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Narrowing of the curriculum because of standardised testing has caused creativity to be neglected in many schools; integration into reading instruction may provide a solution. This repeated measures study incorporated figural transformation drawings after a read-aloud of a book highlighting nutrition information as a way to both review book comprehension and integrate creativity. Nineteen second graders, aged 7-9 years from Iowa, USA, participated in 16 weekly trials, alternating between a nonfiction nutrition book and a fantasy book presenting true nutrition concepts. Results showed significantly greater creativity generally and in specific creative skill areas under the fantasy condition.

This experimental study compared concept acquisition and enjoyment of learning about perfectionism under two conditions: bibliotherapy (control) and analysis and construction of cartoons (experimental) in first, second and third grade students (N = 46). Posttest results showed students learned significantly more content in the experimental condition with a medium effect size. Students were more engaged in the cartoon condition, appreciating the humor and opportunity to be creative. Most students reported liking the bibliotherapy but some complained of boredom. The authors recommend that both bibliotherapy and cartoon analysis be used in lessons about perfectionism to maintain student interest and comprehension of concepts.

This study explored the effect of arts integration into science during an instructional unit on force and motion and one addressing natural weather disasters. Seventy-eight elementary students in four classrooms (grade 5, grade 4, and two at grade 3) participated in the study. This study assessed content retention, student-made products (rollercoasters and hurricane shelters), and student attitudes. All students in each classroom experienced the two units of instruction, one unit in the experimental condition of arts integration and one unit in the control condition without arts integration. Both conditions involved students in constructing models of given materials. Each unit consisted of three weeks of instruction with the last week being a final project scored for science content and creativity. This final rollercoaster model or hurricane shelter model supported engineering standard 3-5-ETS1-2. Grade 4 and grade 5 classes showed significant posttest gains and distal posttest gains regarding content scores in favor of the experimental condition with a large effect size. The mean overall product scores favored the experimental condition with a very large effect size. The results indicated that arts integration produced greater creativity, collaboration, and more positive overall perceptions of learning.

Educators seek to develop students' mathematical knowledge retention to increase student efficacy in follow-on classwork, improvement of test scores, attainment of standards, and preparation for careers. Interactive visuals, feedback during problem solving, and incorporation of higher-order thinking skills are known to increase retention, but a comparison of online and face-to-face learning regarding knowledge retention has not been fully explored. The current study tested 38 Caucasian eighth grade students for knowledge retention on ten mathematical topics they had learned in sixth grade during either online or faceto-face conditions. After two years, students were given the same posttest as in 6th grade over the 10 units of which five had been learned online and five face-to-face. Scores for long-term gain scores showed no significant differences between online or face-to-face learning conditions. A TOST calculation was used to show equivalence of middle school student long-term learning across online and face-to-face conditions in mathematics in this study within the limits of the test. The interactive nature of each condition contributed to strong mathematical understanding, which led to the retention being equivalent for both conditions.

Curricular demands and best practices for middle school require interdisciplinary units. Arts integration can provide motivation and a new pathway to learning. This unit focused on inquiry into the natural history of artifacts and rocks recovered from the exposed subsoil of an area near Cedar Falls, Iowa that had been bulldozed as part of subdivision development. The described unit involved preservice teachers in exploration of all subject areas (language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) with arts-integrated projects (agate watercolor painting, stone tool graphing, acrylic polymer clay agate keyring making, and stone tool drawings). The content area activities for social studies included identification and lifestyle interpretation of stone tools found intermixed with rocks and sand in the subsoil of the site. Science content activities included identification of rocks (igneous and metamorphic rocks; quartz nodules, geodes, and agates; and iron ore specimens) from the site along with interpretation of basalt cobbles that had been ground flat as glacially transported, and interpretation of maps and diagrams of glaciation, iron ore deposits, and agate deposits. Language arts activities involved word study through morpheme analysis of words such as "anthropology" and "artifact" along with matching a set of descriptive adjectives to objects related to agates. Mathematics content activities focused on graphing. Preservice teachers were highly engaged in the activities, remarking that they learned new content and pedagogy. Some expressed lack of confidence regarding artistic ability because of little experience and the desire to complete everything in the correct manner. At the end of the lessons, preservice teachers expressed that teaching the content through themes allowed for a great number of connections between subject areas, increased real-life connections, and deeper understandings of the topics.

