Afterschool and summer programs offer a multitude of benefits for students and families across the nation, from providing tangible resources like wraparound services to connecting students with supportive adults and peers. These programs not only deliver immediate benefits, but research also shows they bear long-term positive effects on students'…

With the rise of mental health issues occurring on college campuses, college counseling centers are increasing their efforts to meet the needs of students by ensuring that students are able to matriculate in their educational journey. Over the past few years, national data indicated that annually about 38% of college students "felt so…

This dissertation in practice (DIP), responsive evaluation (RE) explored relationships of the Faulkner Academic Math Excellence (FAME) Laboratory characteristics and specific perceptions of students enrolled in developmental mathematics education courses at a rural community college in Alabama's southeastern region. This program evaluation…

In recent decades, the focus and approach to college students' development and engagement had evolved to include more holistic student developmental factors (i.e., mental, emotional, financial, social/spiritual, and physical wellness) as higher education professionals assisted students in multiple areas of development. Higher education…

The demographic profile of the United States has been rapidly changing; by 2020, minority students will constitute the majority of the public school student population nationwide. This makes cultural competence a necessity for today's school leaders. Educational leadership preparation programs are responsible for preparing culturally competent…

Learning how to solve problems using computer programming is very challenging for beginners. Supplemental instructors (SIs), who lead tutoring sessions outside of normally scheduled class time and are usually peers of the students they tutor, can be of great assistance. However, since these tutors are also taking classes themselves, it can be…

The purpose of this study was to determine if participation in the Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) had an impact on rural educator candidates' and practicing rural educators' attitudes toward poverty (ATP). The group of rural educator candidates are students pursuing an undergraduate degree in education at a small, rural university in…

Adaptive learning supports online instruction by offering feedback to students using machine learning. In a funded study, adaptive learning was used in a flipped STEM course at three universities for pre-class preparation. We conducted a comparative analysis with and without adaptive learning. The assessments were a final exam and concept…

We report findings from a 40 middle school randomized controlled trial of an adapted version of Coping Power (Lochman & Wells, 2002a) for middle schoolers, called the Early Adolescent Coping Power (EACP) Program (Bradshaw et al., 2019) to determine the impact of EACP on adolescents' mental health outcomes, as indicated by student self-reported…

Careers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have many benefits, including decent salaries, a strong employment outlook, and high job satisfaction. Unfortunately, workers with disabilities are underrepresented in the STEM fields. This practice brief describes a program designed to support college students with…

Science fairs offer potential opportunities for students to learn first-hand about the practices of science. Over the past six years we have been carrying out voluntary and anonymous surveys with regional and national groups of high school and post high school students to learn about their high school science fair experiences regarding help…

Teacher candidates bring many beliefs and interpretations of mathematics teaching and learning at the start of their teacher preparation coursework (e.g. methods courses, field experiences, assessment). Well-prepared beginning teachers in many instances requires programs and designed experience to breakdown unproductive beliefs and/or improve…

The goal of our ongoing research is to identify strengths and weaknesses of high school level science fair and improvements that can help science educators make science fair a more effective, inclusive and equitable learning experience. In this paper, we confirm and extend our previous findings in several important ways. We added new questions to…

In higher education, doctoral training has been identified as a process of stewardship development whereby individuals learn the knowledge and skills required to advance their respective disciplines. Self-study of teacher education practices is one approach that has gained the interest of doctoral students to help them understand their own…

On April 27, 2011 a series of tornadoes tore through the southeast United States. Sixty-four percent of the counties in the state of Alabama were directly affected by these storms. After a natural disaster, children who are directly or indirectly affected show numerous intense emotional reactions. Recovery programs can be set up to enable them to…