Surveyed middle school mathematics educators from professional development workshops on performance based assessment (PBA), veteran teachers, and teacher educators to examine classroom assessment variables and views on PBA experiences. Teachers perceived high efficacy regarding ability to effect instructional change. Most improved interactions…

Describes the Building Resource Teacher (BRT) position in one Colorado school district. Each elementary and middle school has a BRT who works with other teachers as a resident mentor, coach, and resource provider. The paper discusses what makes the BRT program successful. Three sidebars present lessons of the BRT program, how the program was…

Presents guidelines for balancing teaching about religions in middle schools and a bias-free atmosphere. Guidelines include: teach religion as a cultural constant that can be integrated across the curriculum; use long-range curriculum planning incorporating best teaching practices into diversity topics; use inclusive language when addressing…

Focuses on a 1998 University of Nevada project in which forty elementary and middle school teachers learned about the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) "Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People" and the NCSS thematic strands. Highlights strategies that emerged from the project that integrates children's literature…

To some teachers, the term "differentiation" means to do different things for the students who need remediation or who have disabilities. To other teachers, differentiation refers to any provision for student differences, including for those students who are more capable than average. There are also many teachers who do not use differentiation at…

This teacher education program experimented with innovative methods for identifying potential technology teacher candidates, and with providing training methods that take advantage of candidate's existing technological expertise and experience. In this article, the authors call attention to the shortage of technology education teachers, provide a…

American public schools, free and open to all, are one of the few public places where diverse groups of people can come together and make meaning of their lives. If public schools are to be the havens that people espouse them to be, they have to understand the sociocultural and historical processes that have impacted their beliefs, attitudes, and…

In her more than 30 years of teaching, the author has practiced differentiation in her own classroom at all educational levels. Although she is well familiar with the vocabulary, research and reasoning behind it, the most compelling answer she can give for why differentiation matters in the middle grades comes from her personal experience as an…

This article describes different ways that teachers and students interact in mathematics classrooms and the implications of those interactions for students' opportunities to share their thinking. (Contains 1 figure.)

Two exploratory studies were conducted to investigate U.S. teachers' attitudes and beliefs about bullying. Although most teachers believed they were doing a good job at preventing bullying, results indicate that some teachers hold beliefs that are at odds with current best practices in bullying prevention and intervention. First-year teachers…

The purpose of this study is to describe academic and behavioral outcomes for adolescents who were identified when they were in kindergarten and first grade as being at risk for developing emotional and behavioral disorders. Results indicated that primary school academic achievement and teacher ratings of academic competence were highly…

This volume emphasizes decision-making which links all the other topics together. The book balances two major perspectives influencing teacher decision-making about instruction today: (1) findings from research on effective teaching; and (2) the ideas of constructivism. Unique to the book is the inclusion in each chapter of a scenario in which a…

This study examines middle school teachers', absentee students', and their parents' perceptions of factors related to excessive school absences; perceptions of the degree to which they think they can contribute a solution to the problem; and expectations regarding one another's responsibility for the problem. Data was obtained from middle school…

Part of a larger ongoing study of the impact of antiracism mentoring on black student achievement, this report of a developmental study used a before-after approach to evaluate the pattern, direction, and significance of change in participating white teachers' white racial identity as a function of antiracism professional development. Using the…

This staff development kit is the second in a series designed that provides school-based staff development activities. The first kit contains materials, activities, and suggestions to help faculty with early efforts to implement the middle school concept. This kit provides various tools and techniques to improve the quality of teachers'…