Science inquiry has been found to be effective with students from diverse backgrounds and varied academic abilities. This study compared student learning, enjoyment, motivation, perceived understanding, and creativity during a science unit on Models and Designs for 38 sixth grade students (20 male, 18 female; 1 Black, 1 Hispanic and 36 White). The unit began with a very teacher-centered approach, then became increasingly student-centered, employing more inquiry with each lesson set to determine the effects of student-centered instruction on performance and attitudes. Pretest-posttest data with specific questions tied to each lesson set were collected, as well as repeated measures attitude surveys administered at the conclusion of each of the six sets of lessons. The surveys included ratings of lesson enjoyment, student motivation, perceived understanding, creativity designed into the lesson, and perceived self-creativity on a scale of one to ten, along with open ended responses of reasons for the ratings. Results indicate a trend of improving knowledge retention as student-centeredness and inquiry increased until the last lesson set, which a few students found too challenging. Additionally, reported levels of enjoyment, motivation, and creativity increased as the instructional approaches became more studentcentered until the challenge became too great for some students, causing a small dip in the upward trend. Greater experience with science inquiry may assist students in extending their confidence, inquiry leadership, and achievement.

This study examined the self-efficacy in science, art, dance, and music; attitudes concerning contributions of people of various ethnic/cultural groups; and science learning of students involved in an after-school arts-integrated science enrichment project. Students dramatized three traditional animal legends from African, Native American, and Mexican cultures to drum beats while wearing student-made papier-mâché helmet crest masks of the animal characters. They learned the structure and functions of the featured animals through slide shows, embedded explanations in the play scripts, and hands-on form and function analogy materials that related the form and function of animal body parts to manufactured items. Although at least 40 students participated at times in the after-school program, matching pretest and posttest data were only available for 13 students. Results showed positive changes in students' art self-efficacy with a medium effect size, improvements in knowledge of animal form and function with a large effect size, and a trend toward greater appreciation of the cultural contributions of different ethnic groups. Photographs of student-made masks and the animal legend scripts with added form-and-function content are provided.

The cause of day and night is a difficult concept to master without concrete foundational skills of understanding shadows, rotation, changing point of view, and relative positions of objects in the sky. This pretest-posttest experimental-control group study examined student learning in a science-literacy-spatial skills integrated unit with concrete, kinesthetic, and model-making experiences compared to a typical commercial curriculum formerly used at the school. The 23 2nd graders in the experimental group from a low socio-economic district in Iowa were matched to 23 2nd graders in other classrooms at the same school on pretest scores to form the control group. Although both groups gained knowledge from pretest to posttest, the experimental group evidenced a very large effect size overall compared to a medium effect size for the control group. Differences between groups on posttest scores favored the experimental group with a very large effect size. The integrated lessons, greeted with enthusiasm, included experimenting with flashlights, reading relevant books, photographing shadows and making books with written explanations, participating in kinesthetic rotation activities, developing new time of day vocabulary, creating books with movable pages, composing play scripts about diverse space or time-related scientists, making shadow puppets, and presenting the shadow plays.

Research into identification of gifted early childhood students of minority groups through classroom activities is lacking. A focus in the United States on students with learning challenges and a lack of awareness of educators concerning the needs of early childhood gifted students are important causes of this situation. The current case study investigated whether African American students not identified through standard achievement scores might be recognized as gifted through performance during and after a special enrichment project. Eight (four female, four male; five White, three African American) identified or potentially gifted first/second grade students from a multi-age, mixed ability, diverse classroom at an elementary school in Iowa, participated in a 12-week enrichment program to develop leadership through curriculum material making and peer teaching. School and university personnel collaborated to meet school needs: supplying challenging activities to high achievers, offering the opportunity for leadership through peer-teaching, and providing alternate means (leadership, creativity) of potentially identifying typically-achieving minority students as gifted. A pre-post class sociogram was administered to all students in the broader class (11 female 8 male). The teacher observed evidence that all participating students gained confidence and leadership skills; two of the three African American students were identified as gifted through their leadership, creativity, and academic performance during the project. Curriculum materials-making projects with integrated thinking skills like those in the current study were enriching for all participants in the current study, including classmates who were peer-taught; similar enrichment activities are recommended for primary grade students.

