The College Readiness Consortium at the University of Minnesota has developed Ramp-Up to Readiness™ (Ramp-Up), a schoolwide advisory program to increase students' likelihood of college enrollment and completion by enhancing five dimensions of college readiness (academic, admissions, career, financial, and personal-social) among students in middle…

Ramp-Up to Readiness™ (Ramp-Up) is a college readiness program that aims to enhance five dimensions of readiness in high school students: academic, admissions, career, financial, and personal-social. Ramp-Up's developer theorizes that increasing these dimensions of readiness in high school students will improve college enrollment and success…

Engineering education research has empirically validated the effectiveness of active learning over traditional instructional methods. However, the dissemination of education research into instructional practice has been slow. Faculty workshops for current and future instructors offer a solution to promote the widespread adoption of active learning…

Although youth are at risk for exposure to adversity and trauma, many youth, especially ethnic and racial minorities, do not have access to mental health care. Resilience-building curriculums can teach important internal resilience skills and provide support to students who may not receive prevention or treatment services. We adapted a resilience…

This paper studies the early implementation of a school improvement effort in two high schools. We examine what explains variation in the teacher adoption of program practices. Our findings highlight the tension between encouraging immediate adoption of program practices and the longer term goals of schoolwide culture change. We find that highly…

This paper studies the early implementation of a school improvement effort in two high schools. We examine what explains variation in the teacher adoption of program practices. Our findings highlight the tension between encouraging immediate adoption of program practices and the longer term goals of schoolwide culture change. We find that highly…

The purpose of the present action research study is to describe a hands-on activity model, named the Constructed Scaffold Model (CSM), used in an Advanced Placement Calculus class in a southeastern United States suburban high school. Data were collected over an 8-week period during the spring 2017 semester. The teacher-researcher developed a…

Electronic course materials have several advantages over printed materials. While these advantages create an enticing argument for the adoption of electronic textbooks, there are disadvantages that may hobble e-text adoption. This case study investigates the e-text adoption process for 50 class sections across 8 business disciplines with 27…

"The Expanded Success Initiative: Challenges and Progress in the Pursuit of College and Career Readiness for Black and Latino Young Men" synthesizes findings from the Research Alliance's four-year evaluation of Expanded Success Initiative (ESI). This report, draws on hundreds of interviews and focus groups with ESI school leaders,…

This article describes Aspire, a new motivational interviewing (MI) early intervention program designed to prevent dropout among students repeating the ninth grade, and then examines the feasibility and acceptability of this program through a mixed-methods approach. The Aspire program is a nine-lesson curriculum grounded in MI with an emphasis on…

Numerous classroom-based interventions have aimed to improve sexual health outcomes for young people, yet few have shown strong, lasting effects. Ecological approaches that address multiple levels of a young person's environment offer largely untapped potential to positively change sexual behaviour. This paper presents results of a…

Mobile devices are the constant companions of technology users of all ages. Studies show, how-ever, that making calls is a minimal part of our engagement with today's smart phones and that even texting has fallen off, leaving web browsing, gaming, and social media as top uses. A cross-disciplinary group of faculty at our university came together…

This article reports on how design-based research methodology was used to guide a line of intervention research that developed, implemented, revised, and evaluated online learning science curricula for middle school students, including general education students and English language learners (primarily of Hispanic origin). The iterative,…

This research addresses the problem of low math achievement of middle school students through the use of a Growth Mindset intervention and related strategies. While the research on Growth Mindset interventions and strategies show positive results in controlled settings, there is a need to better understand Growth Mindset implementation from the…

To address the needs and interests of primary stakeholders in a writing program, this article presents a model of "grassroots" assessment that involves instructors from all ranks as well as students in the development, facilitation, and interpretation of assessment results. The authors describe two assessment plans that measured student…