Middle school students with social and behavioral concerns need additional support. The current study investigated the effects of class-wide function-related intervention teams adapted for middle school contexts (CW-FIT MS) and self-management (SM) in a sixth-grade reading class. CW-FIT MS was implemented, subsequently, for students with data…

This qualitative case study explored school staff members' perceptions of motivation for students with learning disabilities (LD) in middle schools. Students with LD are most vulnerable when it comes to experiencing school failure and dropping out of school, and researchers have associated this vulnerability with motivation. This study focused on…

For many decades, traditional public schools were the dominant public schools available for educating students, including those with disabilities. However, in the current climate of school choice, parents can now choose from a variety of educational options for their children. This study sought to explore the reasons parents of students with…

Literacy standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and best practices from Institute of Education Sciences practice guides (e.g., Baker et al., 2014; Kamil et al., 2008) encourage content-area teachers to use text reading to improve vocabulary and comprehension for…

Miami, Florida has the highest percentage of foreign-born residents in any large US metropolis and is characterized by Caribbean culture and economic practice in a way that is unseen in many other US cities. Haitian immigrants have been flowing rapidly into historically African American communities since the 1970s. Adults who grew up in these…

This study focused on middle school science teachers' experiences in using technological tools to teach scientific inquiry skills in the middle school science classroom. Technological tools have been increasingly used in middle schools, but knowledge is lacking as to which tools are efficient in teaching scientific inquiry skills. The purpose of…

Student academic success is key to education. The problem was not all middle school students, grades 6-8, across southeastern South Carolina were performing at a level of academic readiness for the next grade level. The study filled gaps in the literature by examining participants' perceptions of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics…

Attending to students' thinking and using it to inform instruction has been shown to be an effective teaching practice. Although research on teacher noticing has explored how teachers attend to and interpret thinking in the moment and through video, less is known about the ways in which teachers notice students' thinking in written work, as well…

Is specialized middle level teacher preparation necessary? This essay offers the authors' thoughts regarding middle level teaching and the necessity of specialized middle level teacher preparation. The reader is encouraged to further the discussion of middle level teacher preparation from advocacy to actualization.

Purpose: To examine the relationship between the South Carolina middle school physical education assessment results and the school characteristics. In addition, the relationship between teacher training attendance and student achievement were determined. Method: Student performance on four physical education indicators in 63 middle schools (and…

Teaching controversial issues can be challenging for any teacher, but especially so when the teacher is a cultural outsider. In this article, we provide a snapshot of one social studies educator's experiences teaching about two hotly contested elections--the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the 2017 Korean special election--to middle school…

HEAT, an instructional program emphasizing a nontraditional hands-on approach to algebraic instruction for urban, predominantly African American middle schoolers, provides a space to explore teachers' beliefs about urban students' mathematical abilities and motivation and addresses how teacher perceptions can intersect with instruction, learning,…

Using an ecological approach to trauma-informed care and radical healing, this case study explores how one Title I public middle school mathematics classroom offered students opportunities to engage in healing practices through the use of Social Justice Mathematics. Findings indicate that students identified their emotions, engaged in structural…

As the digital age broadens opportunities for technology use in the classroom, educators must consider how to use technology to create rich and varied learning opportunities for English learners (ELs). This study examined four middle school teachers' perceptions and uses of multimodal technology with ELs in content-area learning. Findings indicate…

Historically, students with disabilities have been disproportionately exposed to exclusionary discipline including in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions, and expulsions. Despite association with lower academic achievement, increased risk of negative behaviors over time and involvement in the juvenile justice system, these exclusionary…