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…

Educators and the public often assume that digital technologies lay within the domain of newer teachers who may have grown up in a more digital world or have more practical experience using different mediums of technology, like social media and Web 2.0 applications. However veteran teachers have strong content and pedagogical knowledge at their…

The detected decline in middle school students' school engagement during the period of young adolescence is concerning. As middle school can be perceived as a time in which plans for higher education and career considerations begin to take shape, planting seeds for future aspirations certainly seems appropriate. This article draws on the…

Research on the overall effectiveness of single-sex education remains inconclusive; however, some research does indicate that benefits other than academic achievement may be possible with a single-sex format. Advocates argue that when single-sex environments are structured by not only separating boys and girls but also by leveraging…

Given the current emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and its key attributes, middle school is an optimal time to implement STEM-based curricula. However, the interdisciplinary and open-ended nature of STEM projects often makes implementation difficult. In this article, we describe a professional development…

Why do girls perform so well academically yet lose ground as professional women? This diminishing number of women up the leadership hierarchy is often referred to as the "leaky pipeline," and attributed to many factors: external ones such as work environments not conducive to work/life balance, and internal ones such as women's own…

All classrooms are active social systems; the middle school classroom involves complex interactions between and among peers as well as between students and teachers. In the elementary years, attention is often given to nurturing students and fostering relationships, yet when young adolescents transition to the middle school, a focus on control and…

This study explores the effectiveness of a workshop and accompanying conceptual framework designed to help middle school students become better participants in group work. The framework is designated BRAVE (build on ideas, risk tentative thoughts, ask good questions, value other perspectives, and use evidence). The framework is based on research…

Early adolescence is a dynamic stage for the development of critical consciousness, yet there are few resources focused on social justice education (SJE) in the middle grades. This article shares the findings from a study that investigated the experiences of three social justice educators as they engaged in SJE with young adolescents (YAs). We…

In this study, we examine evidence of transfer from reading instruction to students' learning of language arts and historical content as demonstrated by their independent writing and growth in background knowledge. We taught a unit in a sixth-grade language arts classroom in which students learned about design elements of graphic novels (e.g.,…

We present a naturalistic case study of one teacher's development of a growth-centered context for classroom assessment. In-depth interviews, analysis of student work, and observations were used to identify the processes this teacher used to engage her students in the assessment process. Data were analyzed using listening guide analysis to garner…

Finding materials to help students make connections is difficult for many teachers across all grade levels. Traditionally, the textbook is the primary resource for instruction. Textbooks, however, do not naturally support students in making connections across texts. To do this, teachers must find other resources. Finding other resources is…