In recent years, growing numbers of policymakers, city officials, and educators have been eyeing the expanse of time outside the education prime time and asking a simple question: What can communities do to help children grow and learn after the school bell rings? The concern is that too many children and teens, especially the poor, are left to…

Enhancing teachers' ability to assess and articulate claims of historical significance will provide a valuable compass that thoughtful teachers use to navigate large amounts of material in meaningful ways. This study explores how and to what extent--if any--teachers develop their ability to apply historical reasoning to determine the significance…

The study investigates the experiences of emerging adults who had worked as counselors at overnight summer camps; identity-related issues emerge as most salient in the analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 12 women and 8 men from 8 camps. Their descriptions portray the identity exploration that took place within the camp context, through…

Both employer expectations and education standards, including the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, are shifting the focus of learning from knowledge and discrete skills to the ability to think critically and creatively. This paper describes the process of translating an existing teacher-led STEM curriculum to fit…

The authors investigated whether the amount of instructional guidance affects science learning and self-efficacy. Sixty 9- and 10-year-old children were randomly assigned to one of the following three instructional conditions: (a) guided instruction consisting of examples and student-generated explanations, (b) direct instruction consisting of a…

The English Language Learner (ELL) Summer Camp in Worcester, Massachusetts--an intensive six-week program that served middle school and high school students from Worcester Public Schools (WPS)--was the product of a five-way partnership that included the school district, higher education institutions (Latino Education Institute [LEI] at Worcester…

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…

For the past five years, the Brandeis Science Posse program has recruited and retained students from underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines. In collaboration with the Posse Foundation, we have facilitated the formation of a close-knit, mutually supportive learning community, or a "science posse" for sixty students from New York City…

"The 2021 Pro-Kid Policy Agenda for California" is the comprehensive state-level roadmap to ensure that all children have the necessary supports to reach their full potential. California has an obligation to end systemic injustices that create barriers to kids of color, as well as kids living in poverty and undocumented kids, from…

This policy brief presents initial findings of the impact of New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) on academic outcomes for public school students. Despite the broad appeal of providing summer jobs for urban youth, there is little research documenting the relationship between summer employment and educational outcomes for high…

Developmental summer bridge programs are a popular strategy for increasing college readiness among recent high school graduates. Aimed at providing an alternative to traditional developmental education, these programs provide accelerated and focused learning opportunities in order to help students acquire the knowledge and skills needed for…

This study investigates the cross-cultural realization of request patterns. The goal of the study is to compare the realization of requests produced by adult American English speaking learners of Russian (NNS) to that of native speakers of Russian and native speakers of English to identify the similarities and differences between native and…

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to examine student-athlete perceptions of the role of summer pre-enrollment in their adjustment and transition to college. The study focused on student-athletes who received athletically-related financial aid at a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-AAA institution. The…

When students feel comfortable in the learning environment and are being given authority to make their own choices about what they want to create, they can create significant artworks with different personal expressions through the form of narratives. Students feel this freedom especially when they are not in the regular school environment where…

This article describes lessons learned about grouping by teachers and teacher educators who worked collaboratively to design and deliver a summer writing institute for a heterogeneous population of students about to begin ninth grade at an urban high school. Institute staff used co-teaching (Cook & Friend, 1995) extensively to provide support for…