Teacher self-efficacy is a construct that exerts a powerful influence on the behaviors of teachers. Yet, few studies have been conducted examining the impact of contextual structures within educator preparation programs on the development of general and domain-specific teaching efficacy. This study investigated the impact of an embedded internship…

Diversity in age, background, circumstances, and abilities among post-secondary learners has become increasingly common in online nursing education. Thus, there is a need for educators to build an inclusive environment that is responsive to this variety, to optimize learner achievement. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers educators a…

In 2014, the NIH Diversity Program Consortium (DPC) launched an initiative to implement and evaluate novel interventions at a variety of academic institutions across the country to engage undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds in biomedically-related research. The local intervention examined in the current study provides Critical Race…

This report from the field shares information describing a pilot program that addressed the literacy needs of middle school culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. One of the authors played a key role in designing and implementing the Building Bonds family literacy program. This program was made to engage these students and their…

The Engaged Engineering Program (EEP) project at ABC University is a five-year Track 2 NSF S-STEM that responds to challenges in recruiting and retaining academically talented, low-socioeconomic status students from diverse backgrounds into undergraduate engineering programs. The EEP project has successfully recruited four cohorts of Scholars and…

Schools in underserved communities are less likely to be able to offer computer science (CS) classes and when available the teacher lacks a background in CS but is also new to the teaching profession (Banilower et al., 2018). CS teachers without the proper preparation in the content area struggle to support their students including ways of…

As the youth mental health crisis continues to worsen, there is a need for more evidence-based social-emotional interventions that can be applied in schools -- the setting in which youth are most likely to seek and receive mental health treatment (Simon et al., 2015). Further, exploring ways to culturally adapt interventions for marginalized…

The aim of this study was to research whether teachers see global school partnerships as an effective tool to support anti-racist and inclusive approaches and deliver practice that reflects, is representative of, and engages all pupils. Over the last year, events have led to increasing debates around Black Lives Matter, the urgent need to…

Undergraduate organic chemistry courses have a reputation for being difficult among students in biological and physical sciences programs. Due to the extensive problem-solving, visualization, and depiction of chemical structures/reactions required, students may perceive learning such content as similar to learning a new language. Several…

Disparities in gifted representation across demographic subgroups represents a large and persistent challenge in U.S. public schools. In this paper, we measure the impacts of a school-wide curricular intervention designed to address such disparities. We implemented Nurturing for a Bright Tomorrow (NBT) as a cluster randomized trial across…

Negative emotional reactions toward those of differing social identities is both common and detrimental to the development of relationships that are essential for effective work, living, and educational spaces. In this study we assessed the impact of an (elaborated) imagined contact intervention (eICI) on undergraduate students' anxiety levels…

This dissertation employs a multiple case study approach to explore the views and expectations of Latino-Hispanic parents of ELLs regarding their children's school English language acquisition programs (ELAP). The central research question investigates the perceived effectiveness of these programs and their alignment with parents' aspirations for…

Today's hyper-partisan world makes civil discourse across differences seem almost impossible for many adults, let alone young people. U.S. public schools are tasked with educating our young people with the goal that they each can be productive members of society. High-school students participating in an intergroup dialogue on race as part of their…

Project Midstate Student Support for Teaching (MSS) (http://www.uis.edu/projectmss/) is an initiative at University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) designed to increase the number of first generation and diverse teacher candidates in area school districts. Students accepted into MSS receive full tuition waivers, a $200 book stipend per semester, and…

The Role Model Moms (RMM) program supports low-income mothers completing their General Equivalency Diplomas. Postsecondary education (PSE) can break cycles of intergenerational poverty; however, existing PSE orientation resources were not designed for this group. A need existed for a new university resource utilizing a collaborative and…