This unit is designed to acquaint middle school students with Pascal's Triangle. The unit is intended to be completed in small groups with a minimum of teacher direction. Students complete the activities by using manipulatives, calculators and computers and then report the results to the teacher and the class. The activities include: (1) patterns…

This manual for the teacher and/or counselor is part of the microcomputer version of the Carerer Planning System (CPS). CPS is a comprehensive instructional package designed to provide individualized career exploration and career-planning experiences for students of approximately middle-school age. This microcomputer version is designed to take…

Random samples of classroom teachers from Wyoming (n=555) and Louisiana (n=253) were drawn to determine teachers' purposes for using standardized tests, attitudes toward standardized testing, differences, if any, with grade level taught, and whether test use differed in two very different geographic locations. In addition, differences in…

The teaching and learning opportunities created by combining existing television programming with the kinds of interactivity offered by microcomputers have not been fully investigated by videodisc designers or science educators. The Videodisc Project Group, a subsection of Educational Technology Center's New Technologies Group, is: (1) conducting…

This study investigated the use in junior high schools of a prototype interactive videodisc, "Seeing the Unseen." The experimental disc contains four lessons designed to teach scientific inquiry skills. Students determine the order of the lessons and interact with the disc by touching the screen to pause, replay, see a series of…

Designed to reach a varied audience, this catalog provides concise summaries of some of the major commercial programs that teach thinking, and furnishes descriptions in terms of major goal, target audience, assumptions, process/materials, time, and developer. The first section offers programs primarily intended for teachers, including the…

A project was conducted to accomplish the following: (1) to enhance the existing career resources in the career center at Northside Junior High School (Virginia) by purchasing computer programs appropriate for all segments of the middle school population; (2) to make the career center resources available to regional school systems or other…

To improve the existing junior high school's academic and activities programs as well as the school environment, a school superintendent and a middle school consultant teamed with others to effect the transition of a 7-9 grade junior high school plan to a 6-8 grade middle school plan in Augusta, Kansas. The overall plan was basically simple and…

Designed for middle and junior high school students, the Human Sciences Program (HSP) represents a three year, interdisciplinary program which focuses on the role of the natural sciences in promoting the cognitive, psycho-social, and moral development of early adolescents. The materials consist of modules of activities designed around major themes…

A guide is presented for an exploratory language program whose goal is to develop an awareness in students of the variety of languages and cultures in their world. The course is a one-semester elective for middle and upper school levels, consisting of one general introductory unit on language and a series of language-specific units. It includes…

Background information and exemplary units for teaching science in Georgia's middle school grades are provided. Discussed in the first section are: (1) the rationale for including science in middle school grades, focusing on science/society/technology, science/social issues, scientific reasoning, and scientific literacy; (2) role of science…

The Bradford Book Flood--an experiment in which large numbers of additional books were made available to middle school children in England to see whether easy access to books improved reading skills and developed a taste for reading--is detailed in this book. The first chapter discusses the purpose and methodology of the experiment, while the…

The attitudes of middle and junior high school teachers toward their job and school climate are compared in this study. Twenty-nine teachers from a school having a modern middle school orientation (multi-age grouping, exploratory curriculum, and an interdisciplinary team organization) were compared with twenty teachers from a departmentally…

This study investigates whether students experiencing difficulty adapting to parental loss also feel they have little or no control over life events; whether an inability to adapt to the stress of parental loss surfaces as a school adjustment problem; and whether these relationships are stronger for students losing a parent through death than…

A national questionnaire survey of 1,413 principals of middle-level schools (those offering any combination of grades 5 through 9) gathered data on principals' personal and professional traits, tasks, problems, and opinions on selected educational issues; on school programs; and on student, school, staff, and community characteristics. The data…