In this article, we detail our findings from a case study of three instructors as they newly implemented service-learning pedagogies into their first year writing classes. Drawing on the instructors' perspectives as part of a larger programmatic assessment, we demonstrate that a service-learning curriculum can broadly foster learning outcomes for…

Veteran staff members play a key role in a camp's success. They preserve camp culture, maintain traditions, and serve important roles in the peer-training environment that camps depend on. It is not surprising, then, that camp counselor retention is important to the business of camping. This study focused on five counselors from Jewish camps in…

Over the last two years, the District of Columbia has aligned policy, resources, and research to strengthen its network of out-of-school time (OST) services. OST programs include afterschool, before, and summer programs for children and youth. In 2017, the District of Columbia (D.C.) Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME) launched the…

The Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges (RP Group) partnered with Umoja Community leadership to conduct a study that assesses statewide efforts to support Umoja program coordinators. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the technical assistance, resources, and trainings offered by the statewide…

Research on innovative, integrated outreach programs guided three separate week-long outreach camps held across two summers (2018 and 2019). These camps introduced computer science through real-world applications and hands-on activities, each dealing with cybersecurity principles. The camps utilized low-cost hardware and free software to provide a…

In the present day, it is not uncommon for there to be a class full of engineering students with very few women among them. To combat this lack of gender diversity, colleges and universities have employed outreach programs and developed summer engagement opportunities that allow women to explore engineering before they graduate high school. The…

Decades of research have focused on the impact of summer learning loss and effective tools in stemming the flow of knowledge lost during summer break. While reading lists have become a standard practice for addressing students' needs to maintain learning levels over the summer months, very little research has been conducted on the book lists…

Many high school classrooms in the United States have physics teachers who are teaching the subject outside their certified content areas because of a severe shortage of physics teachers. There is a critical need to improve the knowledge base of these out-of-field teachers. This comparative case study examined the instructional practice of…

Background: American Indian communities in the United States experience considerable health inequities, including increased exposure to environmental contaminants. Consequently, community members of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation identified the lack of water-related environmental knowledge among children as an area of concern. Aim: The purpose of…

This study examines the perceptions of Korean language teachers on the classroom practice of embedding contemporary Korean pop culture into classrooms for effective world language instruction. While integrating culture in language classrooms has been practiced for decades, Korean teachers in this study expressed a lack of confidence in designing…

Constructing the learning outcomes and designing the optimal learning environment are valuable practices in teaching and learning endeavors. Doing so for intercultural learning requires a deft balance of learner inputs and instructional acumen. Assessment of intercultural competence is an essential component since it offers learners and…

Districts and schools are receiving once in a life-time funding through the American Recovery Plan (ARP) to address the learning needs of students over the next few years, especially those who have been most impacted by a year of remote or hybrid learning. State education agencies (SEAs) including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, outlying…

St. Olaf College recently restructured its Summer Bridge Program (SBP) course for incoming low-income (LI) and first-generation (FG) college students from a non-major biology course, "Issues in Biology," to an interdisciplinary "Explorations in Science" course. Two significant changes were made with the intention of giving…

As part of Middle Tennessee State University's (MTSU's) initiative to improve retention of at-risk STEM majors, they recruit first-time, full-time freshman STEM majors with mathematics ACT scores of 19 to 23 to participate in MTSU's "Mathematics as a FirstSTEP to Success in STEM" project (FirstSTEP). This article overviews MTSU's…

Our work is situated in research on Computer Science (CS) learning in informal learning environments and literature on the factors that influence girls to enter CS. In this article, we outline design choices around the creation of a summer programming camp for middle school youth. In addition, we describe a near-peer mentoring model we used that…