The Center for Gifted Education (Center) at William & Mary has provided diverse enrichment programs for high-ability students since 1988. With an aspiration to serve financially disadvantaged students, the Center developed and hosted a summer residential enrichment program in STEM areas. Camp Launch, for low-income, high-ability middle school…

Student focusing and noticing, which drive reasoning, are important but under researched aspects of student learning. Quadratic functions representations are perceptually and conceptually complex and thus, offer much for students to focus on and notice. Our study compared a teacher's goals for student focusing and noticing during quadratic…

Backward transfer is when learning about a new topic influences an individual's prior ways of reasoning about a topic they previously learned about. This study looked at how quadratic functions instruction differentially influenced students' prior ways of reasoning about linear functions. Specifically, we compared students at three levels of…

This article examines the power of composing images as students construct identities and shape their own worlds. It illustrates student empowerment through agency, intellectual engagement, and community investment and suggests that composing with images forms a bridge back to alphabetic-centric composing.

Students have access to the Internet at their fingertips via e-tablets and smart phones. However, the STEM fields are struggling to remain relevant in students' lives outside the classroom. In an effort to improve high school science curricula and to keep students engaged in the classroom, we developed a technology-rich bioengineering summer…

This study investigated whether a four-week intensive professional development workshop for math teachers was effective in improving their knowledge and skills of mathematics concepts and technology, as well as improving their attitudes toward integrating technology into teaching math. Instruments for data collection included a pre- and post- test…

The transfer of leadership to younger generations is an important factor in agricultural communities and is likely one reason developing leaders is a central mission of many youth organizations, including 4-H and FFA. In adults, researchers have extensively explored the relationship between personality traits and leadership (Judge, Bono, Ilies,…

This "Eighth Annual Report Card" tracks progress on Boston's goals for educating learners of all ages. The report lays out Boston Opportunity Agenda's current metrics, the baseline that has been established for the future, and the progress to be made over the course of the next five years. This report card contains the most up-to-date…

The "Seventh Annual Report Card" provides the most up-to-date information available on Boston's education pipeline, from kindergarten through college graduation, including measures for school readiness, 3rd-grade reading proficiency, 6th-grade mathematics proficiency, 10th-grade academic proficiency, high school completion, dropout…

This study assessed the relationship of an Arts Summer Learning Program (Arts Program) to student academic performance and college readiness. A North Texas school district collaborated with a research-based Arts Program in 2010, and a new approach was implemented in the summer school program for low-performing students who had failed courses in…

Newport News is a city of 193,000 people, located between Williamsburg and Norfolk in Southeastern Virginia. Newport News Public Schools (NNPS) educates approximately 30,500 children, grades Pre-K to 12, of whom 55.7% are Black, 29% are White, 9.9% are Hispanic, 2.9% are Asian, and 2.5% are other races. Newport News Public Schools' (NNPS') Special…

This paper discusses a K-12/university collaboration in which students participated in a four-day scenario-based summer STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) camp aimed at making difficult scientific concepts salient. This scenario, Jumpstart STEM-CSI: Chocolate Science Investigation (JSCSI), used open- and guided-inquiry…

This "Sixth Annual Report Card" reflects the progress that is being made throughout Boston's entire education pipeline. More than 77,000 school-age children live in the City of Boston. The vast majority, 93%, attend a school in the Boston Public Schools system, a Boston Charter public school, or a Boston Catholic school. The goal with…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect Serious Educational Games (SEGs) had on student interest in science in a federally funded game-based learning project. It can be argued that today's students are more likely to engage in video games than they are to interact in live, face-to-face learning environments. With a keen eye on…

This "Fourth Annual Report Card" marks a new chapter for the Boston Opportunity Agenda. For the first time, the Boston Opportunity Agenda is reporting student outcomes across Boston Public Schools and Catholic and charter schools. This provides a comprehensive baseline view of the education pipeline for the city's K-12 students. The…