Middle School Curriculum Research Articles

The integration of science explorations through the use of Earth images in middle school curriculum

KidSat was a pilot project dedicated to bringing students to the center of the learning process. In this unique pilot program. KidSat created a dynamic collaboration among middle school, high school, and university students with scientists, engineers, teachers, and educational theorists to create a program that tied "real-time" science exploration and discovery to learning in the classroom. This project, supported by NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), Johnson Space Center (JSC), and corporate and individual donors, inspired and motivated young people to expand their knowledge base through the use of Earth images. Middle school students from across the country controlled a student-designed, digital camera mounted onboard three space shuttle missions. Images from this instrument were incorporated into the teaching process and demonstrated the importance of using real data to excite and motivate young people. By providing students the opportunity to learn through analysis of self-chosen images of the Earth taken from the space shuttle, the acquisition of knowledge became more relevant and applicable to all subject areas. This initiative changed the expectations of many participants as to what students can learn and accomplish when provided with exciting content, well-trained teachers, and access to real data.

The KidSat Student Mission Operations Center-SMOC

KidSat was a NASA pilot project wherein middle school students investigated their world with images of the Earth using a digital camera onboard the space shuttle. Students requested and retrieved Earth images in Student Mission Operations Centers (SMOCs) located in their schools using the Internet as their communications link while the shuttle was in orbit. In the SMOCs, students selected specific geographic sites around the world, determined the map coordinates for each site, and relayed the site data to a KidSat computer on the shuttle via a KidSat Mission Control Gateway (MCG). The computer then activated the KidSat digital camera mounted in the window of the shuttle, and the images were downloaded to the KidSat data system and posted on a web page for the middle schools students. The SMOC was a miniature mission control center modeled after NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston, TX, but with a very specific purpose: to image the Earth with the KidSat camera. The SMOCs had one primary task: target and verify images of the Earth to meet the objectives of their school's investigation themes. Students were organized into teams that planned investigations and associated locations to image, monitored orbit paths and flight timelines, checked weather conditions at the targeted sites, and provided public information to the local media. The SMOCs made the KidSat program unique and exciting as students actually used NASA technology in combination with school equipment to actively participate in a shuttle mission. Prior to launch, students gathered information, asked questions, hypothesized outcomes, and planned ways to test their hypotheses using the Earth images. From their studies, they were able to draw conclusions, for example, about the relationship between man and the environment. In a school setting, the application of knowledge is too often restricted to controlled science lab experiments in which the outcome is already known. KidSat opened a world of possibilities, allowing students to investigate issues using images to determine actual conditions. KidSat successfully adapted NASA technology for use in the middle school curriculum, expanding the horizons of those who were involved.

Reflections on Practice: Multiple Strategies = Multiple Challenges

When teachers give a problem like “Find 3/4 of 60,” they can anticipate the ways in which students will respond. It is easy to tell whether the student knows how to do the problem and whether she or he got the right answer. The mistakes that students might make on this problem are also predictable. Other problems found in traditional middle school curricula might produce more variety in solution strategies, but usually few surprises greet the experienced teacher. Few judgments need to be made, because the strategy is either appropriate or not; and barring computational errors, the answer is either right or wrong. This familiarity with the mathematics, the problems, and potential student responses produces a desirable level of comfort for teachers, even for those who are sometimes uncertain about their own mathematical skill and understanding. It leaves them free to focus on preparing students for the next skill to be learned and assisting those students who need extra help to become proficient. What happens when the curriculum, some of the mathematics, the problems, and the solution strategies all seem new and unpredictable? What does this situation mean for the teacher and for the students?

