Purpose: The purpose of this viewpoint article is to share the reflections of school and university leaders on the success of their emerging school-university partnership for the preparation of middle school teachers. Design/methodology/approach: The article is a reflective paper in which the leaders of the school-university partnership discuss…

This study seeks to share teachers' and principals' voices from middle schools in the Southeastern United States who are attempting to help their students achieve academic success. Obtaining a snapshot of middle schools in the Southeastern United States provides opportunities to recognize trends and identify challenges about the current…

School climate has been connected to many important school and student-level outcomes: student achievement, teacher retention, and more. However, the understanding of the extent to which school climate and educator well-being are connected is less robust. This paper explores the extent to which school climate predicts educators' perceptions of…

For more than 100 years, education communities have debated how best to educate the young adolescent. Proponents of both the junior high school model and the current middle school model have advocated for a specialized approach to educating adolescents that emphasizes the developmental needs of students. To accomplish this, various organizational…

The passage to middle school has been identified as a confusing period for adolescents, involving a series of major transitions. A new variable that permeates these already lofty transitions is the firm entrenchment of Generation Alpha in the middle grades classroom, a cohort that includes anyone born from 2010 onward, making them the first…

"Literacy Design Collaborative" aims to help teachers improve their effectiveness in the classroom with a focus on supporting their literacy instruction. "Literacy Design Collaborative" provides professional development, coaching, and resources to support teachers to work collaboratively in their schools to create and use…

"Literacy Design Collaborative" aims to help teachers improve their effectiveness in the classroom with a focus on supporting their literacy instruction. "Literacy Design Collaborative" provides professional development, coaching, and resources to support teachers to work collaboratively in their schools to create and use…

"Literacy Design Collaborative" aims to help teachers improve their effectiveness in the classroom with a focus on supporting their literacy instruction. "Literacy Design Collaborative" provides professional development, coaching, and resources to support teachers to work collaboratively in their schools to create and use…

This article focuses on four university teacher educators across three mid-western institutions working together to collaborate and develop a shared understanding of practice in middle level teacher education while modeling a team approach to teaching and learning. Three institutions, University of Louisville (UL), University of Kentucky (UK), and…

Teacher noticing and the related construct of professional noticing of children's mathematical thinking have proven to be fertile ground for education researchers. Professional noticing is a framework for a teaching practice consisting of three component parts: attending, interpreting, and deciding. The current study investigates the conceptions…

As practicing teachers, school personnel, and teacher educators engaged in a school-university partnership, we have worked to co-create a mutually beneficial relationship centered around the learning needs of young adolescents. In this article, we will describe our diverse perspectives on and perceptions of how the partnership enhances the…

The employers in our country are claiming students are graduating high school and college without the soft skills to succeed in this country's workforce. This study examined what are soft skills and why are they missing from recent graduates. The study took a historical approach to trace how soft skills have been used and ignored in our nation's…

The middle level years continue to be of significant concern to educational stakeholders, policymakers, theorists, and researchers. Chief among this concern is the degree to which middle level students adapt to the middle level climate and eventually begin to feel attached to or a sense of belonging at their school. The research literature has…

Initiated for the 2013-14 school year, the Common Assignment Study (CAS) is a three-year effort being led by the Colorado Education Initiative (CEI) and The Fund for Transforming Education in Kentucky (The Fund) with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Conceptually, CAS builds on previous efforts to improve instruction through…

Scholars and policymakers see improving teacher quality as a key way to improve student learning. While quality may be improved in a variety of ways for pre-service teachers, professional development is one of the few avenues by which quality can be improved for those teachers already in the teaching profession. But professional development, like…