LIAS Learning Principles: Taking Another Look

Source: Real Options for City Kids San Francisco (ROCK SF) 

By Sam Piha

Afterschool youth programs, sometimes referred to as out-of-school time or expanded learning programs, have unique advantages that perfectly position them to complement the learning that happens at school and home, and offer valuable extended learning opportunities. If afterschool programs are to achieve their full potential, they must be known as important places of learning that excite young people in the building of new skills, the discovery of new interests, and opportunities to achieve a sense of mastery. 

In 2010, Temescal Associates launched the Learning in Afterschool and Summer (LIAS) Project to address a great debate as to whether afterschool programs should be focused on academic or youth development outcomes. It was designed to unify the field of afterschool and focus the movement on promoting young people’s learning. The LIAS Learning Principles became a foundational part of the California Quality Standards for Expanded Learning Programs.

We developed research-based LIAS Learning Principle and brought together afterschool leaders from across California to review and help shape the Learning Principles. 

Source: Temescal Associates

These learning principles are strongly supported by recent brain research, afterschool research, and the growing science of learning. They are also well aligned with the 21st century learning skills and workforce skills that young people will need to succeed in the years ahead, as well as efforts to increase young people’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Each of the learning principles cited below support each other and provide an important framework for afterschool programming. 

“These principles, all critical, reflect what our own field experience and research suggest about the characteristics of effective learning environments. They speak to both staff practices and program content, which is important. I think that working toward mastery, which goes right to the intersection of program content and staff practices – is something we need to be more intentional about in out-of-school time (OST) settings.”- Karen Pittman, Co-Founder of the Forum for Youth Investment 

Source: Temescal Associates

We believe the learning principles are still relevant and useful today. Each of the learning principles cited below support each other and provide an important framework to guide the design, implantation and evaluation of afterschool programs. Below are the LIAS learning principles:

1. Learning must be ACTIVE


Learning and memory recall of new knowledge is strengthened through different exposures – seeing, hearing, touching, and doing. Afterschool learning should be the result of activities that involve young people in “doing” – activities that allow them to be physically active, stimulate their innate curiosity, and that are hands-on and project-based. (CA Quality Standards #2, 3, & 5)



2. Learning must be COLLABORATIVE


Afterschool and summer programs should help young people build team skills that include listening to others, supporting group learning goals, and resolving differences and conflicts.
Collaborative learning happens when learners engage in a common task where each individual depends on and is accountable to each other. (CA Quality Standards #1, 2, 3, & 8)



3. Learning must be MEANINGFUL


Learning is meaningful when youth have some ownership over the learning topic, the means to assess their own progress, and when the learning is relevant to their own interests, experiences, and the real world in which they live. Community and cultural relevance is important to all youth. (CA Quality Standards #2, 3, & 4)

 

4. Learning must SUPPORT MASTERY


If young people are to learn the importance and joy of mastery, they need the opportunity to learn and practice a full sequence of skills that will allow them to become “really good at something.” Afterschool and summer activities should be explicitly sequenced and designed to promote the layering of new skills. (CA Quality Standard #3)



“We spend so much time focused on "achievement" and so little time focused on how to motivate students to learn. The principles advocated by Learning in Afterschool strike the right balance and make sense. We want to see a more holistic approach taken to educating children, one that responds to the developmental needs of the student and focuses on fostering intellectual curiosity and a love of learning. The principles contained in Learning in Afterschool and Summer promote such an approach, and if applied with fidelity, could lead to real improvements in educational outcomes for kids.”- Pedro Noguera, Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education. 

5. Learning must EXPANDS HORIZONS


Afterschool and summer programs should provide learning opportunities that take youth beyond their current experience and expand their horizons. They should go beyond the walls of their facilities to increase young people’s knowledge of their surrounding neighborhood and the larger global community. (CA Quality Standards #2 & 3) 

WHAT OTHER LEADERS SAY ABOUT THE LIAS LEARNING PRINCIPLES

Source: Temescal Associates 

“All five principles are critical. They collectively provide the relevance so desperately needed for students to become engaged and for learning to become alive for them. They also provide the deeper understanding and the discovery of learning that is critical for success in school and life.” - Dr. Willard Daggett, Founder and Chairman, International Center for Leadership in Education

“I used the LIAS principles because I felt they captured many of the core elements that a successful afterschool program should have.  Actually, those principles should be reflected in classrooms during the regular school day as well.” - Pedro Noguera, Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education. 

“The five LIAS principles are perfectly aligned with a 21st century learning approach – active, meaningful, collaborative learning projects that provide opportunities to expand one’s horizons and master important knowledge and skills – this is the heart of 21st century learning.” - Bernie Trilling, Author of 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times

 “Afterschool and out-of-school instruction needs to be constructed in a way that is consistent and sustained with high quality instruction as well. In other words, how are teachers, mentors, and facilitators trained to ensure ‘active, collaborative, meaningful, supports mastery, and expands horizons’ are actualized in afterschool programs?” - Richard Milne, Associate Professor of Education, Vanderbilt University

Click images below to view two brief videos that detail the LIAS Learning Principles and are excellent for staff training and discussion.

