With the demand for increased accountability in education today, we must select the most effective assessment approaches to use with our students. Rezaei and Lovorn's article, "Reliability and Validity of Rubrics for...

If you ask many of our middle school students what service-learning is, they often come up with an image of someone on the side of the road in an orange jumpsuit. We are not talking about forced service due to a legal...

During the middle school years young adolescents not only become aware of the changes associated with physical and emotional maturity, but they also adjust to new learning standards and expectations. The goals of...

"Everything seems cheap—when was this book made?" asked one student as we embarked on an activity to engage students in a meaningful exploration focused on mathematical modeling and connections using the...

It didn't take long to realize Marissa was not going to be focused on the day's lesson. Shortly after arriving in class, she took her seat, placed her head in her hands, and started crying. She shared that her best...

Teaching literacy skills through the story of Anne Frank has evolved for me—I've learned so much through my students and what they like in the music world! Their creativity and insights show academic progress,...

Most studies in education are observational studies. This means that investigators pore over data previously collected by others. They seek correlations between different variables. This approach is far less expensive...

I hated middle school. It seemed like a cruel joke almost 20 years ago that the only job I could find was teaching remedial English to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. When I tell my students that I hated middle...

"There's no way I'm taking honors biology next year," Katie told me. "It's going to wreck my GPA." She was in eighth grade and contemplating the high school course options. I knew Katie collected insects for fun...

Much of the writing we assign our students is public writing: writing to communicate with others. Writing-to-learn is personal writing, writing that helps students increase comprehension of texts—fiction and...