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…

Objective: We piloted a low-cost, flipped model of professional development to help improve undergraduate writing. Method: An adjunct instructor first watched online videos and then discussed the materials with a trainer, and used the provided resources in a Social Psychology summer course. Results: Post-training student papers were significantly…

Canada has a long history of outdoor education (OE) in sectors including summer camps, K-12, and post-secondary education (PSE). However, previous research has demonstrated that OE is sometimes poorly understood in the PSE sector leading to program closures and limited program development. As a result, scholars have called for national and…

The federal government and many individual organizations have invested in programs to support diversity in the STEM pipeline, including STEM summer programs for high school students, but there is little rigorous evidence of their efficacy. We fielded a randomized controlled trial to study a suite of such programs targeted to underrepresented high…

Recently there has been an emphasis on how time spent outside of the classroom can affect student outcomes, including high school graduation, with the hope of closing academic achievement gaps along socioeconomic and racial lines. This paper provides experimental evidence regarding a particular type of out-of-school activity--early work…

Little is known about college students during their summer break between the first and second years of college, when some students may contemplate whether they will return to college. Using ethnographic method, this article addresses critical questions of low-income college students during their summer breaks of where they go, where they stay, and…

Throughout the learning process, it is common for students to transition to a new teacher, whether they relocate, decide to change teachers, or study at a summer program. During this transition, students must adapt to a potentially different pedagogical philosophy, language, and performance expectations. Using a multiple case study research…

Out-of-school-time (OST) programs and their funders rely on sound data to make decisions about everything from professional development and student recruitment to the selection of activities to offer students. Programs operate at a range of times (before and after school, weekends, summer) and in a variety of locations (e.g., schools,…

The current study explores the efforts of one summer youth employment program to provide students with meaningful work experiences and the participants' perceptions of the meaningfulness of their work and its effect on their future orientation. Most of the students in the study were under the age of 18. The Youth Enrichment Services (YES) Summer…

The week-long, in-person Summer Institute offers students a unique and enriching experience that greatly influences their educational journey. One of the key benefits is the opportunity for face-to-face interactions, which can be transformative in an era dominated by online learning. Students can engage in real-time discussions, forge meaningful…

The manuscript describes a community-based mathematical modeling task that was implemented in a Calculus I classroom to engage students in mathematical modeling. Twenty-five undergraduate students engaged in this activity. These students selected a context that they found interesting, posed questions, developed constraints, came up with solution…

In this study, the relationship between clusters of hope and a psychosocial profile of academic talent development is examined in a sample of 466 academically gifted adolescents. First, cluster analysis is leveraged to examine whether interpretable three- and four-cluster hope solutions can be found in the sample. Second, differences among a group…

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,…

Purpose: To examine the impact of an out-of-school swimming program on children and youth from one underserved community. Method: Participants were 200 children and youth who attended the out-of-school swimming program during two consecutive summers. The theoretical framework employed drew from previous research on socialization. A mixed-methods…