As initiatives on AI education in K-12 learning contexts continues to evolve, researchers have developed curricula among other resources to promote AI across grade levels. Yet, there is a need for more effort regarding curriculum, tools, and pedagogy, as well as assessment techniques to popularize AI at the middle school level. Drawing on prior…

This study describes and provides preliminary support for the use of a culturally and linguistically adapted Strong Kids curriculum, delivered completely online, to address English language learners' (ELLs') social/emotional development. Quantitative data showed an increase in students' social/emotional knowledge in internalizing symptoms by the…

Preschool aged children's social and emotional adjustment impacts their behavior across settings. Providing high-quality early intervention services that enhance social and emotional skills can help prepare children for formal schooling and improve social and behavioral outcomes. The summer prior to Kindergarten presents a unique opportunity for…

Sociocultural language learning theory and situated learning theory stress the importance of social interactions and context in both science and language learning. In addition, researchers have highlighted the important role that multimodal language plays in meaning-making and communication in science. The purpose of this study was to examine the…

This article aims to illuminate the perceptions of a pilot grief- and trauma-informed empowerment arts summer program for adolescents who lived in an at-risk Southern, urban neighborhood identified by the city in question as having a high percentage of street violence. The study it is based on was grounded in qualitative techniques, which…

Social Stories™ (SS) is a widely used intervention for children on the autism spectrum. A preliminary survey of 103 practitioners highlighted that SS are often used to support adapting to a change. This study investigated the use of digitally-mediated SS to support ten children on the autism spectrum attending a school summer camp. Teacher…

A substantial number of multicomponent interventions have been developed to address social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For multicomponent interventions, identifying critical elements of the intervention related to behavior change is critical and may potentially improve the social validity of interventions. Such…

In this practitioner research study, I explored how a pedagogy of multiliteracies supported the civic learning of eight middle and high school Indonesian American youth in a summer literacy program. Tracing how transnational youth face barriers to civic learning and engagement in times of rising inequality and xenophobia, I analyzed the ways in…

This article explores the concept of STEM education and characteristics of truly authentic STEM learning experiences and events. It examines the engineering design process and how engineering glues science, mathematics and technology together. Two engineering challenges, 'Design and build a bridge' and 'Design and make a catapult', carried out…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced faculty across the country to review, reenvision, and implement different educational practices that have previously been taken for granted. In this article, we, a group of faculty, share our experiences of pivoting a major event: The traditionally on-site summer institute for doctoral students, into a virtual summer…

Scholarship on youth digital media literacy programs has focused on how adults practice restraint as a means of allowing young people to exercise agency in decision-making experiences. Yet youth also practice restraint, as we found in a digital storytelling program involving 16 early adolescents (ages 11-14) from economically precarious…

This article reports on a study of how a class of fifteen- and sixteen-year-old gifted high school students "mixed" the media of poetry and comics to unveil and interrogate (what they called) their "nerd identities." Both co-authors constructed and co-taught a class within a literature-based comics course that led students…

The purpose of this paper is to present a profile of middle-school-age youth who participated in a weeklong experiential residential camp focused on helping campers learn about and interact with money, personal finance topics, and mainstream financial service providers. Based on pre- and post-test data, it was determined an experiential real-world…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how making tabletop board games elicited adolescents' design thinking during their participation in a summer game design camp at their local library. Design/methodology/approach: This study leverages qualitative approaches to coding transcripts of participants' talk. This study uses the design thinking framework…

This was an exploratory sequential, mixed-methods study that answered two research questions related to how campers defined the camp experience and how exposure to these experiences can be measured. The research questions were divided into two corresponding phases. The first phase employed youth participatory, grounded theory research methods to…