The current emphasis on computer technology integration and narrowing of the curriculum has displaced arts and crafts. However, the hands-on, concrete nature of craft work in science modeling enables students to understand difficult concepts and to be engaged and motivated while learning spatial, logical, and sequential thinking skills. Analogy use is also helpful in understanding unfamiliar, complex science concepts. This study of 28 academically advanced elementary to middle-school students examined student work and perceptions during a science unit focused on four fossil organisms: crinoid, brachiopod, horn coral and trilobite. The study compared: (1) analogy-focused instruction to independent Internet research and (2) computer technology-rich products to crafts-based products. Findings indicate student products were more creative after analogy-based instruction and when made using technology. However, students expressed a strong desire to engage in additional craft work after making craft products and enjoyed making crafts more after analogy-focused instruction. Additionally, more science content was found in the craft products than the technology-rich products. Students expressed a particular liking for two of the fossil organisms because they had been modeled with crafts. The authors recommend that room should be retained for crafts in the science curriculum to model science concepts.

Word play is an important skill allowing product names, show titles, jokes, poetry and other writings or orations to be interesting, entertaining and well-remembered. This pretest--posttest counterbalanced study compared two instructional approaches for teaching second and third grade students (n = 71) word play skills. Students at a public elementary school in Iowa, United States studied vowel patterns and rhyming as part of the regular school curriculum for literacy through two conditions: a traditional format of reading, pocket charts, worksheets and oral discussion; versus a more concrete approach of arranging objects and corresponding word cards in a chart-like formation. There was no significant difference in student performance between the conditions but an attitude survey indicated that a large majority of students preferred the object boxes for understanding of word play concepts and task enjoyment.

Education in an online setting is an increasingly popular method of instruction. Previous studies comparing college or high school student performance in online and face-to-face courses found, in most cases, similar achievement between conditions. However, research is lacking regarding middle school students' academic performance and attitudes toward online learning. This counterbalanced, repeated measures study examined a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data examining the attitudes of 46 Caucasian sixth grade middle school students (24m, 22f) as they studied ten mathematics topics, alternating between online learning using laptop computers in a classroom and traditional face-to-face instruction. Previously, academic achievement of these same students was shown to be equivalent between conditions. Results of the current attitude analysis showed that a majority of students preferred online instruction for understanding of mathematical concepts and rated online learning significantly higher with a large effect size (Cohen's d = 0.72) in enjoyment of learning, although ratings decreased somewhat over the school year indicating loss of initial novelty. Students indicated that communication and the ability to work at a personal pace were two areas important to their attitudes toward working in an online setting. (Contains 7 tables.)

Online education is increasing in popularity at the college and high school levels with several studies showing the comparability of e-learning and more traditional methods. Middle school students' ability to function well with this mode of instruction has not been established in the literature, although the circumstances of Generation Z growing up with technology suggest potential success. This counterbalanced, repeated measures study provides empirical evidence of the academic efficacy of online instruction for middle school students learning mathematical concepts. Forty-six Caucasian sixth graders (24m, 22f) in two mixed-ability classes participated in the quasi-experimental study in which they switched between online laptop learning in a supervised classroom with electronic communication only and traditional face-to-face learning for ten different mathematics topics. Academic performance was evaluated by pretests-posttests. All classes were taught by the same instructor with the same/similar practice problems, exercises, assignments, and manipulatives adapted for the environment. Gain scores (except for perimeter) and posttest scores showed no statistically significant differences between the two conditions; TOST (two one-sided t-tests) calculations indicated that gain score and posttest performance was equivalent for the two conditions, showing that middle school students can indeed learn online. Additional studies with more participants or greater diversity are needed. (Contains 3 tables.)