ASSISTments is a free online learning tool for improving students' mathematics achievement by providing immediate feedback and hints to students, detailed information on how students performed to teachers, and instructional suggestions for teachers to use. Researchers at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation conducted an intrinsic,…

Many researchers and educators have studied the use of Machine Translation (MT) in the L2 classroom, yet little data exists on World Language 6-12th grade educators' perceptions of MT. This study inquires into the ways that middle school and high school L2 educators perceive MT and how educators are adapting their assignments in light of its use.…

Asheville City Schools and Buncombe County Schools in Asheville, N.C., have partnered with the United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County to develop strategies for responding to the emotional and mental health needs of middle school students in those districts. More than 40 community partners have joined their efforts, which include a focus on…

Research suggests that academically gifted students are often underserved when it comes to the school setting. Academically gifted students require specialized instruction to challenge them. Several successful strategies exist for creating an educational environment that appropriately challenges and helps these students achieve academic growth;…

Many middle level teacher education programs attempt to explicitly address goals such as developmental responsiveness, empowerment and equity. Over the past 3 years, faculty at a regional comprehensive university explored perceptions of professional growth among middle level teacher candidates in a program that attempts to meet these aspirations.…

This qualitative exploratory case study focused on the achievement gap in mathematics that exists in one urban North Carolina middle school and the strategies used by school personnel to narrow this gap. The goal of this research was to determine effective instructional strategies and best practices used to engage students in learning that will…

English Language Learners (ELLs) are students that speak a primary language other than English. The number of ELLs continues to grow in the United States with the current majority having Spanish as their base language (Ortiz & Pagan, 2009). Since the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001, schools are held accountable for…

"ACCESS", A Culture Creating Effective Systems for Success, was a three-year Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant funded by the Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The "ACCESS" grant led the way for a district-wide redesign of educational practices based on the novel approach of…

One of the 16 core beliefs of middle level thinking is that schools and families must work together on behalf of every young adolescent (National Middle School Association, 2010). However, in classrooms and on curriculum nights, communication emerges as a critical issue. This is especially true when it comes to teachers' interacting with Latino…

This study, using qualitative, multiple case methodology, examined four middle schools within a Local Education Agency (LEA) in eastern North Carolina to determine whether the implementation of key middle school features; (a) interdisciplinary teaming, (b) flexible scheduling, (c) advisor/advisee relationships, and (d) an integrative, exploratory…

In one of the first large-scale analyses of urban trends on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research identified urban school systems that demonstrated high achievement or significant achievement gains on the NAEP, and examined possible factors behind…

Many industries in the United States already have seen positive results and increased productivity from the effective use of technology. With the challenges currently facing the nation's education system--including a persistent dropout rate of nearly 30 percent, slashed state and district budgets, and the economically and socially important goals…

Over the past decade, national initiatives have shifted States' attention to the challenge of turning around low-performing schools. The lack of consistent, dramatic improvements in the lowest-performing schools reflects the severity of the school turnaround challenge, but also suggests the need to continuously evaluate and refine turnaround…

The problem examined in this study: Does the majority of teachers use rigorous teaching and testing practices? The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore the classroom techniques of six effective teachers who use rigorous teaching and testing practices. The hypothesis for this study is that the examination of the…

The TALPS study aims to build on the existing research base to develop promising methodologies to identify chronically low-performing and turnaround schools, as well as to identify promising strategies for turning around chronically low-performing schools. By looking specifically at schools identified as turnaround, in comparison to nonturnaround…