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Racial/ethnic minoritized youth are underrepresented in autism research. Documented inequities in accessibility to and utilization of autism-specific services highlight the importance of better understanding for whom and under what conditions autism evidence-based practices (EBPs) work. This report examines the race, ethnicity, sex, and gender of school-based autism research participants (e.g. educators, students), given schools are the most common setting in which autistic youth receive services in the United States (US). Data across 14 years of research, for eight school-based studies in the US, showed that while most teachers identified as non-Hispanic White, over half of the youth sampled identified as being of a racial/ethnic minoritized background. Findings provide insights into who is being served in school-based autism research and how school partnerships may increase diversity among autism research participants and offer a means of reducing existing barriers. Researchers should continue to utilize schools to reach diverse populations and consider how demographic characteristics of school staff affect EBP effectiveness. Researchers should continue to better understand the impact of the EBP, provider, and setting on outcomes.

School nurses represent cost-effective investments in students' health and educational success. Alternative high schools (AHSs) serve an understudied population of youth who are at risk for school dropout and face numerous social inequities, heightening their risk for poor health outcomes. In this two-phase explanatory sequential mixed methods study, we examined school nurse staffing in Texas AHSs. Findings suggest Texas AHSs face understaffing for familiar reasons common across districts (e.g., lack of funding), but also reveal potential deeper inequities. Quantitative findings indicate 71% of Texas AHSs have some form of nursing support, most often an on-call or part-time nurse. Qualitative findings support and enrich this finding with insights into the negative consequences of not having a full-time nurse, indiscriminate approaches to staffing AHSs, and how AHSs can be the only school in the district without a full-time nurse. Altogether, our findings reveal opportunities to better support AHSs with adequate nursing support.

Purpose: In this validation study, we examined the factor structure of the mediated learning observation (MLO) used during the teaching phase of dynamic assessment. As an indicator of validity, we evaluated whether the MLO factor structure was consistent across children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: Two hundred twenty-four children (188 typically developing and 36 DLD) from kindergarten to second grade completed a 30-min individual mediated learning session on narrative production. Performance during the session was rated using the 12-item MLO by clinicians on affect, behavior, arousal, and elaboration. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to establish the factor structure and reliability of the MLO. Results: Factor analysis of the MLO suggested a stable three-factor model with adequate fit indices across kindergarten and school-age samples, across both typically developing and DLD subgroups with good to excellent reliability. The final 11-item MLO (one item was removed due to low factor loading) comprises three subscales including (a) cognitive factor, (b) learning anticipation, and (c) learning engagement. Conclusions: The MLO is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing language learning skills in children with and without DLD during dynamic assessment. Practical implications and suggestions for future research addressing the utilization of MLO in dynamic assessment are provided.

Purpose: This study used structural equation modeling to investigate the dimensionality of language in Spanish-English bilingual kindergartners. Five theoretical models were compared, including (a) a unidimensional model; (b) a two-dimensional model by language (Spanish, English); (c) a three-dimensional model by domain of language (phonology, semantics, morphosyntax); (d) a second-order model organized first by language (Spanish, English), with each language dimension comprising three domain-specific dimensions (phonology, semantics, morphosyntax); and (e) a six-dimensional model with freely covarying language-specific domains. Method: Participants included 238 Spanish-English bilingual kindergartens, as identified by parent report of current language exposure and direct language measures. All participants completed a battery of phonology, semantics, and morphosyntactic test items in English and in Spanish. Results: The six-dimensional covarying model constrained by domain and language provided the best fit for the data, with six separate factors for phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics in English and Spanish. The excellent model fit is supported by findings of a [chi-squared] to df (degrees of freedom) ratio < 2 with no significance, comparative fit index > 0.95, standardized root-mean-square residual < 0.08, and root-mean-square error of approximation values [less than or equal to] 0.05. Conclusions: Results support emergent theories of bilingual language development. Application of the results to the evaluation and intervention of oral language abilities in bilingual children entering the formal education setting are considered.