Policy-making in science systemic reform

This interpretative research portrays the turbulent conditions that are typical of my experiences as a science supervisor in the central office of a large urban school district in southeastern United States implementing science systemic reform. The research documents a dependence on an authoritarian view of policy-making that combined with procedures for making assignments allows stakeholders to undervalue the decisions that they make and increases the possibility for blaming others for their decisions. The impact of traditional and reform attitudes about curriculum and schools is described as well as efforts to resolve these conflicting views in the process of developing a middle school curriculum guide. The frustrating effect of the interactions of changing curriculum guides, changing instructional materials, and insufficient resources are described in a visit to a middle school science department meeting. The roles of time, understanding of systemic assumptions, and appropriate inquiry and communication skills are critical to the decision making process and little attention is given to address these issues. The result is that decisions end up being made without resolution of the differences among stakeholders leading to negative feelings and creating currents of frustration and distrust that undermine reform efforts.

Global Education in the Middle School Curriculum: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

More and more, teachers are being asked to incorporate information about the world into their class rooms—in short, to globalize the curriculum. Because our world is becoming more intercon nected and the United States is becoming more cultur ally heterogeneous, schools need to help students understand and thrive in these conditions. At the mid dle school level, global education takes advantage of young adolescents' awakening concern and interest in the world around them. Several overlaps exist that make global education and the middle school a logical pairing. Four of the most apparent connections (inter disciplinary teaching and learning, cooperative learning, active learning, and authentic assessment) are dis cussed here.

Integration in Teacher Education: Building Units around Ordinary, Everyday Objects

In an average lifetime the typical American eats 35,138 cookies; 269 gallons of ice cream; 1,483 pounds of candy; 443 pounds of potato chips; 67 pounds of corn chips; 85 pounds of pret zels; 4,194 quarts of popcorn; and 152 pies (Heymann, 1991). United States is the number one nation in snack food consumption (Shapiro, 1992). We pooh-pooh the wet noodles who warn us of the dangers of our excesses and put away 500 million Twinkies a year (Sutton & Markey, 1993). It is not just snacks that fuel us: in an average lifetime we also eat 5,842 bowls of pasta; 18,216 bowls of cereal; and drink 56,044 cups of coffee (Heymann, 1991). We have more than a passing interest in food. Every cultur ally literate American can describe Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Three Musketeers (not the Dumas novel), Chee-tos, Shredded Wheat, Ritz crackers, and Wonder Bread. If economic conditions do not limit what we consume, we are big eaters. This is nothing new. Even in the early 1800s, James Fenimore Cooper said that, The Americans are the grossest feeders of any civilized nation known (Lasky, 1977). Although food is a large part of students' daily lives and they have learned about it through a hands-on approach, we rarely ask students to research the topic of familiar foods in-depth. A thematic unit on food can integrate history, science, and the social sciences of eco nomics, geography, and psychology into the middle school curriculum. It can provide lessons in human qualities that we admire. It also can encourage students to conduct research from original sources and can pol ish their letter writing skills as they seek corporate infor mation on a particular brand name food. A thematic unit on food can incorporate an analysis of advertising propaganda techniques used by manufacturers, and such a unit can show the interconnectedness of life.

Polygon Capture: A Geometry Game

The curriculum and evaluation standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 1989) calls for an increased role for geometry in the primary and middle school curricula. An important mathematical strand in its own right, geometry also provides opportunities to promote and assess mathematical communication, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. Unfortunately, many students lack the vocabulary and the conceptual understanding needed to desctibe geometric relationships. This atiicle describes a game, Capture the Polygons, that I have designed to help middle school students think about geometric properties and the relationships among them. A version of the game has been tested in firth- and sixth-grade classes as part of the field test of Fifth Grade Everyday Mathematics (Bell et al. 1995). Observations of classes playing the game, as well as feedback from their teachers, indicate that students find the game challenging but fun. Depending on the background of the students, it can be played at different levels of difficulty.

How Valid is Integrated Curriculum in Today's Middle Schools?

(1998). How Valid is Integrated Curriculum in Today's Middle Schools? Middle School Journal: Vol. 29, Active Learning for Active Minds, pp. 38-41.

