A powerful way to build students' mathematical power and agency is through Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice (TMfSJ), where students read and write the world with mathematics (Gutstein, 2005). Reading the world with mathematics uses mathematics to understand relations of power, resource inequities, and disparate opportunities between…

According to the authors, we live in a society that is deeply influenced by technology, and social studies classrooms are ideal places for students to conduct inquiries into timely and relevant technological issues. In this article, the authors describe an approach that can be used across many situations to teach students to think critically about…

Rangeley Friends of the Arts (RFA) is a nonprofit arts organization in Rangeley, a town of 1,200 souls in the rural western mountains of Maine. Working with existing facilities and a largely volunteer workforce, the article explains how this group established Creative After School Arts, or CASA--a program that provides a safe home away from home…

Afterschool interventions in STEM are linked to learning gains during the school day. These opportunities engage and excite students about STEM concepts since they observe a more hands-on, project-oriented approach. Often these opportunities for afterschool interventions are infrequent in nature and leave gaps for students in their maturation and…

An arts-based afterschool program is introduced in advancing children's democratic citizenship and a sense of community. The ARtS Initiative (Aesthetic, Reflexive thoughts, & Sharing) has reimagined arts and aesthetics for young people in urban settings, providing an unquantifiable experience focused on promoting pluralistic societies. The…

An after-school enrichment activity offered to sixth-grade students gave a group of 10 students an opportunity to explore the effects of the California drought in their community using an engaging scientific device: the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). Although this activity was specifically designed for a small after-school enrichment group, it…

The chapter explores the relationships of the material and discursive in an afterschool arts space devoted to creating an "ideal city" out of recyclables. Intrigued by the making of a homeless shelter by a Grade 5 student and a teacher candidate, the author turns to intra-activity as a theory--and ethic-onto-epistemological…

It was a hot summer day. Naomi and her cousin walked into the community center. She said, "Miss Jones, our moms need to work. They told us to come here and stay for couple hours." This is a common occurrence in communities with low socioeconomic status during the summertime; parents need to go to work, but children are on summer break.…

Afterschool programs are currently conceptualized in two ways. One is represented by "expanded learning," which includes a wide range of content-rich opportunities in the hours outside of school, including summer camps. The operating assumption is that, in structured out-of-school time (OST) programs, children can learn concepts or develop…

This article features an after-school FIRST Lego League (FLL) program at Chaminade Middle School in Chatsworth, California, USA. The after-school FLL program feeds into the high school FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) program wherein aspiring young engineers come to the high school team with several years of FLL experience. Through the FLL…

Writing about the teaching artist practice should mean writing about art making. As both teacher and artist, the authors are required to be cognizant of their own art-making processes, both how it works and why it is important to them, in order to make this process visible to their students. They also need the same skills to write about how and…

Participatory design principles were used with primarily African-American and Latino children in the Washington, DC area in the development of sports-themed digital game prototypes in an after-school program. The three stages in participatory design are the discovery stage, the evaluative stage, and prototyping. Within the participatory design…

In this article, the authors share an episode from an after-school program and focus on eight of the twenty-four urban, sixth-grade students who volunteered to work on mathematical problem solving. When students are given a supportive environment, open-ended tasks, and thoughtful teacher questioning, their reasoning can develop naturally. By…

Early adolescence is a time of transition, change, and growth. At no other time after gestation and early infancy are the human body and mind undergoing such rapid developmental changes. The bodies of young adolescents are physically and sexually maturing. Cognitive changes expand thinking abilities; social and emotional changes move adolescents…

This article describes an extracurricular social studies enrichment program called the Clio Club. "Clio" is derived from the Greek muse of history, and the club offers a variety of activities to help students discover and interpret social studies beyond the traditional school hours. They meet after school and on weekends both at their…