Research literature suggests students need to engage in "actual" civic experiences; however, in most cases, teachers feel unwilling or unable to facilitate experiences beyond the formal classroom setting. In this project, we sought to understand the relationship between social studies teachers' civic ideology, pedagogical approaches, and…

Ongoing efforts across the U.S. to encourage K-12 students to consider science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers have been motivated by concerns that the STEM pipeline is shrinking because of declining student enrollment and increasing rates of retirement in industry. The Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E[superscript…

The Wallace Foundation is funding a multiyear demonstration project to determine whether voluntary, district summer learning programs can stem summer learning loss for low-income students. Six districts--Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Duval County (Florida), Pittsburgh, and Rochester, New York--were selected for the demonstration project and…

We report the results of a study focused on identifying and articulating an ''epistemic foundation'' underlying a pre-collegiate focus on engineering. We do so in the context of UTeach"Engineering" (UTE), a program supported in part by funding by the National Science Foundation and designed to develop a model approach to address the…

As part of a geography-based minority recruiting program (MRP), teachers were asked to serve as mentors for teams of high school students interested in both postsecondary education and geography as a major discipline or career path. The goal was to determine whether teacher participation in MRP programs was an effective tool to mentor…

Teaching entrepreneurship--how to create, grow and run a business or organization--is one potential means to increase college and career readiness skills. Learning how to start a business can improve critical thinking, communication and collaboration (Gallagher, Stepien, & Rosenthal, 1992; Hmelo, 1998), which are key qualities for academic as…

A project is reported in which selected bilingual Mexican-American teachers from Texas traveled to Mexico for a four-week study to collect materials appropriate for U.S. classroom use. The effects of the project on language fluency and ethnic self-concept are discussed. (22 references) (LB)

A study was conducted to (1) identify basic components included in Texas vocational agriculture summer programs, (2) determine teacher, administrator, state staff, and teacher educator perceptions of the relative importance of groups of activities included in the summer program, and (3) recommend guidelines for basic summer program operation.…

The Big Lake, Texas, microcomputer pilot project, begun in 1981 with the express purpose of assisting the slow learner with math, was expanded shortly after its inception to involve all 550 K-6 elementary school students, 56% of which were Spanish surnamed. Initially, teachers were not involved in the project; teacher aides were taught to operate…

A process evaluation was conducted to assess the High Tech Educators Network's (HTEN's) activities. Four basic components to the evaluation approach were documentation review, program logic model, written survey, and participant interviews. The model mapped the basic goals and objectives, assumptions, activities, outcome expectations, and…