Middle Grades

The National Center Supported e-Text in Electronic Environments, in collaboration with research teams across the country, is conducting a systematic program of research over five years to investigate the following four research questions: (1) What characteristics of supported electronic text (e-text) facilitate or impede access to and learning of academic content for students with a range of disabilities? (2) Does supported e-text improve learning of academic content in actual educational settings with typical resources and levels of teacher support?

EDC will create professional development modules to help middle-grades teachers improve accessibility to the general mathematics curriculum for students with mild to moderate disabilities. At the center of each module will be a DVD that shows classroom footage of accessibility strategies in action. In addition to the videotape, each module will include a facilitator’s guide with professional development activities, handouts, PowerPoint slides, and other resources.

Working under the direction of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, AIM at Middle-Grades Results will work with math accessibility experts at EDC to develop two videos and accompanying professional development materials and an online course. Teachers will learn how to plan lessons and assessments with an accessibility lens. This three year effort is one of four comprehensive school improvement models that will develop, pilot, and disseminate resources.

This project addressed gaps in the current state assessment system and explored the following questions: Where are the gaps in the assessment system? Who are the students affected by these gaps? What are the appropriate assessment systems for students in the gaps? After answering these questions, the project developed and piloted an assessment prototype to address the problem and meet student needs. Completed research studies are available on the project Web site. TMAS is a cross center project with EEC and FSC within EDC.

Under a previous NSF grant, CSE is developing the Inquiry Science Instruction Observation Protocol (ISIOP), an instrument designed to assist evaluators and researchers in determining the nature and extent of scientific inquiry instruction and best practices that are present in middle grades science classroom teaching.

Supported Literacy for Adolescents is a research-based literacy program developed over 10 years by EDC, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education (Office of Special education Programs and Institute of Educational Sciences), Annenberg Foundation, and MetLife Foundation. Its goal is to improve reading, writing, and comprehension among both high risk and typically achieving populations. It is deeply rooted in standards-based curriculum design, and all components of the program are aligned with national reading and writing standards, as well as selected content standards.

This project is creating two professional development courses, with both on-site and online versions to build the capacity of middle school teachers of mathematics and special educators and their administrators to enable students with disabilities to be successful mathematics learners. During the project, one eight-session course for classroom teachers and their special education colleagues and a six-session course for school administrators will be developed, tested, and disseminated.

EDC in collaboration with partners in education, youth media and business, is creating a youth-produced, Web-based media series and companion educator materials on science and engineering careers, targeting girls from underserved groups (minority populations, youth of low socioeconomic status and those with disabilities). The Girls Communicating Career Connections (GC3) project’s media series—short video segments produced by middle school aged girls—will capture the inquiry-based learning experiences of girls, as they investigate what it means to be a scientist or engineer.

EDC’s EdTech Leaders Online program (ETLO) is providing online facilitator training to teams from five state departments of education (Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Virginia) to prepare them to deliver online training to teachers in each of their states on incorporating new Web tools such as blogs, wikis and podcasts into their classroom curriculum. Participants will learn to facilitate ETLO’s “Learning and Teaching with Web 2.0 Tools” online workshop, which prepares educators to help students use these tools safely and develop classroom curriculum that incorporates these tools.