The goal in this qualitative phenomenological study was to discover the experiences of middle school teachers as they pertain to culturally responsive pedagogy, student engagement, and student growth. Participants who taught culturally diverse students in Grades 6-8 were recruited from public charter middle schools in an urban district in the…

This study utilized a pretest posttest design to examine the impact afterschool activities had on students in middle school. Survey and focus group data were used to access participants' behavior, achievement and attendance in while participating in afterschool programs. Findings from the study concluded that student's participation in afterschool…

Educators are continuously exploring ways to enhance the academic potential of students while fostering a positive social atmosphere within classrooms. To meet these various curricular and interpersonal objectives, teachers are increasingly utilising educational storification in order to engage students and positively support their social…

Teacher educators surveyed and interviewed program alumni working in middle schools to address the question, what literacy practices have you found to be most supportive of English language learners in your classrooms? This article describes the three most common practices identified by the middle school teachers, practices that are affiliated…

Culturally sustaining pedagogies have encouraged scholars to reimagine and rebuild justice-oriented classrooms across context and disciplines and provide opportunities for students to reclaim their ways of knowing and doing in schools. In this study, we seek to contextualize culturally sustaining teaching practices in integrated science and…

Policies and practices in middle school continue to perpetuate inequities faced by students from historically marginalized groups. In the current article, we present a literature review that focuses on feedback as one avenue by which inequities are exacerbated, specifically for Black and Latiné middle school students. Furthermore, we describe…

Starting at the school level, language education develops comprehension and expression skills. It is important to develop literacy skills as it is the basic way of acquiring information. Native language textbooks created with a text-based approach are an integral part of this process. Accurate, qualified, and purposefully selected texts help…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the demographic characteristics of middle school students on their mathematics performance on the STAAR examination. More specifically, this study examined the effect of the variables gender, ethnicity, and at-risk status, separate and collectively, on the four mathematics components…

This cross-sectional study looks into how students' perceived teacher support is linked to achievement emotions in mathematics via academic control and value. The data was gathered from 602 secondary students (13-16-year-olds) in 16 mathematics classrooms from three public schools in Jiangsu province, China. Participants were asked to respond to…

Collective leadership of teachers and administrators can be a vehicle for catalyzing school improvement. In chemistry, a catalyst is any substance that increases the rate of reaction without itself being consumed. Leadership that accelerates good work without using up the leader is increasingly necessary. We identified schools that demonstrated…

Large language models have recently been able to perform well in a wide variety of circumstances. In this work, we explore the possibility of large language models, specifically GPT-3, to write explanations for middle-school mathematics problems, with the goal of eventually using this process to rapidly generate explanations for the mathematics…

Based on an ethnographic study at a middle school in a Midwestern city, this article examines the difficulty in creating anti-racist educational spaces, even in schools with a stated desire to do so. The school's curriculum was mainly based on teachers' abstract ideas of social justice and was not grounded in students' everyday realities. It…

Through a qualitative case study approach, this study sought to understand how an independent school for gifted learners supports parents, teachers, and students in maximizing the potential of twice-exceptional learners. Findings indicated that the school's success in working with twice-exceptional learners could be attributed to a triangular…

Adolescent mental health is a growing concern in the United States. Children who experience mental health issues struggle in the school environment if their needs are not met. Teachers play a critical role in the classroom when identifying students who struggle with mental health issues. The purposes of this convergent, parallel mixed-methods…

A student's middle school science experience strongly impacts their future science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interest. The Japanese lesson study (JLS) model strengthens the student's experience through a research-based, collaborative, multistep, teaching-centered process focused on transforming local instructional practices. The…