LIAS RESOURCES

Check out the LIAS Website to find additional materials, tools and resources.

From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope

By Sam Piha

On Jan. 15, Aspen's National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development released a report, From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope: Recommendations from the National Commission on Social, Emotional, & Academic Development. 

This report calls on all of us to ensure that all youth have access to quality social and emotional learning (SEL). We advise anyone who works with youth, whether in the classroom or in the community, to read this report. View the full report and its complementary research, practice, and policy briefs at NationatHope.org. 

Karen Pittman

When we interviewed Karen Pittman (Forum for Youth Investment and Aspen Report Commissioner) for the History of Afterschool documentary, we asked her about the rise of SEL and where afterschool fits in. She responded, “The concept of social, emotional and academic development has really sort of come to a frenzy in the past couple of years. It's certainly come to the attention of schools over the past decade.

Where does after school fit into all this? You would hope that we'd be right at the  forefront, saying, ‘We've been doing this for years. We know how to do it.’

Unfortunately, because we've been calling this youth development, when the K-12 field started to say, ‘We need to do social and emotional learning’, they were developing specific curricula around social and emotional learning, and we have a little bit of a language difference with K-12.

We think on the after school side that we know that these are the skills that young people are building, and we have had a focus on making sure that we're meeting those standards for developmental settings, and what we talked about is building quality programming. We’ve had a little bit of a hiccup in making sure that K-12 educators understand that when we talk about quality programming, we're talking about creating settings where these skills can happen.” 

Ms. Pittman also issued a letter to youth development leaders and funders regarding how best to leverage this report by the commission. You can read it here. You can also read commentaries by New York Times columnist David Brooks, by Rick Hess and Tim Shriver, and by Chester Finn. 

Five Things You Can Do Now to Increase Emotional Safety

By Sam Piha 

Sam Piha

We have known for decades that promoting young people’s sense of physical and emotional safety is foundational for any expanded learning program. This has been reinforced by research on the brain, learning, and trauma-informed practice and is the number one quality standard created by state and national entities.

The knowledge about the importance of safety in expanded learning programs is so ubiquitous that we chose to not include it in our LIAS learning principles. However, recent events at the southern border has shined a light on the importance of promoting young people’s sense of safety.

Below, we share text from a chapter on promoting safety from the Community Network for Youth Development’s Youth Development Guide: Engaging young people in after-school programming.

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FIVE THINGS YOU CAN DO NOW TO INCREASE SAFETY 

1. Develop group agreements regarding safety and regular group meetings to ensure that everyone feels physically and emotionally safe.
Conduct a meeting with the program participants early on to express the commitment that in your program “every person has the right to feel safe, included, and accepted.” Ask participants to define what these terms mean to them, and what agreements and rules they want to make to ensure the right of safety. Decide together what happens when the safety agreements are broken. Train young people in a process to resolve differences and decide at what point an adult should be asked to intervene.

Photo Credit: Great Valley Writing Project

2. Institute a regular group or “community” check-in meeting.
If issues of safety and relationship building are important, set aside a regular time for the group to reflect on their experience in the program and to suggest ways in which the peer group can work together even better. Make room in the meeting for people to share appreciations for their peers who are contributing to making the program a positive, safe place. [See previous LIAS blog posts on this topic.] 

3. Include “no put-downs” in your group agreements.
When developing group agreements with young people, a request for a “no put- down” rule will usually surface early in the discussion. [Note: for those preferring an alternative agreement avoiding the negative "NO", try “respect yourself and others”. This is a broad agreement and needs to be “unpacked” with the participants.] 

It is important to discuss with the young people how everyone will support its enforcement. This takes real commitment, as many young people have learned to use “put-downs” as a defense against being hurt themselves. Adult staff members will have to follow through with great consistency, offering reminders that ask members to hold to this agreement, especially in the beginning. Take every slur you hear seriously, even if it is in a teasing tone or participants claim it is okay. It is not okay because slurs hurt. It is helpful to hold group discussions or activities around “put-downs”, why they hurt, and what we can do instead. As young people come to trust that you will enforce this policy, you will see a reduction in the number of “put-downs”, and the sense of safety in the program will grow. Learning the benefits of interacting without this kind of hurtful behavior at an early age teaches young people a profound lesson in the value of mutual respect. 

4. Assess the cultural, gender, ethnic, and family structure background of your group.
Without asking unnecessarily probing questions, do what you can to learn who is in your program. Do the staff members and volunteers reflect these backgrounds? Do images and books in the classroom? Program activities and celebrations? Are there differences in who comes to program, who participates in which activities, which parents feel welcome at events?

