Freedom School Partners is a six-week summer program that has served the Charlotte, NC area since 2004. The purpose of this report is to present the external evaluation and findings of the six-week program in the summer of 2022. This evaluation is a joint effort between the Centers for Adolescent Literacies (CAL) and the Center for Educational…

A national need exists to effectively engage women and people categorized as minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and career paths. Given the minimal existence of standards and accreditation boards for engineering design and holistic engineering practice in K-12 contexts, we must better understand how said…

This study aimed to better understand the role that an undergraduate teacher exploration program for STEM majors played in STEM teacher education and recruitment. Utilizing journal data from 126 undergraduate students engaged in an intensive and immersive four-day internship that took place in Summer 2015 and Summer 2016, this study examined how…

As a popular social media application, WhatsApp has become an integral part of daily lives of many people on earth. Researchers have investigated the individual, social and pedagogical benefits of the tool. However, the possible contributions of WhatsApp as a platform for cultural interaction in the glocal sense has not been examined yet. To call…

In the gifted community, many voices offer research, information, and advice on what gifted children need. University professors who study gifted children share their findings through research, published articles, and books. State gifted education associations and the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) publish important information…

Summer bridge programs are supposed to connect a graduating high school senior's summer to their first semester in college, easing the transition away from home and into a university setting. Although research is plentiful on the programs, assessments regarding the overall effectiveness of such programs have been mixed (e.g., Cabrera, Miner, and…

This exploratory study investigated the social and affective concerns of 280 high-ability students in Grades 5 through 12 who participated in a summer residential program. Content analysis of responses from an open-ended survey indicated that high-ability adolescents expressed concerns regarding feelings and emotions, future aspirations, and…

School systems often implement character education initiatives in reaction to a violent event. Following the school shootings that occurred in the 1990s, many school systems started to implement character education and violence prevention programs. Unfortunately, because the efforts were reactive, little thought was given to sustainability…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether and how short-term study abroad programs transform college students' perspectives. The study examined attitudes about host country and international outlook, as well as intellectual, social and personal understandings. Short-term programs were defined as programs of less than a semester or a…

Reviewing and conducting research on summer residential program models for gifted and talented students will illuminate the academic, social, and emotional difficulties they face and reveal which practices are effective in addressing these issues. One program model, the Governor's School, warrants particular attention because of its mission to…