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Mathematics achievement among K-12 students has been a long-standing concern in schools across the United States. A possible solution to this mathematics achievement problem is student motivation. A survey was administered to 65 mathematics students at a Midwestern middle school to determine their beliefs and attitudes related to motivation and mathematics achievement. Significant positive correlations were found between internal motivation and self-reported mathematics grades, self-reported grades and enjoyment, self-reported grades and confidence, and self-reported grades and parental involvement. Independent t-tests between high- and low-achieving students found significant differences in beliefs regarding intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, mathematics value, mathematics enjoyment, mathematics confidence, parental involvement, and parental intrinsic motivation. There were no statistically significant gender differences in achievement or attitudes towards mathematics.

This article will define the engineering design process used to create an integrated curriculum at STEM Center Middle School, and it features the planning, implementation, and revision of the Deconstruction Geography unit. The Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) Center opened in the fall of 2009 as a way to relieve overcrowding at the district's only other middle school. The teachers at the new STEM Center were a mix of volunteer transfers and new hires, empowered by the opportunity to create a school from the ground up. The experience of a metadisciplinary (Werth, 2003), fully connected, and integrated curriculum was transformative for the teachers at the STEM Center. Consistent with the middle school ideal of teacher teams, the metadisciplinary approach erases lines among disciplines and creates "a larger curricular focus that transcends or supersedes traditional disciplinary boundaries to create a truly holistic, systemic, integrative worldview uncluttered by familiar limits and barriers" (Werth, 2003, p. 36). While experiencing this curriculum, the teachers quickly realized that it was the Engineering Design Process (EDP) that allowed the deep connection among the content. The EDP from the Museum of Science, Boston (2012) has five steps including: (1) Ask: What is the problem? What have others done? What are the constraints?; (2) Imagine: What are some solutions? Brainstorm ideas. Choose the best one; (3) Plan: Draw a diagram. Make lists of materials you will need; (4) Create: Follow your plan and create it. Test it out; and (5) Improve: Talk about what works, what doesn't, and what could work better. Modify your design to make it better. Test it out. The idea for the Deconstruction Geography unit evolved from a story in the news. The news clip described a conflict over minerals in Africa that were being used to assemble products in Asia that were sold and consumed in the US and Europe. That news story inspired the idea that technological artifacts could be used to travel the world, thinking about why certain products were manufactured in particular places and how all of these items journeyed to the classroom. Drawing from the state standards, a teacher developed a set of prioritized learning goals that he called power standards, in order to encourage students to analyze primary sources to understand people, places, and environments; explain patterns of trade and global interdependence in a changing world; and identify how people organize for the production, distribution, and consumption of goods.

Nine first-grade children at risk for reading failure were selected to participate in remedial reading interventions. These first-grade students scored below benchmark target and grade level expectancies on measures of early reading skills, including AIMSweb Nonsense Word Fluency and Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) for Primary Reading, or received a teacher referral based on oral reading fluency scores. Interventions occurred four times a week for 11 weeks, and included 10 minutes of direct phonemic awareness instruction and 10 minutes of sight word games. Data were collected on students' oral reading fluency, sight word identification, and motivation to read. Students were found to be more engaged and voiced a preference for sight word card and board games over the tablet apps. Results indicated that games as interventions can accelerate sight word learning and are highly effective for sight word achievement in first-grade students when combined with direct instruction on phonemic awareness. The participants improved at a rate double that of previously studied, remedial first-grade students. Results also indicated that intervention games in remedial reading programs have a direct impact on student engagement, but not necessarily on a student's self-concept as a reader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]