This report describes a program to improve inappropriate behavior of targeted fifth and sixth grade classes in an elementary school in northern Illinois. Seventeen percent of the school population is identified as low-income, although the community is experiencing a rapid increase in residential and commercial growth. Time-off task, incomplete…

Studies suggest that the transition to middle school is associated with a decline in motivation and performance for a number of children. This longitudinal study examined changes in motivation in English and mathematics across and after the transition from elementary to middle school. Of particular interest were changes in personal goal…

Based on an ongoing study of rural and urban Appalachian adolescent girls, this paper examines ways in which culture, class, ethnicity, and place influence girls' developing sense of self and beliefs about their lives, schooling, and futures. The 65 girls in the study are participants in "Rural and Urban Images: Voices of Girls in Science,…

Many young adolescents, possibly as many as half, feel boxed in and bored in their middle schools. Research suggests that schools, parents, and the rest of the community must do more to make middle schools places where young adolescents thrive. In spite of the emergence of the junior high school and later the middle school in the 20th century,…

Authors who have reviewed the literature on teaching and learning in U.S. history and in social studies have argued that a need exists for comparative case studies of teachers' history and social studies teaching practices and the influence that these practices have on students, especially at the elementary school level. This report, which is…

This paper addresses two approaches to serving students at risk for or with emotional and/or behavioral disorders in general education settings: (1) use of individual behavior plans (IBPs), and (2) use of the combined classroom model. The process of developing an IBP is detailed, including when an IBP is developed, by whom it is developed, and the…

This book is a collection of essays by full-time classroom teachers who describe their efforts to implement the vision of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards documents and to empower their students in mathematics. Chapter 1, "Students' Conceptions of Mathematics and the Challenge of the Standards" (Dorothy Buerk),…

Children begin school with the ability to use their informal and implicit conceptual knowledge to guide their problem solving, but shift to the use of superficial strategies in their attempts to solve word problems as they progress through school. This paper describes a study designed to investigate the effects of an instructional sequence that…

This study assesses whether or not there is a significant difference in school climate, as reported by students' affective attitudes, toward curriculum and instruction for a cohort from one academic year to the next when intervention programs have been introduced. In the fall of 1989, the Program of Research and Evaluation for Public Schools…

This practicum was designed to develop a transition program and social activities for sixth-graders to help ease the passage from elementary school and increase their sense of belonging in a sixth- through eighth-grade junior high school. The students were surveyed concerning their degree of self-esteem, connection to school, perception of…

A study examined the attitudes of a group of 66 fifth and eighth graders in four classes in an intermediate school located in rural southeast Louisiana toward a set of traditional sex role-typed occupations. Age (grade level) did not appear to influence students' attitudes toward the interrelationship of sex and occupational choice. Furthermore,…

The Mobile Education Teams (METs) Program of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools instructs limited English proficiency (LEP) adolescents. Funded by a 3-year Title VII grant and implemented in six intermediate and junior high schools beginning in 1984-85, METs provide intensive elementary-level English, reading, and mathematics…

A course of study was researched, designed, and implemented by the writer to learn mathematics apprehensions of fifth grade students. The primary goal was to reduce mathematics apprehension through positive mathematics experiences at home as well as in school. The objectives of the program were to develop a more positive feeling about mathematics…

Comparative research was conducted using gifted and average upper elementary and junior high school students to determine the effectiveness of utilizing microcomputers for the development of computer literacy and the implementation of curriculum courseware. Eighty students were selected as the treatment group and received instruction in 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…