Estimate of the Week

Imagine an extracurricular mathematical contest in which 60 percent of your school's student body voluntarily participates each week. Imagine the excitement on students' faces in a school assembly, where the results of this contest is the most anticipated announcement of the week. And imagine that this contest is easy for you to run, costs nothing, and gives students experience with important skills and concepts in the middle school curriculum.

Call for Manuscripts for the 1999 Focus Issue: Data and Chance in the Middle School Curriculum

The march 1999 issue of Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School (MTMS) will focus on the theme “Data and Chance in the Middle School Curriculum.” The Editorial Panel would like to feature exemplary lessons related to these topics. examine how these topics might be explored by middle school students, and highlight ways that data and chance can be connected to other areas of study.

The Aesthetic Role of Literature in the Middle School Curriculum

Recently in a career exploration and study skills course for students in grades 9-12, class discussion centered on the importance of reading. Students were talking about the reading skills and strategies they used and about what they liked to read. Toward the end of the discussion, one of the boys, a senior, raised his hand and asked in a very serious tone: Hey, why do people read, anyway? He was asking about the payoff' in reading; he was ask ing because, unfortunately, he did not know. How many middle school students know what this 17-year-old high school student did not know? How many of them know what payoff reading provides, or that there even is one? Middle school students' inter ests and attitudes are volatile. Their attitudes toward

Developing Conceptual Understanding of Relations and Functions with Attribute Blocks

Much attention has recently been focused on students in the middle grades. The unique difficulties and characteristics of this group have prompted the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to refer to them as “children in transition” (NCTM 1989, 68). Middle school students continue to rely on concrete experiences to construct knowledge but are starting to develop the ability to think abtractly (NCTM 1989, 68). Thus, the middle school curriculum should build “a bridge between the concrete elementary school curriculum and the more formal curriculum of the high school” (NCTM 1989, 102). The series of lessons described in this article extends the concrete experiences that many elementary students have had with attribute blocks to provide middle school students with informal opportunities to explore the concepts and properties of relations and functions.

Call for Manuscripts for the 1999 Focus Issue: Data and Chance in the Middle School Curriculum

The march 1999 issue of Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School (MTMS) will focus on the theme “Data and Chance in the Middle School Curriculum.” The Editorial Panel would like to feature exemplary lessons related to these topics, examine how these topics might be explored by middle school students, and highlight ways that data and chance can be connected to other areas of study.

Evaluation of Implementation of an Interdisciplinary Nutrition Curriculum in Middle Schools

This paper provides an evaluation of teachers’ implementation and perceptions of Mid-LINC, an interdisciplinary nutrition curriculum for middle school students. Evaluation methodology included both quantitative and qualitative procedures. Quantitative evaluation included distribution of a survey instrument to measure teacher attitudes toward the curriculum, their implementation of the curriculum, and factors related to attitude and implementation. Qualitative evaluation included classroom observation, depth interviews with teachers, and focus group interviews. On average, elementary and home economics teachers taught the highest number of lessons, and language arts teachers taught the fewest. The number of college nutrition courses taken by the teacher was the best predictor of implementation of the curriculum. Overall, the response to the curriculum was very favorable, with teachers rating it easy to use, flexible, and complete. The perceived importance of team teaching, the extent to which the teacher felt informed about nutrition, and the felt importance of nutrition in the middle school curriculum were significant predictors of comfort with the curriculum. Important facilitators to successful implementation are a project manager, teacher interest, and common planning times. Barriers to implementation include scheduling constraints, teacher resistance, personnel changes, and lack of administrative support.

Enhancing the middle school curriculum through service learning

Enhancing the middle school curriculum through service learning

Call for Manuscripts for the 1999 Focus Issue: Data and Chance in the Middle School Curriculum

The march-april 1999 issue of Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School (MTMS) will focus on the theme “Data and Chance in the Middle School Curriculum.” The Editorial Panel would like to feature exemplary lessons related to these topics, examine how these topics might be explored by middle school students, and highlight ways that data and chance can be connected to other areas of study.