During U.S. school desegregation, education leaders played crucial roles that showcased their capacity to humanize their Black students. Their actions, we posit, reveal their level of racial literacy. Using oral history interviews and archival records, we examined school desegregation implementation through a racial literacy lens. We analyzed school district leadership in 1970s central Texas alongside Black students' resistance to white supremacist and antiBlack domination. We show how a white male leader's difficulty to see, hear, and heed his educational community largely explains Black desegregating students' resistance to sub-humanization. In this, we argue that the way leadership views a community determines how it interprets said community's concerns and the extent to which it can lead and humanize that community. This account adds to critical race research that links identity and education leadership, building on new racial literacy perspectives that situate it on a continuum with hegemonic and counterhegemonic at opposite ends.

School communities across the United States are experiencing increasing calls to remove the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) from their curricula despite not actually doing so in practice. This anti-CRT push is part of a larger, conservative agenda to ban teaching "divisive" topics in public schools and exemplifies the underlying racial politics existent in educational policy implementation. In this article, we analyze the legal efforts to ban CRT and anti-racist teaching in one state through a framework that situates policy implementation within CRT, which seeks to advance how whiteness, interest convergence, racial realism, and the erasure of people of color are continual to policy implementation. Through a critical discourse analysis of anti-CRT rhetoric, we illustrate how predictable patterns such as white backlash, overt racism, racial violence, and racial trauma are brought to light in policy implementation. We then offer an example of CRT as critical race praxis (CRP) in another state that works to counter racism and create anti-racist change in policy design and implementation. CRP is perhaps one tool school leaders have at their disposal to subvert whiteness and white supremacy in policymaking, especially policy implementation.

In this participatory research, two pre-service teachers (PSTs) and a mathematics teacher educator (MTE) collaboratively analyzed multiple voices that influence syllabi from elementary mathematics teaching methods courses. Findings suggest syllabi fall along a continuum from harmonious to dissonant orchestration of the voices of past and present children, PSTs, MTEs, universities, and state policies. Formatting, stance makers, and content and wording influenced the kind of multivocality that addressivity, ventriloquation, and hybridization constituted. These findings informed our use of collage method to create a sample syllabus that centers the voices of PSTs and their future students. We discuss implications that intentional syllabus design decisions may have in humanizing these documents and fostering a relationship of mutuality and support between PSTs and MTEs.

As many U.S. school administrators create policies around hair, many often neglect to consider racial differences, especially those pertaining to hair care and maintenance styles. News media outlets have recently highlighted the ways schools create and sustain racially biased policies and schooling environments, demonstrating the media's role in promoting awareness of schools' mistreatment of Black children. This study examines media reports that shed light on these dynamics, focusing on urban/metropolitan areas in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Massachusetts. We ask: What do news media accounts--explicitly and implicitly--reveal about Black children and their families' experiences with hair policies in K-12 schools? We take up critical race discourse analysis to examine selected news media accounts of four recent, high profile (i.e., viral) events of Black students' experiences with hair policies in K-12 U.S. schools. Analysis of our data revealed that Black students face undue discrimination due to schools' hair policies, and that they and their families reject antiBlack constructions of Black hair care practices and styles.

Engineering and pop-culturist instructors team-teach a first-year experience course exploring science through the lenses of history, literature, film, television, and sequential art. Authors present science fiction discourses as unique for synthesizing fields in the humanities and STEM, and they present curricular and co-curricular design strategies for harnessing its potential in the honors classroom. Course objectives and outcomes are presented, with authors noting specific challenges in implementation and emendation. Adaptability and compatibility figure prominently in the successful delivery of the course. A review of literature relating to interdisciplinary education and team-teaching in honors is included.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine doctoral student perceptions about an experiential learning summer study away program involving one Texas educational leadership doctoral (Ed.D.) program. Students shared their perceptions about how the four-day study away trip advanced their professional and educational development in becoming more effective scholarpractitioner leaders. Data were collected and analyzed from a completed end-of-course reflective assignment involving students who participated in the study away program. After coding the data and identifying the common themes that emerged from the reflective writing narratives, there were four overarching themes that were derived from the students' responses: (1) encouraging collaborative campus-level decision making; (2) understanding the various contexts and environments of various public school campuses; (3) recognizing the importance of stakeholder trust within the educational setting; and (4) examining the experiential observations within the context of leadership theory and research. The researchers conclude that the experiential learning experience positively impacted the development of scholar-practitioner leaders. The authors further discuss the potential benefits that study away programs can have for other Ed.D. programs considering this option and offer recommendations about how faculty and site-based administrators can work together incorporating similar study away programs for their respective doctoral students.

