With support from the William T. Grant Foundation, Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) is conducting a research study on the factors associated with whether children and youth participate in out-of-school time (OST) programs and activities. Building on our previous work, we are using national data to examine the many factors and contexts in…

Students with mild disabilities often have difficulties with organization and written performance. These students can be helped by a combination of effective instructional strategies, compensatory strategies, and technological tools. Planning and organizing tools can encourage activities such as concept mapping, story webbing, brainstorming,…

This paper describes implementation of the federal government's DC 21st Century Community Learning Center (DC 21st CCLC) program during the summer of 2001, focusing on the use of computer technology to improve academic achievement. The DC 21st CCLC program provides funding to schools in the District of Columbia to improve their out-of-school-time…

This study was intended to design, enact, and evaluate a teacher education project on multiple forms of literacy and to examine whether teacher-learners would develop new understandings about language arts when defined more expansively to include multiple symbol systems offered by music and other art forms. The project was developed by teacher…

Women and mathematics have been thought of as two totally separate subjects for decades. In July, 1994 a group of mathematicians from around the country gathered in Berkeley, CA for three days to discuss ways to increase the representation of women in Ph.D. programs in the mathematical sciences. The primary goal of this conference was to broaden…

Summer-term projects are an important component of the federal Migrant Education Program (MEP), legislated under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In 1998, a nationally representative survey of MEP summer projects examined project characteristics, types of instructional and support services offered, and the projects' student…

This document reports that many community colleges are considering changes in their traditional semester calendars. In California, the most common question facing colleges is whether to switch from the traditional (in California) 18-week semester to a 16-week one. This paper details the results of a student and faculty survey conducted at…

This study examined the impact of the Opening Doors Summer Research Institute, an intensive summer research program designed to reverse negative retention trends among minority college students. The study examined experiences of minority students participating in a research program designed to introduce culturally diverse undergraduates to the…

This study surveyed participants in the Hubbard Summer Academy for Future Teachers at Emporia State University, Kansas, which is designed to take the best and brightest high school seniors who are interested in becoming teachers and help them better understand what teachers do. The survey was mailed to all Summer Academy students who had graduated…

This paper advocates that Wisconsin teachers of French should participate in immersion programs for each Department of Instruction recertification cycle. Typically, teachers obtain their immersion experience in France, initially as undergraduate students and subsequently as tour guides for their own students. The paper suggests that North American…

When a University of Louisville Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) director, a team of graduate students, and an instructor designed a free summer computer camp program for disadvantaged middle schoolers, they imagined that the middle schoolers would respond to the first instruction as if the educators had restrained them in technological and…

In 1997 the Board of Education of the Durham (North Carolina) Public Schools passed a policy that required all students performing below grade level on the Eighth Grade Competency Test in either reading or mathematics to attend summer school and demonstrate progress in order to be eligible for promotion to the next grade. This requirement was…

There are many people of middle age in America still who do not believe in play. They grew up without playgrounds themselves and they do not realize how greatly conditions have changed during the intervening years. When the author was a boy in southern Michigan the school session in his country community was only four months a year. Under these…

Describes how the Physics Department at the State University of New York at Stonybrook has attempted to provide a new model for working with elementary schools and assisting them in introducing science materials. (Author/TS)