Asserts that, in many schools, educators have made great strides in responding to ethnic diversity and gender issues. Argues that two other aspects of diversity--sexual orientation and religious differences--are often ignored. Discusses curriculum design, school policy development, and teaching methods related to these topics. (CFR)

Asserts that middle school education is a conceptually unique process requiring changed teacher roles, a curriculum of exploration rather than skill development, and student grouping based on developmental factors rather than by age or subject matter. (CFR)

University professors gave inservice workshops for intermediate grade teachers and continued to support teachers by modeling reading instruction techniques and monitoring implementation of reading strategies in the teachers' classrooms. Results for 82 fifth and sixth graders showed significant gains in Metropolitan Achievement Test reading scores…

This booklet describes how eight European countries structure educational provision for children in the middle years of schooling, ages 10 through 14. The booklet discusses the status of middle years education, the tracking of students, equal opportunities for minorities, specialization of teachers and counselors, academic versus holistic…

Noting that young adolescents have unique needs and interests that require understanding to better serve adolescents both academically and personally, this book is a professional's guide to working with middle school students. The first chapter lays the foundation for the book by describing who the middle school student is and the nature of young…

These three 1995 newsletter issues explore concepts and problems relevant to middle-level education. The cover story for the spring issue examines new trends in educational assessment. Additional briefs in this issue discuss team teaching, school reform as a community-wide effort, and home-school collaboration. The cover article for the Fall issue…

Recent calls for reform in mathematics education suggest students must learn to recognize mathematical elements in situations, flexibly apply appropriate mathematical tools, and engage in mathematical reasoning. These things suggest teachers must make their students' thinking a prominent part of their classroom instruction; they must make their…

This paper discusses the use of process writing to assist middle and junior high school students in becoming competent, confident mathematical problem solvers and communicators. The process writing technique involves students in four recursive, overlapping stages in writing: rehearsing, drafting, responding, and revising. Students utilize this…

This user's guide presents an interdisciplinary teaching approach for middle school instruction in the area of African-American history. It emphasizes the importance of cultural diversity and the need for tolerance to allow students to see racial harmony as a step to global peace. The guide is divided into four sections that encompass…

This instructional guide offers classroom lesson plans that can be used by teachers or police officers with a videotape to present a "Junior Police Academy" (JPA) program for middle school students. The guide also contains lesson plans and student activities to be used independently of the videotape. Following a description of the goals…

This student textbook and accompanying teacher supplement strive to provide objective instruction in global environmental issues. Twenty-six study units present facts, opinions, and consequences of environmental issues, as well as responses which have been, and could be, made to the environmental issues. Each unit is introduced by a newspaper…

The Randolph, New Jersey Intermediate School updated its industrial arts program to reflect the challenges and work force of the Twentieth Century in which students apply a design/problem-solving process to solve real-world problems. In the laboratory portion of the program, students circulate between workstations to define problems, complete…

To analyze a student's conceptual changes, analyzing transcriptions of writing and verbal statements may not provide enough information. In a study of 25 sixth graders learning about matter and molecules, concept mapping of students' stated ideas was used to analyze the kinds of organizational changes the students made to use new science…

The 1989 document, "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics" provides a vision and a framework for revising and strengthening the K-12 mathematics curriculum in North American schools and for evaluating both the mathematics curriculum and students' progress. The document not only addresses what mathematics students…

An in-depth investigation of the inner components of cooperative learning methodologies was made, concentrating on five basic research questions. These were: (1) Do teacher's focusing questions and interaction with students during cooperative learning facilitate students' critical thinking skills? (2) In what ways do cooperative learning groups…