Teachers want their students to have access to the books they need to fall in love with reading, which means having classroom and school libraries stocked with a wide variety of books. But as English teachers are well aware, Texas leads the nation in book challenges and bans. This article defines and describes the different forms of censorship and includes extensive information and resources to support classroom teachers as they prepare for and respond to book challenges, including building allies and staying in tune with organizations that provide support. The authors conclude by describing how book challenges are the current reality and that we must work toward and remain hopeful for a future in which diverse classroom libraries abound.

This study focused on mentors who worked with a university-based Educator Preparation Program (EPP) located in South Texas during the pilot of a teacher residency program. Our research aimed to explore the roles and behaviors of mentors working with teacher residents, with a particular focus on how the introduction of a critical conversation protocol influenced their profiles. Our goal was to increase the capacity for mentorship by strengthening and increasing the critical conversations that mentors had with teacher residents with the intention to inform our practice, grow our partnership, and refine tools that are necessary to effectively mentor teacher residents.

Effective school leaders are essential to the success of the school environment. Teachers have left schools due to poor and ineffective campus leadership, but often do not report the reasons why they left or do not have a safe mechanism in place to support their claims and drive campus change. The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand the perceptions of teachers who work in elementary, middle, and high schools in Texas on the qualities of ineffective principals and how these qualities affect teacher retention. Respondents in an open-ended survey reported that ineffective principals lacked character, professionalism, and ethics; exhibited poor leadership and management skills; did not practice active listening or effective communication; and lacked the capacity to develop and sustain a positive learning climate. From these findings, we offer recommendations for campus principals for improving their leadership and school climate to support and retain teachers.

As the population of emergent bilingual students in the United States continues to grow, it has become increasingly important to ensure that content area instruction is linguistically and culturally inclusive and accessible. Longitudinal survey and state mathematics assessment data were used to examine how the use of students' home language in the English-medium mathematics classroom related to growth in student achievement and attitudes towards mathematics learning. Surveys from 1,274 students attending four middle schools in a Spanish-dominant community reported on teacher and student use of Spanish as well as attitudes towards learning strategies and mathematics. Structural equation modelling revealed that teachers' use of Spanish predicted students' use of Spanish, which was associated with growth in comfort participating in the mathematics classroom. Increased comfort, moreover, was related to growth in mathematics self-efficacy and, in turn, increased interest in mathematics as well as growth on the state mathematics assessment.

Researchers have reported that participation in agricultural education reinforces STEM concepts. The use of projects is common in agricultural education. However, the foundational understanding of certain tenets of project use is not clear. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to test the effects of project authenticity on learning. AFNR students (N = 219) were sampled and assigned as a cohort to one of four treatments. Treatments were project types which varied in their degree of project authenticity. During analysis, it was apparent that the intended project variable of authenticity had less effect on the outcomes than other factors. An analysis of covariance was used to test the effects of perceived novelty on change scores in a pre-post quasi-experimental design. A test of project type groups, which varied on novelty, yielded statistically significant results (p < 0.05) with small effect size ([omega superscript 2] = 0.04). A Pearson Chi Square was calculated to determine if a relationship between novelty and project type existed and determined to be significant, X[superscript 2] (12, N=152) = 22.35, p = 0.034. A pairwise comparison was calculated to compare levels of novelty to determine where the variation existed. Students with novelty level 4 had statistically different change scores than those at novelty level 2 (p = 0.006) and students with novelty level 4 were different from those with a novelty level 5 (p = 0.012). Students with less familiarity with the project (a more novel project) showed more improvement on the science exam.

Objective: Campus recreational sport activities impact college student health and well-being in a variety of domains. This multi-institutional study examined the participation of students in campus recreation during the pandemic and explored the relationship between student participation and their demographic markers, COVID-19 experience, and perceptions of risk, health and safety. Methods: Results from a survey of 1,815 American college students indicated the presence of statistical differences in sport participation based on "Gender, Race, State, Personal COVID-19 Experience, Campus Safety Efforts", and "Risk Perception Score" within various areas of analysis. Results: The impact and meaning of these cross-sectional results are discussed with reference to the ongoing pandemic and student health. Recommendations are presented within the context of this vital programming area both during and beyond the current crisis. Conclusion: These results are especially important given the health benefits associated with participation in recreational sport as tools to mitigate against the unprecedented consequences of the pandemic.

