Elementary grade students in a mid-Atlantic state school district have not been meeting academic standards on state assessments. Research indicates that academic achievement is connected to self-directed readiness to learn; however, often the instruction in strategies for student self-directed readiness to learn remains teacher-centered. The…

Student outcomes on attendance, discipline, STAAR scores, and GPA were compared between school years 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 in Afterschool Centers on Education programs at AISD campuses.

Afterschool programs have increasingly gained attention as settings that can help enrich students' science learning. Even though science is widely included in afterschool activities, sites often lack adequate materials and staff know-how to implement quality science. To address this need, this article examines afterschool science in light of the…

The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance recommends that all schools implement a comprehensive school physical activity program. Physical activity is important to the overall health and well-being of everyone, including all school age children. The benefits of physical activity are well documented and include the…

Background: There is substantial evidence to suggest that aggressive behavior is associated with poor academic performance in school-aged children. However, less is known about how different subtypes of aggression are related to academic performance and what variables may account for this association. Objective: The current study examined unique…

The current study experimentally evaluated the effects of therapeutic horseback riding on the behavior of children with autism using a multiple baseline across participants design and a waitlist control group for comparison purposes. Participants were observed weekly in an after-school program during four center-based activities and during…

Participatory mapping attempts to engage youth in the generation of personalized maps, as a way to both harness the value of individual knowledge about geographic space, and to concurrently empower the research participants by inviting them to take an active stake in the representation and explication of their spatial environment. Engagement in…

In this article we describe the design process for an after-school Grade 3 mathematics club, based on our experiences running a pilot club in a 2011 research and development project. Working from a sociocultural perspective, we show the progression from an initial multifaceted design to a much simpler, more learner-centred design that speaks…

Research shows that children of different backgrounds and cultures learn and perform differently in mathematics despite similar intelligence levels and mathematics instruction (Alvarez & Bali, 2004). Ethnomathematics strives to explore and explain such phenomena in terms of the complex role culture plays in one's background experiences and…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the impact of an arts-based media literacy program on the leadership efficacy of adolescent girls. The participants of this study were 19 middle school girls who participated in an after-school, arts-based media literacy curricula known as Project Girl. The group meetings were led by female…

Gardening programs have been increasing in popularity since 1995 when California enacted legislation with the goal of putting a garden in every school. Research has shown positive benefits of gardening programs include increasing a child's academic skills, environmental awareness, and social skills, but little is known about their impact on…

This study investigated the effect of the "College Possible" program, which is designed to serve low-income high school students. "College Possible" provides a 2-year afterschool curriculum to high school juniors and seniors that includes SAT and ACT test preparation services, college admissions and financial aid consulting,…

The researchers examined transcripts of comments made and dialogues engaged in by children, teachers and student teaching assistants during a 10-week enrichment programme for gifted and talented children aged 7-9 years. Attempts were made to match these utterances with the programme's aims and aspirations as expressed in a promotional document.…

This article documents a community-initiated service-learning project within a teacher education program. A social justice model guided the initiative to raise critical awareness on power and privilege while countering deficit-model thinking. Partnering with community agencies serving immigrant children and youth, the faculty researcher worked…

Creating a space for learning science outside the traditional classroom shifts the expectations for both educators and children. In the classroom, both groups have preconceived notions of their roles and of what classroom science looks like. In the hybrid space of afterschool, students and educators are free to explore alternative ways of teaching…