In Illinois, there are more than 21,000 children and youth in foster care. Approximately 26% of these individuals are 13 and older (Illinois Department of Children & Family Services [IDCFS] 2021). Although career and technical education (CTE) programs are offered at both secondary and postsecondary educational levels, little to no data about…

The Collaboration and Reflection to Enhance Atlanta Teacher Effectiveness (CREATE) is a three-year teacher residency program that seeks to recruit, support, and retain a diverse, highly effective, and culturally competent educator workforce that is committed to working in high-needs schools and to improving student outcomes. This evaluation…

Applying the concept of ruling relations--everyday norms, assumptions, logics, and social interactions that structure people's everyday lives (Smith, 1999)--to STEM underrepresented minority (URM) graduate student experiences provides a unique and important way to understand how inequality can be integrated into the graduate student socialization…

At our small liberal arts college, we recently introduced a field trip-based course as a requirement for all first-year science majors. This course, entitled "The Urban Ecosystem," explores various aspects of science and technology using our city (New York) as a case study. Beyond its curricular content, the Urban Ecosystem course has…

The Accelerating CTE project began as an extension of Jobs for the Future's (JFF's) Accelerating Opportunity (AO), a seven-year initiative to improve outcomes for adult education students in college. Building on the lessons learned and strong evidence realized in AO, the ECMC Foundation in 2016 invested in a three-year initiative where JFF…

Children's school readiness as they enter kindergarten is an important predictor of their academic success and ultimately their long-term health and economic outcomes. Research shows that participation in high-quality early childhood education helps preschoolers gain the foundational language and literacy skills as well as the social-emotional…

National attention is focused on the state of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in public schools. In order to ensure that students have access to high quality STEM education it is essential that teacher candidates are well prepared and confident to deliver challenging content and train students in necessary skills…

For over three decades, U.S. public schools have utilized various formal mentoring and induction programs to support early career teachers' professional development and facilitate their willingness to remain in the teaching profession for longer than the first few years. These programs however vary in content, quality and targeted audience.…

This study contributes to the literature on first year teachers by identifying complexities and struggles of becoming a teacher and the implications of district-university partnerships to strengthen our educator preparation program. The importance of partnerships with stakeholders, memorandum of agreements to share data, observations of first year…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are usually six to ten weeks long. Participation tends to decrease as the courses progress, leading to low completion rates. This led to the question: Could shorter MOOCs contribute to learners' engagement, retention and success? This paper compares two versions of Study Skills MOOC, which shared the same…

In October 2014, the Women's Sports Foundation (WSF), and espnW co-founded "Sports 4 Life", a national grant program to increase participation and retention of African American and Hispanic girls in sports, especially in under-resourced communities. These grants are intended to help small and mid-size organizations in all 50 states…

Single Stop U.S.A.'s Community College Initiative was designed to improve the well-being of low-income communities by connecting individuals to public benefits and other institutional and community resources to address nonacademic barriers to college completion. Through offices located on community college campuses, Single Stop provides students…

First-generation college students without broad support networks are more likely to leave STEM majors. In rural West Virginia, the First2 Network aims to improve STEM persistence by including students in creating solutions to STEM attrition. One solution, a research program for rising first-year students in STEM majors, is discussed here. The…

The proportion of underrepresented minority (URM) students graduating with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) degrees, matriculating to graduate programs, and entering the STEM workforce continues to be significantly low. The Virginia-North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (the VA-NC Alliance)…

This report summarizes implementation of the goals and some of the programs managed by the Professional Learning (PL) Department in the 2020-2021 academic year. The PL Department offers a comprehensive and sustainable approach to improving staff's effectiveness by ensuring that a variety of continuous and innovative PL opportunities, aligned to…