To make up for pandemic-related learning losses, many U.S. public school districts have increased enrollment in their summer school programs. We assess summer school as a strategy for COVID-19 learning recovery by tracking the academic progress of students who attended summer school in 2022 across eight districts serving 400,000 students. Based on…

A challenge for using evaluation data to improve climate change education in schools is access to an instrument for teachers to measure behavioral changes and their antecedents. We report on teachers' implementation of a brief survey measuring climate-related beliefs, self-efficacy, intention to act, action, and anxiety before and after their…

Digital Safety refers to the knowledge and skills needed for the intentional protection of users in the digital environment. With children having access to digital devices at a young age, it has become essential for them to be educated on how to be safe in the digital world. Through a week-long summer camp on digital safety, elementary-age…

This study investigated middle school students' Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy, focusing on cognitive and affective dimensions with regard to learning about AI. Fourteen middle school students participated in a five-day summer camp. They engaged in a project-based AI literacy program with hands-on activities, data collection and modeling,…

Artificial Intelligence technologies are becoming ubiquitous, transforming the workforce by altering or creating jobs and influencing decisions that affect minority communities. The necessity of AI literacy, comprising knowledge and skills for critical interaction with AI, is increasingly important. Multilingual learners, engaging with both every…

With youth spending increasing labor and leisure time in designed environments crafted from digital materials, and with historically predatory entities like Meta/Facebook proposing to circumscribe learning and leisure within sensorially rich "metaverses" of their own design, the authors feel it is important for students to be able to…

We developed a near-peer mentoring model for high school youth to mentor middle school youth on how to program using MIT App Inventor. The purpose of this study was to investigate: (a) the effectiveness of the near-peer mentoring model for the mentees; and (b) how the mentees' vicarious experience with the near-peer mentors led to changes in their…

This study explored the literacy engagement of Hispanic rising seventh grade adolescents during a summer literacy program. Using a participatory social justice mixed methods design (Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2018), students' voices were used to design and refine an instructional model proposed to increase their level of engagement in literacy…

This action research study examined the impact of a summer literacy program on summer reading setback. Gaining Ground is a summer intervention program designed primarily for economically disadvantaged students in Grades K-5. By granting access to self-selected books and implementing project-based curriculum, Gaining Ground aims to improve reading…

Background and Context: Using a transformative learning framework, this qualitative study examines the perspectives and practices of 70 middle and high school content area teachers who attended two or more summer professional development workshops. Objective: This study describes how teachers' disciplinary perspectives and backgrounds influence…

The purpose of this paper is to describe teacher outcomes from participating in an intensive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professional learning (PL) initiative for middle school science teachers in the United States. The initiative included intensive summer coursework and ongoing support (e.g., individual coaching,…

Out-of-classroom activities can help cultivate interest and literacy in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. To determine how a week-long out-of-classroom experience might impact STEM interest in adolescents, a free summer camp was offered to students entering grades 6-8. During this time, students participated in…

Urban school districts have seen low scores on NWEA Map math scores (Education Recovery Scoreboard, 2024). To foster and promote urban youths' capabilities to learn mathematics, a new method to teach, enhance, and remediate understanding of fractions was developed, Fractions and Signed Numbers Workshop (FracSi). It utilizes the approach of an…

The authors of this article represent an interdisciplinary team that includes a literacy teacher educator, a high school economics teacher, a community-based math educator, and a math teacher educator. Responding to the needs and building from the strengths of the local community, we co-designed with youth a community-based FLE workshop that…

Vol. II: Short-Term Programs features eight OST STEM programs for females from across the United States that run one to three days in length, in most cases, a single day. In this book, the chapter authors describe their programs, the effectiveness of those programs, and practical implications of their program evaluation data. This book series is…