Background: The purposes of this study were to (1) longitudinally examine US college and university COVID-19 dashboard content and (2) explore county-level population health and COVID-19 community indicators where colleges with large undergraduate enrollments were located. Methods: We identified 10 colleges with the largest undergraduate enrollments. Next, we located all public and private two- and four-year nonprofit colleges (n = 58) in each respective county. We assessed active COVID-19 dashboards using established criteria from "We Rate COVID Dashboards" in March 2021 and February 2022. Results: In 2021 and 2022, two-thirds (n = 38/58) of colleges had an active COVID-19 dashboard. While most COVID-19 dashboards were easy to read, they were less likely to include updated daily infection rates and testing frequency details. Conclusion: Overall quality, content, and features of COVID-19 dashboards varied greatly across colleges. Future COVID-19 dashboard designs should focus on providing evidence-based information with the goal of promoting and supporting informed decision making.

This study sought to explore the extent to which and how principals can help decrease the use of out-of-school suspension and close the racial discipline gap. This study comprised a qualitative case study of a principal in an urban school district. Data derive from in-depth interviews with current and former campus and district leaders, historical data, and documents. The principal's transformational actions, together with support from the district, helped to improve the school's culture, and decreased the use of OSS, but were not sufficient to close the racial discipline gap.

Nearly half of all students in the United States are placed into at least one developmental course in college. Many of these students fail to complete developmental course sequences and persist to degree completion. First-Year Seminars are one of several high-impact practices associated with increased persistence, retention, and graduation rates of college students. Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) was used to explore the effect of concurrent first-year seminar enrolment on the academic achievement of students placed into developmental mathematics. Study results indicated that students who self-selected into a first-year seminar were more likely to earn a passing grade in their developmental mathematics course and have higher overall GPA. These results may inform strategies for integrating learning support with instruction for academically underprepared college students.

Superstitious behaviors persist across time, culture, and age. Although often considered irrational and even potentially harmful, superstitions have recently been shown to have positive effects on stress levels, confidence, and ultimately, performance. However, it remains unclear how people conceive of superstitious behaviors, specifically, whether people attribute apparent superstitious efficacy to magical forces or to something else, such as reduced stress or increased confidence. In two studies we asked 6- to 9-year-old children and adults from the United States to rate how causally connected superstitious behaviors were to desired outcomes. In Study 1, participants provided open-ended responses to questions probing why they believed the actions were tied to the outcomes. Participants were more likely across ages to offer natural than magical explanations to explain the connection -- this became more pronounced with age. In Study 2, half the stories did not permit a plausible natural explanation, thus any perceived causal relation could only be attributable to magic. Participants were asked how connected the superstitious behaviors were to the outcomes. We found significant differences in ratings of connectedness between stories that held plausible natural explanations and those that did not in our adult sample only. Our findings suggest that people recruit their naïve psychology when reasoning about the efficacy of superstitious behaviors; however, children may also believe magic to be causally relevant.

Parents, particularly mothers, of autistic children may be especially vulnerable to the negative effects of COVID-19. The current longitudinal study examined changes in psychological distress (anxiety, depression, stress) and marital functioning of mothers and fathers of autistic children across three time points between April and October 2020, and the extent to which pre-COVID factors predicted changes in these outcomes. Participants were 94 mothers and 58 fathers of autistic children drawn from a larger longitudinal study about family relationships and autistic children's mental health that began prior to the pandemic. Results indicated that mothers reported higher levels of psychological distress compared to fathers in July and October 2020. Although, on average, levels of psychological distress and marital functioning did not significantly change for mothers and fathers, pre-pandemic child functioning and marital satisfaction predicted individual differences in change in marital satisfaction during the pandemic for mothers. Implications of the findings are discussed.

The issue of school safety has been interrogated as school shootings have occurred multiple times each year in the United States. This devastating reality has captured the attention of many throughout the United States. School leaders have implemented strategies to increase school safety, including the creation of practices to deter shooting incidences in schools. One such practice, the arming of school district employees, is the focus of this study. We sought to answer the following research questions: 1) How do superintendents describe their experiences implementing and leading the practice? and 2) What lessons have superintendents learned related to the practice? The data sources for this study included superintendent interviews, school district policies, and relevant documents. The findings included descriptions of the practice, the process of implementation, legal and policy guidelines, and advice for school leaders.

