Middle schools implementing a multi-tiered system of supports will provide adolescents with or at risk for reading difficulties supplemental, small-group reading intervention classes. Although numerous studies have established that peer collaboration, blended learning, differentiation, and sufficient time for instruction are effective practices…

Mental health challenges are on the rise among today's youth. Recent reports have noted an acute and significant need for school-based mental health education and supportive interventions for children and adolescents. Among these approaches, a growing focus has centered on improving students' mental health literacy (MHL) as a foundational…

Our purpose was to provide a model for a middle school design thinking program supported by a university-school partnership and to investigate potential benefits of teaching middle school students to be design thinkers. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade girls (N = 80) participated in the Innovation Nation program. Over three days, students engaged…

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…

Over the past ten years, interest in game-based learning has increased. This increase stems from the results of research that demonstrate the potential for increased mathematical learning and engagement when game-based learning was implemented. It has been noted that the most frequent way game-based learning is included in research is with drill…

This study presents the perspectives and pedagogical practices of teachers who self-identify as social justice educators. Interviews with these social justice educators, who teach in large, diverse, metropolitan school districts, show that they create equitable spaces for their students. An analysis of the interview data concerning their beliefs…

The COVID-19 global pandemic significantly impacted both the academic and social and emotional development of middle school students. This article describes the benefits of implementing an interdisciplinary, project-based summer school program to support middle school students as they adapted to in-person learning after school closures due to the…

In the following article the authors detail important concepts surrounding sexual harassment when teachers address such topics in their classrooms. The article considers activities and resources for teachers that should be taught to middle school students in tandem with the literary titles. Middle grades literature, when paired with intentional…

Middle schools are increasingly diverse places where students see and interact with peers different from themselves. However, students with and without intellectual disability (ID) have few opportunities to interact--they are together infrequently within extracurricular settings and the classroom. As such, students with ID are on the margins of…

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…

The disruption of in-person delivery of a sexual health education curriculum to students in 19 urban middle schools in the Midwestern United States was one of many complications in education due the COVID-19 pandemic. Given time constraints and need for program delivery, community partners collaborated to convert the curriculum for virtual…

The dual pandemics of social unrest and COVID-19 during the summer of 2020 in the United States has produced a renewed sense of urgency and agency for the interrogation of curriculum in K-12 education and the development of culturally sustaining practices. This urgency has encouraged more teacher preparation programs and middle school leaders to…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused schools to shift to virtual or hybrid instruction, thrusting young adolescents into a very different educational environment. Stage-environment fit theory outlines ways in which educational contexts may, or may not, meet the developmental needs of young adolescents. Yet little is known about how virtual environments…

Young adolescents who are LGBTQIA+ often encounter hostile experiences while in middle level schools. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 young adolescents who are LGBTQIA+ at two middle schools to determine their experiences. Students report the ages at which they realized their gender and sexual identities: Five reveal…

This article examines the ways teachers, students, and teacher educators interacted in a unit around Christopher Columbus and other historical figures that have been given places of privilege within the dominant society. The authors trace how color-evasiveness and explicit engagement with race in the classroom intermingle with the implementation…