This article reports findings from a quasi-experimental study of the impact of a summer robotics program for urban middle-grade students. The study focuses on student engagement, measured by school attendance rate the year following the program. Program students, who were nearly all low-income minority students, were matched to comparison students…

Many of the literacies students possess go unnoticed or untapped in schools. In some cases, these hidden literacies are not seen or valued because they are not viewed as appropriate or relevant in relation to officially sanctioned, school-based literacies. The literature has shown that these hidden literacies are indeed valuable and relevant and…

The present case study investigated the impact of a short-term summer literacy approach on writing performance and self-perception of writing for young adolescents of low-income families residing in urban housing projects. The approach offered intensive literacy engagement to offset summer achievement loss; assisted ethnic-minority, low…

Policy documents in science education suggest that even at the earliest years of formal schooling, students are capable of constructing scientific explanations about focal content. Nonetheless, few research studies provide insights into how to effectively provide scaffolds appropriate for late elementary-age students' fruitful creation of…

This conversational report uses student voice as data to determine whether the culture of urban sixth graders is being acknowledged and valued in the curriculum. While culturally responsive teaching has been touted by scholars as an important aspect of multicultural education and curriculum reform for at least a decade, students have seldom been…

Three studies were conducted with middle school students to evaluate a web-based intelligent tutoring system (ITS) for arithmetic and fractions. The studies involved pre and post test comparisons, as well as group comparisons to assess the impact of the ITS on students' math problem solving. Results indicated that students improved from pre to…