In response to an unprecedented demand for services, college counseling centers have been forced to innovate new strategies to meet student demand and protect staff from burnout. One private university developed a unique Comprehensive Collaborative Care Model. Drawing on the tradition of collegiate recovery communities, this model includes the use of Peer Support Communities (PSCs). This brief discusses the structure of PSCs, as well as the positive response from both students and staff.

New partnerships to reach new audiences are key to Extension's future (Harder, 2019). But partnership is enhanced through shared decision-making, co-creation of content, and leveraging non-overlapping expertise and experience (Bertsch et al., 2020; Israilov & Cho, 2017; Ostrom, 1996). Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service partnering with the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities provides a novel approach to using statewide presence to the benefit of a partner seeking to expand its footprint (Alford, 2014; Ostrom, 1996) and is, itself, an outcome (Voorberg et al., 2015). Additionally, Texans with disabilities benefit through greater access to the education and resources the partnership produces.

This study aims to answer the following research question: How is participation in selected high impact practices (HIPs) that promote social capital associated with community college students' positive civic learning outcomes (CLOs) such as communication and listening, diversity, and consensus-building? This study analyzed responses to the 2019 Community College Survey of Student Engagement using Minitab to conduct chi-square analysis to test the hypothesis that HIPs that build social capital are related to greater frequency of CLOs. The most notable finding is that four of the HIPs - internships, in-class group projects, service-learning, and learning communities - were consistently positively associated with each of the CLOs in statistically significant and possibly practically meaningful ways.

People with disabilities in the United States have access to a fraction of engaging play experiences available to others due to playground design choices, minimal legal requirements, and societal acceptance of the status quo. PlayGrand Adventures, the first and largest all-abilities playground in North Texas, meets this need by providing engaging play opportunities for everyone. This qualitative case study explores and describes community engagement at PlayGrand Adventures, informed by principles of environmental reciprocity supported by Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (1986) and Gibson's Affordance Theory (1979). The researcher collected data on community perception and engagement via a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and playground observations. The study fills a gap in academic research on all-abilities playgrounds in the United States to increase awareness of the systemic underserving of people with disabilities in this country and provides a potential solution. The researcher offers initial recommendations for PlayGrand Adventures' future development and implementation with implications for replication in other cities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially impacted higher education. The unexpected move to online learning and support services has created many challenges. International students, who often are unfamiliar with the culture and norms of American higher education, have been particularly disadvantaged. Analyzing data received through an online survey, researchers identified the top five academic and nonacademic challenges faced by international students during the pandemic, and their use of support services to overcome these challenges. The results inform college administrators, professors, and student services professionals on the experiences of international students during the pandemic and offer suggestions for reviving and expanding campus academic and social support services.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) educate nearly two-thirds of the Hispanic/Latinx students who attend college. Yet little is known about the student populations they serve. Findings from two NSF-funded surveys completed with students at 14 HSIs in Texas and New Mexico in 2018 and four HSIs in TX in 2019 are presented. The combined sample was 1,293 students. A description of the backgrounds, commitments, experiences, and preferences of students at HSIs and differences found between responses from Hispanic/Latinx and non-Hispanic students are discussed. Primary topic areas are demographics, first-generation student standing, cultural orientation, primary language and fluency in Spanish, family and work commitments, relationship status, family support, living arrangements, means of financing college, course load, STEM identity, annual income of household of origin and of personal household, locus of control orientation, familism, and experience in college. The result is a thorough and up-to-date profile of the HSI student population in TX and NM. Statistical analysis revealed multiple significant differences between Hispanic/Latinx and non-Hispanic students attending the HSIs and the presence of several significant predictors for forms of activity and patterns of commitment. The findings are immediately applicable to process, program, student support, and instructional planning, implementation, and evaluation for over 120 HSIs in the region and, by extension, to hundreds more across the United States.

