Middle

This column provides how-to strategies and practical advice for the science teacher.

This study explores how technology can support idea exchanges in ways that value individuals’ prior ideas, and allow students to use these ideas to benefit their own and their peers’ learning.

The imperative that all students, including English learners (ELs), achieve high academic standards and have opportunities to participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning has become even more urgent and complex given shifts in science and mathematics standards. As a group, these students are underrepresented in STEM fields in college and in the workforce at a time when the demand for workers and professionals in STEM fields is unmet and increasing. However, English learners bring a wealth of resources to STEM learning, including knowledge and interest in STEM-related content that is born out of their experiences in their homes and communities, home languages, variation in discourse practices, and, in some cases, experiences with schooling in other countries.

English Learners in STEM Subjects: Transforming Classrooms, Schools, and Lives examines the research on ELs’ learning, teaching, and assessment in STEM subjects and provides guidance on how to improve learning outcomes in STEM for these students. This report considers the complex social and academic use of language delineated in the new mathematics and science standards, the diversity of the population of ELs, and the integration of English as a second language instruction with core instructional programs in STEM.

This study reports results from 113 students and three science teachers from two low-income urban middle schools participating in SciLG. It highlights the role of students’ views of themselves as competent, related, and autonomous in the garden, as well as their engagement and re-engagement in the garden, as potential pathways by which garden-based science activities can shape science motivation, learning, and academic identity in science.

This 2018 AERA structured poster session shed light on the DR K-12 portfolio of transformative research in online and blended teacher professional development.

This executive summary captures the results of the National Survey on Supporting Struggling Mathematics Learners in the Middle Grades, a study designed and conducted by EDC. T

This resource provides access to a classroom video of a lesson from the project's middle school ecosystems unit, and the related student scaffold and scoring rubric.

Disruptions in Ecosystems is a middle school curriculum unit with supporting teacher materials. The unit includes five chapters, each focused on a specific phenomenon related to ecosystem disruption, including questions around the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and the invasion of zebra mussels in the Great Lakes and Hudson River.

This blog post includes the link to 4 videos of teachers using the project's middle school ecosystems unit.

This chapter focused on learning and teaching measurement.