The purpose of this study was to pilot the DREAMS (Desire, Readiness, Empowerment, Action, and Mastery for Success) program, a community-collaborative, after-school intervention program designed specifically to address the holistic developmental needs of students at school. The author originally developed and implemented the program in Kerala,…

Locally and nationally, English Learners (ELs) struggle to achieve parity with their monolingual peers in reading. In addition to second language-related considerations, ELs' efforts to succeed in reading may be thwarted by poverty, trauma, interrupted education, barriers to effective instruction and parental engagement, limited parental…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore the impact of informal STEM education on underrepresented middle school girls. The study took place within the context of the EUREKA! summer program, a collaboration between Drexel University's Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering and Girls Inc. of Philadelphia and…

To make up for pandemic-related learning losses, many U.S. public school districts have increased enrollment in their summer school programs. We assess summer school as a strategy for COVID-19 learning recovery by tracking the academic progress of students who attended summer school in 2022 across eight districts serving 400,000 students. Based on…

Vol. II: Short-Term Programs features eight OST STEM programs for females from across the United States that run one to three days in length, in most cases, a single day. In this book, the chapter authors describe their programs, the effectiveness of those programs, and practical implications of their program evaluation data. This book series is…

As initiatives on AI education in K-12 learning contexts continues to evolve, researchers have developed curricula among other resources to promote AI across grade levels. Yet, there is a need for more effort regarding curriculum, tools, and pedagogy, as well as assessment techniques to popularize AI at the middle school level. Drawing on prior…

There is a lack of consensus among school districts on how best to mitigate reading and math learning loss during the summer months. The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative exploration study was to determine if there was a statistically and practically significant effect of an educational program on summer learning loss in reading and…

When COVID-19 shut down in-person programs across the world in 2020, we (the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab)) as practitioners were in unknown territory. This paper outlines the structure of a 10-week online Summer Exploration Series (SES) program along with the evaluation performed by staff at the MagLab in 2020. The goal of the…

The current research sought to examine the impact of a week-long mathematics camp on motivation and self-efficacy beliefs of participating middle school students. Middle school students participated in a one-week mathematics camp on a college campus, where they worked on authentic mathematics activities that were applied to real world concepts.…

Middle schools often mandate summer reading as a means of stemming summer learning loss, but research suggests that many students do not read any books during the summer months. Limited book access and difficulties self-selecting books are two barriers that can impact students' summer reading practices. To address these challenges, students in one…

The evidence that student learning declines sharply (or stagnates) during the summer has motivated a substantial interest in programs that provide intensive academic instruction during the summer. However, the existing literature suggests that such programs, which typically focus on just one or two subjects, have modest effects on students'…

We describe two established STEM camps that went virtual following the outbreak of COVID-19 during the summer of 2020. Our Summer Research Opportunity (SRO) camp engages middle school science fair winners in a forensic research opportunity, while The Immokalee Foundation (TIF) camp introduces middle school students from historically…

This study present findings related to students' community and political engagement and activism after participation in an action civics institute. The institute, iEngage, is a weeklong summer experience for rising fifth through rising ninth graders that utilizes the action civics inquiry cycle to foster civic skills and cultivate participation…

Reasoning and problem solving are both critical acts in mathematics learning. The author has met many teachers who tell her they would love to highlight them more but feel they cannot because of the pressures of content coverage, pacing guides, and district tests. In this article, she describes a teaching intervention that highlighted problem…

Background: Summer camps can promote positive youth development. Unfortunately, racial, ethnic, and economic disparities contribute to inequities in camp participation and related research on marginalized youth. Consequently, it is not clear what types of camping programs work best for marginalized youth. Purpose: To conduct a quasi-experimental…