The Impact of the Postponing Sexual Involvement Curriculum Among Youths in California

Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI) is a widely implemented middle school curriculum designed to delay the onset of sexual intercourse. In an evaluation of its effectiveness among seventh and eighth graders in California, 10,600 youths from schools and community-based organizations statewide were recruited and participated in randomly assigned intervention or control groups; the curriculum was implemented by either adult or youth leaders. Survey data were collected before the program was implemented, and at three months and 17 months afterward. At three months, small but statistically significant changes were found in fewer than half of the measured attitudes, behaviors and intentions related to sexual activity; at 17 months, none of these significant positive effects of the PSI program had been sustained. At neither follow-up were there significant positive changes in sexual behavior; Youths in treatment and control groups were equally likely to have become sexually active, and youths in treatment groups were not less likely than youths in control groups to report a pregnancy or a sexually transmitted infection. The evaluation suggests that PSI may be too modest in length and scope to have an impact on youths' sexual behavior.

El museo de arte en el curriculum escolar

Titis article analyzes the history and use of the art museum as a publicfacility and as att educational tool. implementation of tite art museum into middle school curriculum has proved beneficial, ifnot necessary, for a child's aesthetic ana cultural appreciation of the world. PALABRAS CL4 VE: estetica-estetico, cultural literacy, curriculum, implementacion, maluca/sural.

Actual States and Problems of Learning Science in Elementary and Middle Schools for High School Students Taught with New Middle School Curriculum

Actual States and Problems of Learning Science in Elementary and Middle Schools for High School Students Taught with New Middle School Curriculum

No More One-Legged Chairs: Sharing the Responsibility for Portfolio Assessment with Students, Their Peers, and Their Parents

Twenty-one years ago, when I first started my career in education, student assess ment was the exclusive domain of the teacher and consisted largely of paper and-pencil tests. A grade was assigned based on a percentage of predetermined to-be-correct answers, and at the end of nine weeks, the grades were averaged, a percentage was determined, and it was then converted into an A, B, C, D, or F. What could be simpler? Well, maybe it was not so simple after all. It was more like sitting on a one-legged chair—or rather—like being a one-legged chair, trying maintain your balance while holding up the weight of 100-plus students. They would read a novel; we would make up a test or run off a publisher's ditto master and grade them on it. They would write a report or piece of fiction or poetry; we would serve as editor-in-chief and sole judge of its worth. They would do an oral presentation, and it had live up our (shh...secret) standards—or else! But that was OK. We could do it all. We were teachers! Wait. Is it not time for a major paradigm shift? Assessment cannot be merely a reflection of our person al judgment. Such a view runs counter what we have come understand about the complex nature of assess ment and the equally complex nature of our students' need for self-actualization and independence. One of the tenets expressed by the National Middle School Association (1995) in its position paper, This We Believe: Developmentally Responsive Middle Level Schools, is that the middle school curriculum must allow students assume control of their own learning. This value also permeates our understanding of what has come be referred as authentic assessment, that it must permit the student to become progressively self disciplined as a thinker...[and] acquire the habit of inquiring and engaging in discourse with care and thor oughness (Wiggins, 1993, p. 200). None of this can hap pen—our students will never be able control their own learning or become self-disciplined thinkers—as long as we remain the ones in control. As it turns out, the missing legs for the chair were there all along; we simply had neglected attach them. Assessment needs be a collaborative effort among our selves, our students, their peers, and their parents. Together, with all four legs on the floor, we can make meaningful observations and decisions about each indi vidual student's growth and development. The expanding use of portfolios in the language arts classroom is a good example of a more balanced approach assessment. Portfolios are collections of stu dent writing gathered over the course of a year or longer. They are essentially snapshots of writing samples, like frozen moments in time. Looked at singly, each writing sample is simply an assignment or project whose relative success at meeting curricular objectives was determined long ago, a future keepsake or discard, a done deed. Viewed collectively, however, these samples become a powerful, living demonstration of the student's growth as a writer over time, as individualized as any form of assessment could possibly be. Unfortunately, many teachers find themselves