This study adds to a series investigating the publication patterns of refereed articles in Library and Information Science (LIS) journals by United States academic librarians (USALs). The first study covered 1993-97, and subsequent studies continued in five-year increments. This study presents data and metrics for 2013-17 from fifty-two journals: thirty studied since 1998, seven added in 2003, and fifteen added in 2013. Over the years, the proportion of articles by USALs has decreased, despite evidence that USAL publishing is increasing. This difference suggests that other segments of LIS publishing are increasing faster than USAL publishing. The percentages of coauthorship and USALs who publish three or more articles in five years have increased. Large public research universities with librarians who have faculty status and tenure continue to be the most productive, but evidence suggests an increasing number of academic libraries are contributing to the LIS journal literature. The percentages of USAL and non-USAL articles in the journals studied since 1998 and those studied since 2003 or 2013 point to differences in growth among journals, the importance of new journals, and changes in affiliations of USAL authors and where USALs publish.

Purpose: There are well-established links between oral language and reading development in monolingual English-speaking children that are associated with literacy outcomes. Oral language, defined relative to lexical quality, provides key support for developing early reading skills. For bilingual children, the connection between oral language and reading development and risk for identification of having language or reading difficulties is assumed but has been less systematically studied. Our goal was to document the relationship between knowledge of semantics and morphosyntax and children's performance on letter and word identification in first grade in each of their languages so as to evaluate the risk for poor reading outcomes in the Spanish and English of bilingual first graders. Method: We examined data from 111 Spanish-English bilingual first graders on measures of Spanish and English semantics and morphosyntax in relation to letter-word identification, which indexes early reading development. We evaluated the within- and across-language relationships between skills and also whether the same children who performed in the at-risk range on the oral language tasks showed risk for future reading difficulties based on their letter-word performance. Results: Oral language skills and early reading skills were strongly related within languages, and cross-language relationships were also evident, though not for all domains. There were significant associations between risk for developmental language disorder (DLD) based on semantics performance and reading risk. Conclusions: We observe cross-linguistic relationships between letter-word identification and morphosyntactic and semantic skills in young Spanish-English bilinguals with and without risk for language and reading development. These findings indicate that connections between oral language and reading hold across differing levels of language and reading risk.

This article presents a study that explored the implementation of a "Say Yes to FCS" Teaching Camp, a local community initiative in Texas, to address the critical shortage of family and consumer sciences (FCS) teachers in secondary schools. Aimed at incoming 9th- and 10th-grade students, the 4-day camp offered hands-on learning experiences across various FCS-related secondary courses, mentorship from local FCS educators, and insights into the diverse career paths within the field. Despite not significantly increasing the participants' interest in pursuing the FCS teaching profession, the camp was positively received, prompting interest in FCS-related high-school courses. In addition, this study emphasizes the necessity of evaluating the camp's success and adjusting strategies to ensure this initiative increases participants' interest in pursuing an FCS teaching profession in the future.

The Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) project in 1991 as one of the six initial awardees. As part of these efforts and upon reaching eligibility, the TAMUS LSAMP applied for and received additional funding to support a Bridge to the Doctorate (BTD) program. BTD programming provides financial, educational, and social support to incoming STEM master's degree and PhD students for the first two years of their graduate study. BTD cohorts consist of up to 12 fellows who participate in a program of academic and professional development seminars and workshops. In project evaluation, annual interviews were conducted with the TAMUS BTD participants, the vast majority of whom were underrepresented minorities (92%). During the interviews, the BTD students were asked to discuss ten topics some of which addressed concerns specific to the implementation of the BTD project. This report considers answers provided in the five topic areas which have broader applicability: 1) the learning achieved by participants through participation in BTD, 2) the personal impact of participation in BTD, 3) the influence of BTD on informants' educational goals, 4) the influence of BTD on informants' career goals, and 5) barriers the BTD participants perceived to pursuing a PhD. Eighty project participants responded to the questions between 2009 and 2018. They were from eight distinct cohorts of BTD students and represented 32 different areas of STEM specialization. Qualitative analysis of their responses confirmed that students perceived the elements of the TAMUS BTD project to be efficacious and that there was a set of nine seminars from which participants consistently reported benefit. Additional findings were eight key areas in which learning was reported by participants, four areas in which the programming had personal impact, five influences on educational goals, nine impacts on career goals, and a detailed list of barriers graduate students who are underrepresented minorities (URM) perceive to pursuing a doctoral degree. The proven and easily replicated pattern of support programming, the demonstrated results of this programming, and insight into barriers URMs perceive to pursuing a STEM doctorate are immediately applicable to URM graduate student support at many institutions of higher education.

