Critical thinkers and proficient readers use a composite of similar cognitive skills that are challenging to assess and difficult to cultivate. Therefore, students and teachers require an instructional model that demonstrates the acuity involved in these proficiencies. This quasiexperimental study aimed to investigate the impact of Equalities as…

This paper presents the results of a partnership between a New Jersey school district and four-year university seeking to enhance STEM programming for the district's diverse student population. The project utilized a STEM-focused experiential unit integrated into existing ninth grade school non-science classes (social studies and career readiness…

Research on retention in the 4-H youth development program has consistently shown that one of the primary indicators for youths' dropping out of 4-H is being a first-year member. Extension 4-H professionals from California, Idaho, Wyoming, and New Jersey formed a team to study this issue. Our team surveyed first-year members and their…

This mixed methods research studied the effect of the Journey Method with Google Maps, a memorization strategy for memorizing informational text, on the recallability levels in high school biology students at an urban high school in Paterson, New Jersey. This memorization technique was based on an ancient memorization strategy, called the method…

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of employing Concept Mapping (hereafter CM) in vocabulary instruction on Iranian pre-university students. This study also seeks to find whether there is difference between male and female students' vocabulary learning when they are subjected to CM instruction. In so doing, an…

This study examines the value of a professional collaborative partnership between college faculty and middle school teachers in improving students' literacy skills and teachers' instructional practice. Three college faculty and two middle school teachers engaged in a collaborative effort to design and implement evidence-based strategies to promote…

A review of the literature pertaining to the effect and influence of commercially-prepared interim assessments in mathematics and language arts literacy reveals a lack of quantitative data to determine the value of these products for school reform. This study examined the ability of commercially-prepared interim pretest and posttest assessments in…

This study investigates the benefits of no-stakes educational testing during students' summer vacation as a strategy to mitigate summer learning loss. Fifty-one students in Grades 3-8 from the Every Child Valued (ECV) and Lawrence Community Center (LCC) summer programs in Lawrenceville, NJ, took short, online assessments throughout the summer,…

This article reports on two studies using "Language Muse[superscript SM]" (LM), a web-based, teacher professional development (TPD) application designed to enhance teachers' linguistic awareness and to support teachers in the development of language-based instructional scaffolding for English language learners (ELL). In Study 1,…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Digital Backpack program in a Northern New Jersey School District using the CIPP Management-Based Evaluation model as a framework. The Stufflebeam (1971) CIPP model is an acronym for Context, Input, Process, and Product Evaluation. A "Digital Backpack" is a rolling computer bag given to K-12…

Methods and procedures for successfully solving math word problems have been, and continue to be a mystery to many U.S. high school students. Previous studies suggest that the contextual and mathematical understanding of a word problem, along with the development of schemas and their related external representations, positively contribute to…

Every year 1.3 million U.S. high school students drop out of school with one quarter of female students failing to graduate on time. Female dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, to earn less when they are employed, to become pregnant before the age of 20, to become obese, to smoke, and to drink more heavily than their male counterparts. This…