The frequent need that students exhibit for greater academic and nonacademic support than can be offered during the regular school day is a widely documented challenge. Summer programs are a common tool that schools and districts employ to expand the time over which students have access to learning opportunities and resources. For the current…

Mathematics educators and researchers have increasingly integrated social justice-oriented tasks into their classrooms. Teaching mathematics for social justice (TMfSJ) aims to help students develop mathematical knowledge in ways that promote students' abilities to critique the communities of which they are members (Ellis & Malloy, 2007;…

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…

Indian play at North American Jewish summer camps offered three sets of overlapping lessons. First, by providing activities created and understood as respite from urban pressures, including donning and removing so-called primitive faux-tribal identities, camps reinforced Jewish urban, modernist values and virtues. Second, as Indian play…

Examining lessons learned through 4 years of experience of hosting Camp Launch, a university-based residential science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) enrichment program for low-income, high-ability, middle school students, this article explores components of the program and offers suggestions for implementing programs that serve…

The Read to be Ready campaign emerged from the startling reality of Tennessee's reading achievement data. Only one-third of Tennessee fourth graders scored proficient in the last administration of National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in 2015. Equally concerning, students who fell behind in the early years almost never caught up in…

Given the promising role afterschool programs can play in addressing the inequities faced by families living in communities of concentrated poverty, and with the rise in the number of people living in communities of concentrated poverty, this special "America After 3PM" report examines the afterschool program experience of children and…

Findings from "America After 3PM" document the role that afterschool programs play in supporting families living in high-poverty areas by answering questions about what afterschool program participation looks like, what the demand for afterschool programs is, what is preventing parents from taking advantage of and children from…

This report examines the implementation and effects of the academic summer program for middle school students offered by Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL). BELL's middle school program serves rising sixth- through eighth-grade students who are performing one to two years below grade level. The goals of the program are to increase students'…

This paper examines the summer component of a year-long professional development program. The program was developed based on recent models of effective professional development that indicate that teachers should guide the direction and focus of the professional development program. Specific activities in the summer program were adapted from a…

Gifted children have the same health needs as do other children, but because of their accelerated intellectual abilities, their need for information may out-distance that of peers. Aspects of a special summer health course, designed for academically talented fourth and fifth graders, are described. (Author/JMK)

This study examined the effects of a service-learning program on the development of civic attitudes and behaviors of 230 high school students who were identified as academically gifted and participated in either a service-learning program or an accelerated academic program during the summer. Students' responses to 3 surveys measuring civic…

Notes that it is not known whether more time spent in school increases children's learning. Suggests that instead of running the "assembly line" for more hours, educators might try a summer program based on enrichment and fun-time activities as an alternative way to discover whether more learning time would be a good investment. An important…

This document describes a language immersion environment, a summer camp for learning languages, and the technology-rich projects that these learners were involved in. Technology projects and what is thought to have been accomplished through them is examined. It is discussed that many of the same things in a more typical school environment could be…

An evaluation was conducted of the Atlanta Public Schools Sunclasses program, which was designed to reinforce basic reading and mathematics skills of retained or administratively placed students in grades 1-4, through 10 instructional television programs aired during a 6-week period in the summer of 1984. Supplementary activities implemented to…