As students enter the middle grades, they often encounter curricula that grow more challenging each year. This is especially the case in social studies when students experience primary documents and complex texts,...

Middle school can be an exciting and terrifying time for students transitioning from elementary to middle school. By definition, transition means the change from one place, state of being, or condition to another...

Understanding students' academic needs and developing curricula to address them has always been a challenge for middle level educators. Competing perspectives on academic rigor and external demands for accountability...

Seventh grade teacher Elizabeth Delmatoff piloted a social media program in her Portland, Oregon classroom. By the end of the year, 20% of students school-wide were completing additional assignments for no credit,...

Practitioners, policymakers, and researchers have touted the importance of improving educator quality as fundamental to enhancing school and student outcomes (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos,...

A basic educational principle is that no matter how well teachers design their instruction, students who refuse to engage can ensure the teachers' instruction will come to naught. This simple truth leads teachers on a...

Early adolescence is a distinct period of human growth and development situated between childhood and adolescence. During this remarkable stage of the life cycle, young adolescents, 10- to 15-year-olds, experience...

We know that educators who "value young adolescents and are prepared to teach them" are a key component to middle level students' success (AMLE, 2010, p. 15). Middle level teachers must have the appropriate knowledge,...

The purpose of this research summary revolves around the collection of empirical work published within the last decade that focuses on middle level students most in need of support for their reading achievement....

Current educational reform calls for middle grades students who have the foundational skills to be "high school" ready (Williams, Rosin & Kirst, 2011). The Common Core State Standards Initiative (2010) echoes this...