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…

This study investigated how a self-regulated learning intervention, implemented within a personalized learning environment, affected students' self-regulation, self-efficacy, and academic achievement at a middle school. The personalized learning environment in this study was two self-paced units within middle school seventh grade math classrooms.…

Public education depends on the collaboration of adults to promote the success of the students who are served. Principal-teacher relationships are a necessary part of the overall learning environment established for students to grow and thrive. In an urban educational setting these relationships can be tested, especially in the transitional grades…

Engineering design practices in STEM education focus on reflecting the discipline-specific work of engineers in a manner that is suitable for the student level and course learning objectives. Using an engineering design context also facilitates student identification of global problems and feasible solutions to address such problems. In this…

Instructional quality dimensions of cognitive demands and instructional support have been shown to have an impact on students' learning gains. Existing operationalizations of these dimensions have mostly used comprehensive ratings that combine various subdimensions of task quality and interaction quality. The current study disentangles interaction…

Fostering a sense of belonging is fundamental to recommended organizational structures in middle grades schools including interdisciplinary teams, advisory relationships, flexible instructional schedules, and heterogeneous grouping. Middle grades educators must ensure that organizational structures support a sense of belonging and also…

Middle level scholars and educators have begun to examine dominant narratives and conceptual traditions around middle level history and philosophy with careful attention to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) (Harrison et al., 2018). Across these critical shifts in focus for middle grades education, myriad questions have arisen about…

The purpose of this quantitative ex post facto study was to determine if, and to what extent, differences existed in pre-and-post math scores following the VMath intervention for Title I 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in the Southwestern United States. Three research questions guided this study: (1) is there a statistically significant difference in…

The current study used thematic analysis to examine school staff perspectives on the impact of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) on school climate in terms of the quality of student-student and student-teacher relationships in two low-income, urban middle schools in the United States. Data were collected using focus groups and…

When developing school improvement plans and implementing transformational change, why not ask students? Involving students and listening to their voice can provide a better understanding of what is needed and how the school improvement process can be enhanced to promote growth. Principals play a significant role in the leadership of school…

Ongoing discourse in education emphasizes the need for schools to adapt to 21st-century teaching methods to adequately prepare students for the future society and workforce. The problem is that schools battle constraints of priorities and limited resources, and the onset of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has only further unearthed and magnified…

Despite daily interactions by principals with a variety of adults, there is scant research on the experiences which are so disrespectful that they become instances of workplace mistreatment. This study reveals, in a first of its kind, that workplace mistreatment does exist for principals and there are challenges to preventing it. Therefore, the…

The purpose of this study is to identify how common the practice of block scheduling is currently among American public middle schools. This study also determines the perspectives of choral music educators working in public middle schools with existing block schedules. More extant literature is needed to examine block scheduling practices at the…

Racial disproportionality in school discipline is a major U.S. educational problem. Official data show that Black boys are disciplined at the highest rates of any racial and gender subgroup. Scholars suggest the "criminal" Black male image shapes teachers' views and treatment of their Black male students. Yet few studies examine the…

This phenomenological qualitative research study aimed at understanding the scheduling practices of middle school principals in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. More specifically, this study examined how frequent changes are made to the middle school master schedule, factors that contribute to scheduling changes, barriers to scheduling, and the…