Six questions that instructional supervisors have been faced with and had to respond to during the COVID-19 crisis include: (a) How do we support teachers in the transition from face-to-face to virtual classes and meetings; (b) How do we focus on addressing the needs of teachers while engaged in remote or online learning; (c) How do we maintain communication, contact, and relationships with teachers; (d) How do we celebrate successes as teachers work with students in the virtual world; (e) How do we assess the quality of the teaching-learning process; and (f) How do we plan for the next steps? Within the scholar-practitioner theoretical model, this study narrates how two principals in Texas addressed each of these six questions. The case studies presented could be used as historical accounts, meaning that leaders could learn from their successes and their mistakes as they move to the next phase of reopening schools.

Researchers have reported that participation in agricultural education reinforces STEM concepts, often through project-based learning. The use of projects is common in agricultural education. However, the instructional importance of certain elements of these projects is not well understood. We conducted a quasi-experimental study to examine the effect of project authenticity on learning. Agriculture students in Texas were sampled and assigned as a cohort to one of four treatment groups (N = 219). Fourteen cohort groups (class periods) were identified across five sites. Each cohort was randomly assigned to one of four project types to learn about electricity. The four project types varied in their degree of project authenticity. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the effects of project authenticity on change scores in a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. Learning varied on authenticity. A test of project type groups yielded statistically significant results (p < 0.025) with small effect size ([omega]2 = 0.04). Pairwise comparisons revealed no differences between the most and least authentic projects but did reveal statistically significant differences between the two projects with medium levels of authenticity, and the other two (i.e., least authentic and most authentic). The relationship between learning and authenticity was not linear. We recommend that teachers and curriculum designers deliberately consider the importance of authenticity when designing project-based learning opportunities for students.

Litigation in education has drastically risen over past decades, representing the need for teachers to have a foundational knowledge of the educational laws which govern them. The myriad of educational law sources and the perpetually changing nature of school law serve as barriers for teachers' competence in educational law. The purpose of this study was to identify the specific in-service educational law training needs of Texas school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers. Furthermore, this study sought to determine the effect of background characteristics on teacher's perceived competence on educational law issues. An educational law needs assessment was distributed to a probabilistic sample of Texas SBAE teachers (n = 325). Two-hundred and thirteen teachers completed the needs assessment, yielding a response rate of 65.5%. The Texas SBAE teachers identified (1) qualified immunity, (2) search and seizure of students, (3) transportation of students in school and (4) personal vehicles, and (5) teacher-initiated removal of students as their highest-ranked educational law in-service needs. The results of a factorial ANOVA indicated the educational law competence of teachers was significantly different based on the amount of previous educational law training the teacher had received.

A priority of agricultural teacher education programs is to develop technically competent, prepared school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers. SBAE teachers should be knowledgeable in various agricultural subject matter, such as agricultural mechanics. Using Roberts and Ball's (2009) Content-based Model for Teaching Agriculture as the conceptual framework for our study, we used a three-round Delphi technique to identify the agricultural mechanics knowledge and skills SBAE teachers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas need to successfully teach agricultural mechanics courses. Spread across all four states, a panel of 47 SBAE teachers with expertise in agricultural mechanics contributed data for our study. Thirty-five teachers participated in all three rounds. After all three rounds were completed, 71 technical agricultural mechanics knowledge and skill items (e.g., circular saw use, computer numerical control [CNC] systems use, etc.) and 49 agricultural mechanics "teacher skill" / laboratory management knowledge and skill items (e.g., budget management, developing a student traffic control system, etc.) were identified. We recommend various efforts to help expand teachers' competence in these items should be undertaken within these states, including: (1) establishing and expanding partnerships with agricultural industry stakeholders to provide professional development opportunities for SBAE teachers, (2) realigning agricultural teacher education courses and experiences to better reflect teachers' agricultural mechanics knowledge and skill needs, and (3) facilitating opportunities for teachers to develop competence in agricultural mechanics through SBAE teacher-led training. To help provide systematic, consistent examination of teacher competence needs in agricultural mechanics, replication of our study should occur at regular intervals.