Breakfast Club Blog
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!
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Game Jams for Out-of-School Time
Game jams are like a game about making a game. Participants meet in out-of-school spaces to create a game in either one day or over a weekend. Often, game jams center on a theme. For example, in spring 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) organized a climate-themed game jams about water. The topic of water was part of a White House call to action regarding building a sustainable water future. I helped facilitate the climate jam held in New York City. Students met at B...Read More
Researcher and Practitioner Dialogue with Carol McElvain, J.D. and Michael Funk
The third issue of the Journal of Expanded Learning Opportunities (JELO) has arrived! This spring issue launched at the 2016 BOOST conference and features a conversation about quality programming in afterschool, an article on the role that social emotional learning can play to close the achievement and learning gaps, and an article focusing on the links between professional development and quality STEM learning experiences. You can visit last week’s installment about social emotional learn...Read More
Filling in the Gaps: How Developmental Theory Supports Social Emotional Learning in Afterschool Programs
This spring issue of the Journal of Expanded Learning Opportunities (JELO) launched at the 2016 BOOST conference and features a conversation about quality programming in afterschool, an article on the role that social emotional learning can play to close the achievement and learning gaps, and an article focusing on the links between professional development and quality STEM learning experiences. The JELO serves as an important resource for the expanded learning field as well as makes the connec...Read More
What Expanded Learning Increasingly Looks Like – and Why It’s So Important!
Looking back over the two decades… that I’ve had the privilege of being part of the grand experiment of developing expanded learning opportunities for millions of America’s most vulnerable children, I believe we’re in the process of co-creating a future that can and will make a bigger difference than any of us could have imagined. The rate of change is accelerating. The breadth and depth of knowledge is greater than ever. And the willingness to move to the next level is i...Read More
Igniting Students’ Passion to Learn Through National History Day
Due to the nature of my work as a researcher and evaluator, I do not work directly with students. My classroom and out-of-school time visits usually involve me sitting in the back as a non-obtrusive visitor noting the interactions between the teachers and students. Typically, I will note the types of questions students ask and how the teacher responds. At the end of the session, I thank the teacher for letting me observe the classroom, and that usually ends our interaction. That being said, it i...Read More
It’s (Out-of-School) Time for Engineering
In at least two ways, out-of-school programs are little different from their school-day counterparts. For one, STEM education is popular and widely available. Nearly 70 percent of out-of-school programs offer some kind of STEM content. For another, engineering, the “E” in STEM, is the least developed part of the picture. As with K-12 schools, out-of-school programs focus far more on science and math. Engineering, the driving force behind all the tools and technologies that make our l...Read More
Get More from Your Data! Three Steps to Success
The end of the school year is a great time to take stock of your after school program, celebrating what went well and setting course to get even better in the future. It can be tough to wade through the data on hand. Too often, when teams sit down to get clear about what their data is saying, they struggle to figure out what really matters and what do to next. Use this three-step method to make more meaning of your data: Scan Start by getting a 10,000-foot view of your data landscape. This will ...Read More
5 Ways to Engage Teen Volunteers in Creating a Positive Camp Culture
Here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we’re less than two weeks from the last day of school and the launch of 11 weeks of summer day camps. My division of the Ann Arbor Public School district – Community Education and Recreation – is busy preparing for over 100 camps, dozens of staff, and thousands of campers. Through our popular High school Volunteer Program, 160 teens will build skills and provide assistance at our summer camps. For many of our teen camp volunteers, this is a first job-related ex...Read More
Out-of-School, Out-of-the-Box, and Out of This World!
The act of imagining other places, other worlds, is the stuff of explorers, adventurers, science fiction writers – and KIDS! Imagination is something that kids have naturally, and out-of-the-box thinking is a valued creative 21st century skill. Encouraging the kids in your out-of-school program to imagine other worlds, places beyond Earth, can help grow this skill. Couple it with some thought experiments to engage with science – what if earth was closer to our sun, or further away? What if our s...Read More
Finding Common Ground: Connecting Social-Emotional Learning During and Beyond the School Day
The Partnership for Children & Youth (PCY) has recently released Finding Common Ground: Connecting Social-Emotional Learning During and Beyond the School Day. This brief provides language and strategies to support alignment between K-12 and expanded learning programs, by cross-walking key priorities and initiatives in California that impact social-emotional learning (SEL). In PCY’s work with school districts and expanded learning providers over the last year, we have seen that many dis...Read More
Grow Your Program with Gardening
My two driving passions are youth development and access to fresh food. So the idea of incorporating gardening into youth programs gets me very fired up. There are a lot of great garden resources out there including this previous Breakfast Club Blog: Garden-Based Learning. Truth be told I could chat about gardening plans and show you pictures of my little urban garden all day. But first we should talk about how gardening fits in to your bigger, grander program plan. Because gardening fits into e...Read More
#GirlsAre Campaign for Strong, Active Women
BOOST Collaborative is partnering with the Alliance with a Healthier Generation to share the #GirlsAre campaign that inspires a new generation of strong, active women. Here are some ways you can get involved: • Visit the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s website, take a quiz, and learn more. • Read Jillian Michael’s blog and hear her story of #GirlsAre Powerful. • Watch the videos posted on the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Facebook page. Share these videos with yo...Read More