In sports, youth are coached to see persistence and hard work as important paths to personal improvement and success. They come to understand through practice that mistakes are tools to help them improve and that collaboration and teamwork are keys to success in team sports. These ideas about the importance of effort, persistence, mistakes, and…

By age 18, students have spent on average 85 percent of their waking hours outside of school. Their use of that time--constructive or not--helps direct their futures. In afterschool and summer programs, young people explore new interests, develop new skill sets, and create lasting relationships with peers and caring adults that shape who they are,…

Educational Robotics (ER) is an upcoming trend in education. It has been introduced in classrooms to improve the learning environment. It provides opportunities for young learners by promoting knowledge-building activities. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is viewed as a catalyst to ensure a successful future in…

The current education system is failing our children. Yet the system shifts the blame as well as the search for possible solutions to teachers and learners, avoiding responsibility for its role in the existing oppressive structures. In turn, it fails to address the needs of a vastly diverse student population. This article looks at the development…

Youth fields professionals create the conditions in which young people can thrive: They activate the vision for high-quality programs; develop tools, systems, and approaches for designing and sustaining such programs; and form relationships with and among participating youth. However while investments in afterschool programming have continued to…

The place of out-of-school time programming in supporting young people's learning and growth is well established. Yet little is known about the staff and volunteers who support young people in school- and community-based afterschool programs, summer camps, national and local youth-serving organizations, and more. The Youth Fields Workforce Study…

Background: Staff play a critical role in promoting positive youth development in out-of-school-time programs, yet little is known about best-practices for preparing staff to work with youth and meet their needs. The present study seeks to understand the impact of a basic psychological needs training on the staff's ability to deliver…

Authoring Action (A2) is a youth-focused, arts-based, afterschool and summer program. A2's mission is "to transform the lives of youth and the world through the power of creative writing, spoken word, visual and media arts, film-making and leadership education that promotes positive systemic change." Using in-depth interviews, this study…

Black staff in out-of-school time (OST) programs are frequently positioned as disciplinarians, behavior managers, or "chaperones," while curriculum and instruction responsibilities are assigned to formally trained (and often White) educators. Imbalances in power and funding mean White leaders usually hold decision-making authority, while…

As initiatives on AI education in K-12 learning contexts continues to evolve, researchers have developed curricula among other resources to promote AI across grade levels. Yet, there is a need for more effort regarding curriculum, tools, and pedagogy, as well as assessment techniques to popularize AI at the middle school level. Drawing on prior…

Although researchers and policymakers have focused on school as the critical place in which learning occurs, organized youth programs offer different environments in which early adolescents can learn. However, early adolescent learning in organized youth programs is an under-researched area of learning, which may limit the ability of youth…

Partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education have become central ways in which post-secondary students and faculty members interact with teachers and students in community environments. These partnerships can be challenging to develop, however, particularly given the numerous and shifting priorities of both schools and…

Due to the shortcomings of traditional schools, innovative supplementary (e.g. out-of-school, summer) programs have been identified as important sites for the positive development and learning of Black youth. This study foregrounds Black youth perspectives to offer additional insight into the role of supplementary programming. Drawing from 15…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress made a once-in-a-generation investment in afterschool and summer learning programs with the potential to provide supports and opportunities for children and youth across America. At the same time, after 2 decades of development, networks in all 50 states were poised to advise and support the…

A central challenge in engineering education is providing experiences that are appropriate for and accessible to underserved communities. However, to provide such experiences, we must better understand the process of offering a geographically distributed asset-based out-of-school program. This paper focuses on a collaborative research project that…