At Mayfield Middle School, in order to create personalized and more meaningful learning experiences for the students, it was realized that a typical, traditional schedule was not always conducive to the types of learning experiences teachers wanted to create. Teachers had great ideas for projects and practices that would incorporate more critical…

Ecological factors, such as family involvement and school context, are important to consider in understanding middle schoolers' math development. In this study, we examined the relations of middle school student-reported parental monitoring and school climate as well as school-averaged teacher reports of school organizational health (OH) to…

Despite the widespread use of school-based universal screening systems for social, emotional, and behavioral risk, limited research has examined discrepancies in ratings provided by teachers and their secondary students. Using the Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener (SAEBRS; teacher report) and mySAEBRS (student report) scores…

Attending to students' thinking and using it to inform instruction has been shown to be an effective and equitable teaching practice. Research on teachers' noticing of thinking conceptualizes noticing as a cognitive process, while work on noticing for equity treats noticing as culturally situated but primarily focuses on participation. Drawing on…

The problem addressed through this study is the inconsistent use of mathematics educational technology tools in middle school mathematics courses in the United States. The problem was important to address because inconsistent use of mathematics educational technology tools may impact student performance. The purpose of this basic qualitative study…

Higher-level questioning is an instructional method often recommended to challenge cognitively gifted students. However, professional development is needed to help teachers improve their ability to ask higher-level questions. Therefore, we developed an intervention based on Bloom's taxonomy, consisting of a 2-h session in which teachers learn how…

With the prevalence of Large Language Model-based chatbots, middle school students are increasingly likely to engage with these tools to complete their assignments, raising concerns about its potential to harm students' learning motivation and learning outcomes. However, we know little about its real impact. Through quasi-experiment research with…

This study explores teachers' perspectives on mandala coloring as a therapeutic tool for middle grades students with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs). Employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the research first conducted qualitative interviews with ten experienced teachers, followed by teachers' quantitative assessments of 60…

The primary purpose of the research is to examine middle school teachers' self-efficacy perceptions of digital competence. The participants of this study, which was conducted using the phenomenology pattern of the qualitative research approach, consisted of 17 middle school teachers who were determined using the criterion sampling method, one of…

Background: The prevalence of mental health challenges among adolescents warrants innovative school-based approaches that support students' mental health literacy (MHL). Purpose: In this qualitative case study, we interrogated the experiences of three eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teachers and two of their school's social support staff…

This paper examines the need to integrate students' full linguistic repertoires into literacy instruction in middle and high school classrooms. Traditional monoglossic approaches often neglect the linguistic assets multilingual students bring, limiting their academic potential. Drawing on translanguaging theory, this paper explores three…

To prepare young people for the increasingly complex and fluid world of their future, many countries have begun introducing digital technologies concepts and skills into their curricula. In 2017, the New Zealand National Curriculum was updated to incorporate digital technologies concepts in both the indigenous Maori-medium curriculum and the…

Educators are continuously exploring ways to enhance the academic potential of students while fostering a positive social atmosphere within classrooms. To meet these various curricular and interpersonal objectives, teachers are increasingly utilising educational storification in order to engage students and positively support their social…

This research investigated how middle school science teachers integrated engineering into their planned science instruction and the extent to which they conceptually linked science to engineering following participation in a professional development program. Video recordings of six teachers' classroom implementation of teacher-designed units were…

As part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Organizational Contexts, this paper explores the collective organizational sensemaking processes of middle school science teachers engaged in a design-based research project focused on supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identity and interest development of middle…