Education Commons^™

Fostering Student Agency To Build A Whole Child, Whole School, Whole Community Approach, Holly Henderson Pinter, Lisa Bloom, Amie Broyhill, Kim K. Winter

Middle Grades Review

In this practitioner perspective, we explore the concept of student agency through the implementation of a student government association in a laboratory middle school. Interviews with a social studies teacher and her students offer perspectives of the impact of student voice and choice for student experiences. We describe three major lessons learned through this implementation process: students learn to have healthy conflict and cooperative skills; students learn the appropriate processes to enact change in a democratic society; and students learn to conduct service for their peers, school, and community.

Recovering Lost Local History: The Daily Record Project, Jeremy Hilburn, Tana Oliver, Leyna Varnum, Donyell L. Roseboro

Middle Grades Review

This practitioner perspective describes a collaboration between students and teachers at three middle schools, along with community partners, to recover and digitize news stories from The Daily Record, an African American owned newspaper that was attacked and burned in the 1898 Wilmington coup d’état.

Montessori Middle School: The Erdkinder, Luz M. Casquejo Johnston

Middle Grades Review

Montessori Education is over a century old. Since its inception, Montessori schools have been opened worldwide. While most are pre-schools serving three to six-year-old children, many people aren’t aware that Montessori spoke and wrote about middle level education before her death in 1952. Her concept for the Erdkinder, an intentionally designed learning environment for the adolescent ages twelve to fifteen, is described in this essay.

The Status Of Middle Schools In The Southeastern United States: Perceptions And Implementation Of The Middle School Model, Ryan Alverson, Mike Dicicco, Shawn A. Faulkner, Chris Cook

Middle Grades Review

For more than 100 years, education communities have debated how best to educate the young adolescent. Proponents of both the junior high school model and the current middle school model have advocated for a specialized approach to educating adolescents that emphasizes the developmental needs of students. To accomplish this, various organizational structures and instructional approaches are recommended. This survey study examines the perceptions of these middle school practices and the implementation of those practices in middle schools in the Southeastern region of the United States. We note several key trends in our results and highlight key differences in perception of …

Career Exploration At The Middle School Level: Barriers And Opportunities, Samantha Godbey, Howard R. D. Gordon

Middle Grades Review

In this essay, we discuss issues related to the integration of career exploration in our nation’s middle schools. We discuss the theoretical and empirical basis for career exploration at the middle school level and identify selected barriers to its effective implementation, namely with regards to career advising and parent involvement. We also propose new directions for practice and research as we work to counteract these barriers.

Understanding The Developmental Nature Of Young Adolescents: Editorial Remarks, James F. Nagle, Penny A. Bishop

Middle Grades Review

No abstract provided.

Empowering Students To Take Control Through Student Leadership Teams, Andrea Gratton, Kyle Chadburn

Middle Grades Review

As our educational system becomes more focused on personalizing learning for students, it is increasingly important for educators to empower students to take an active role in their learning and their communities. In this practitioner perspective, two educators reflect on the process of establishing student leadership teams in their school, and on the research that supports such efforts toward developing systems of student agency and self-advocacy in education.

Chip: Community Historical Interest Projects, Joe Rivers

Middle Grades Review

This practitioner perspective presents a process in which state-wide initiatives can be used as tools for creating place-based, project-based collaborations between students and local organizations within the community. Vermont is focusing on Content Proficiencies, Transferable Skills, Flexible Pathways and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. CHIP is an effort to combine these initiatives and offer students meaningful school work that provides a real service for, and connects students with, the local community.

Making Middle Grades Education More Accessible And Engaging: Editorial Remarks, James F. Nagle, Penny A. Bishop

Middle Grades Review

No abstract provided.

What Visualising Strategic Reading Means For Young Adolescents, Cynthia Reyes, Penny Bishop

Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education Publications

Since middle school is a critical time for literacy learning in general and comprehension in particular, educators are left to ponder how best to teach these students. In addition, what role might student perception of reading strategies through visual depictions have in order to help teachers decide how best to guide their students with challenging reading. In this conceptual piece, questions that guided our research were, What can we learn from students about the strategies they use to read challenging texts? and How do these strategies challenge adult norms of what constitutes strategic reading for young adolescents? We collected and …

Development And Implementation Of Comprehensive Sexuality Education Programs For Middle School Students, Minta Trivette

College of Nursing and Health Sciences Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Project Publications

Background: Sexual activity in adolescents carries population health risks such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection. Comprehensive sexual health education programs can be an effective strategy to help young people delay initiation of sexual intercourse, reduce the number of sexual partners, and increase condom and contraception use. As of the 2018/2019 school year, Burlington School District (BSD) middle schools did not have a comprehensive sexual health and safe relationship education program.

Purpose: Development and dissemination of comprehensive sexual health and safe relationship curricula for Burlington School District (BSD) middle schools.

Methods: This educational intervention was aimed at middle school health …