The PLAYground summer camp was developed by the Playful Learning Lab (PLL) at the University of St. Thomas, an undergraduate research group with a focus on learning through play. Through a partnership with a local school serving deaf and hard of hearing students, the PLAYground was designed to provide content to the deaf and hard of hearing…

Praise in the context of behavior-specific encouragement, positive reinforcement, and recognition may provide a linkage in positive youth development to teen leaders' feelings of contribution and motivation at 4-H Camp. Existing literature on praise in academic settings, combined with literature related to positive youth development, organized…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the power of affective pedagogies and playful literacies to resist neoliberal framings of video game play and design in educational contexts. Design/methodology/approach: Focusing on the Giga-Games Camp, a video game design camp for adolescents, the authors mobilize different methodological…

This article describes a summer enrichment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) camp for African-American girls and young women aimed at addressing mathematical and science self-efficacy and reinforcing the importance and usefulness of mathematics and science with a socially transformative curriculum. The research questions…

Purpose: For writing instruction, reflection has been an essential tool. Typically, educators ask students to reflect in a structured written, individual format. Less explored is the role that small and whole group reflective conversations have in fostering students' understandings about writing. The purpose of this paper is to explore several…

The authors detail how 2,000 teachers facilitating summer camps for 8,000 students across a state for three years engaged families in authentic literacy practices. Building relationships, considering families' needs and strengths, and providing authentic learning experiences linked with literacy led to positive changes in family engagement and…

Many researchers have debated potential differences between male and female students' mathematical performance. One important factor that can impact performance is perception of the content. The purpose of the study is to investigate factors that impact high-ability male and female students' perspectives of mathematics. Participants (n = 12;…

Background: STEM participation is often associated with the disenfranchisement of historically marginalized individuals. Disrupting these standing injustices to establish "rightful presence" with equitable opportunity, access, and cultural standing to shape and pursue STEM endeavors in ways that are inclusive of individuals' identities…

LGBTQ+, racial/ethnic minorities, youth from low-income contexts, and youth with cognitive and/or physical disabilities often face constraints to access and participation based on social and structural inequality. Understanding access and inclusion in summertime recreation program and camp settings for LGBTQ+, racial/ethnic minorities, individuals…

At the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, I grew concerned and also curious about how theatre educators would transition theatre and drama instruction to an online platform. I began a research study interviewing theatre artists while they shifted their formerly in-person summer camps to virtual spaces. One of those instructors, Flannery, was…

Service-learning (SL) has become popular as part of the formal curriculum and as cocurricular experiences for college students. Some SL programs serve individuals with disabilities, but their influence on college volunteers is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences and perspectives of preprofessional…

Emerging adults engage in a range of education, employment, and other experiences that provide opportunities to build skills necessary for future success. The camp industry employs 1.5 million individuals each summer, and its potential as a setting for development is important to understand. The purpose of this study was to identify the outcomes…

This study examines the use of critical community-building--using dialogue as a collective to support, listen to, ask questions, and assist each other in thinking in critical ways--to support resettled youths' writing during a summer writing camp. Through encouraging the youth to use their home languages, by celebrating their cultures, honoring…

Background: Many survey studies conducted in different countries have reported that students had stereotypical images of scientists, such as being male, old, bald, wearing eyeglasses, and working in laboratories. There are also intervention studies to introduce real scientists and change students' stereotypical image of scientists. The current…

This research is an autoethnographic account of teaching and learning during outdoor education experiences in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). Through the process of writing as a method of inquiry, I use a framework of outdoor experiences that went wrong, to identify the symbiotic relationship between teaching and learning in outdoor…