esteem of middle school and high school students while helping them to develop a number of important life skills. Designed to be a supplement to other self-esteem enhancing strategies teachers are using, the activities in this book can be infused into the regular…

American children do not bring uniform characteristics to the school setting. The at-risk student actually learns, behaves, and thinks differently from the student considered ideally suited to traditional programming. The poor "fit" between the at-risk students' natural characteristics and the expectations of the traditional school…

A pilot study examined the effect of a read-aloud literature program on the attitudes of middle school students toward reading. A randomly selected group of 70 teachers and 1,673 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students from four regions of the United States and one region in Europe participated. Testing the hypothesis that student attitudes…

This curriculum was designed for teachers in middle grades and for other professionals working with youth. It deals with the extent of hate crime in the United States and strategies that are proving effective in reducing hate crimes among youth. The curriculum was pilot tested in middle schools in Massachusetts and Florida and a Catholic school in…

This collection of curriculum units in U.S. history tells some of the untold women's stories that describe some of the historical events and social settings of the past and illustrate some trends for the future. These stories are intended to encourage middle school and junior high school students to explore contemporary women's history themes that…

This collection of curriculum units in U.S. history tells some of the untold women's stories that describe some of the historical events and social settings of the past and illustrate some trends for the future. These stories are intended to encourage middle school and junior high school students to explore contemporary women's history themes that…

Suggests that much of the research on middle level education is weak, sparse, and inconclusive. Presents critiques of research and an overview of the research findings of several highly-rated middle level programs. Identifies four factors contributing to the problem, specifically: an insufficient number of studies, utilization of weak research…

Analyzes risk factors for drug use among 6,760 sixth- and seventh-grade Cuban, other Hispanic, African-American, and white non-Hispanic males in Miami (Florida). The cumulative prevalence of risk factors is monotonically related to drug use, but ethnic and racial differences in risk factor profiles suggest cultural differences in predictive value.…

Self-worth-related consequences of success and failure for low and high performers under cooperative and competitive reward structure were compared in 282 middle school students solving puzzles. Results illustrate that, regardless of reward structure, success and failure play a critical role in reducing the impact of individual performance…

This paper explores the implications of an effort to promote service learning in two middle schools in the Palo Alto (California) Unified School District. The schools are grades six through eight with about 1,000 students in each. The paper describes seven service efforts and then analyzes the costs and benefits of these projects. The study…

Focusing on predictors of academic success may help in the design of effective educational interventions. This study explores the enhancement of education for at-risk minority students by considering educationally resilient students and the classroom learning environment. Data was collected from six middle schools in a multi-ethnic school district…

This paper reports on research in the analysis of high school and middle school students' appropriation of the Research Article genre in science classes. The appropriation of this rhetorical form is proposed as a measure of students' understanding of adult argumentative practice in science and the effectiveness of a learning environment in…

This document examines how a unit on model rockets, designed to be a "hands-on" activity within the "Mission to Mars" curriculum that was implemented in the Nashville (Tennessee) area middle schools, has been used to investigate children's understanding of experimentation. A literature review explores some of the traditional…

Students from the United States were compared with similar students from South Korea regarding their attitudes toward school, their perceived responsibility for learning, and their perceived relationships with teachers. Data were collected from 305 female and 301 male students in grades 7-12 in Korean middle schools and high schools through the…