5. Expand the group’s knowledge of particular groups and cultures. 

Photo Credit: TheOdysseyOnline.com

Start by educating yourself. Avoid tokenizing young people or others in your program or school by asking them to explain their culture. Instead, go to the library, look on the internet, attend local cultural events, and call or visit organizations promoting equity for the group you are researching. Learn what you can about the history, art, literature, music, food, celebrations, and struggles of a culture or group. Then help the young people in your program study different cultures and celebrate the contributions of different groups. You might learn about women, people of color, and gay people who have contributed to your neighborhood. Celebrate various holidays as they are celebrated in different countries. Celebrate Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Gay Pride Month, or Cesar Chavez’s Birthday. Young people can present what they’ve learned, and adults may be willing to share food, decorations, or music. Don’t make assumptions about what any particular person might share. Be sure that these celebrations are part of an ongoing process of inclusion and education, and that some groups aren’t just segregated to certain “diversity days.”

The Importance of Collaboration in STEM

By Sam Piha

We recently took note of this Education Week article entitled “Science Is a Team Sport” promoting the importance of collaboration in STEM activities. (Collaboration is one of the five LIAS learning principles).

The article opens by reporting, “Hollywood's version of science—the lone genius toiling in the basement, the socially awkward computer engineer—stands in stark contrast to the real life, increasingly team-oriented work in science and engineering fields. A new study suggests correcting that misconception could encourage more American students to engage in science.” A similar article appeared in the NAA newsletter entitled Boost Learning By Combining Teamwork and STEM.

Dr. Carol Tang

We asked Carol Tang, Executive Director at the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco and Former Director of the Coalition for Science After School, to comment on this. Below, we share her remarks. 

“One of the most interesting learning principles in my mind is the one about collaboration. Because studies have shown that one of the reasons young people do not go into science is because they think that scientists work alone and they're isolated. In fact, most scientists would think that they're very collaborative in their work. 

A lot of big teams are needed to really tackle some of the biggest questions in science. If you think about looking for life on other planets or you think about how to invent new medicine, all of those take a team of scientists and engineers to work together. 

For scientists, we think of our work as collaborative. We email people all over the world with our ideas and we hear their criticism and their critiques and that's how we do science. 

Photo Credit: http://ymcacolumbus.org/

For scientists, collaboration is a key part of what we do everyday. Yet most young people think that scientists work alone in their labs blowing things up. And so I think I like the collaboration learning principle and to make sure that when we do science, we encourage people to think of science as a collaborative effort because that's what it is in today's society.”

You can view Dr. Tang’s entire interview here. 

----------------------

Carol M. Tang, Ph.D. is the Executive Director at the Children’s Creativity Museum (SF) and former Director of the Coalition for Science After School. She is experienced in non-profit management, strategic planning, envisioning, meeting facilitation, team building, fundraising and public speaking. She also has extensive experience in teaching, organizing, and leading science education efforts including out-of-school programming, exhibitions, teacher professional development, public programs, volunteer management and higher education. 

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You can read other blogs by the LIAS project by going to: 

• Expanded Learning 360°/365 Project website
• LIAS Blog Written for the California Afterschool Network

LIAS Online Guide with Videos

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

The Learning in Afterschool & Summer (LIAS) project has posted several video interviews on the relevance of the LIAS learning principles featuring afterschool and educational leaders from across the country. Now we have published an online, magazine-style guide to the LIAS learning principles with mini clips from these video interviews. This guide can be viewed with a computer, smartphone, or tablet. 

We also converted a number of important articles from the LIAS project and the Expanded Learning 360°/365 project. Click here to check it out. 

ELPs and the Classroom Teacher Shortage, Part 1

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

With the last economic recession, school districts across the nation and in California laid off large numbers of teachers. The recent uptick of the economy and increased tax dollars for education, districts are now experiencing a large shortage of teachers. We also know that the number of college students who have enrolled in education courses have dropped significantly. 

How can expanded learning programs (ELPs) contribute to solving this shortage? (By expanded learning programs, we are referring to school and community-based youth programs.) We believe they can help in two ways:

• Serve as a training ground for students enrolled in education/teacher programs. 
• Inspire youth workers who may be interested in advancing their careers by entering the teaching profession. 

Photo Credit: Education Week

ELPs are perfectly positioned to allow young workers and future teachers the opportunity to learn skills that are very important to classroom work: 

• How to build a caring community of youth.
• How to form meaningful relationships with youth.
• How to use project based learning to advance engagement and align these experiences with the interests of youth.
• How to advance social emotional learning and character skills through youth programming.
• And more…

In Part 1, we offer interview responses from ELP leader (Alec Lee, Aim High) and a teacher training leader (Mike Snell, California Teaching Fellows Foundation). Also, Aim High was featured in Education Week for their success in encouraging youth workers to pursue a career in teaching. Click here to read the article.  

In Part 2, we will feature interview responses from teachers who began their careers as youth workers. 
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Q: Can you say something about the recent teacher shortage in California and the Central Valley? What is this and what caused it? 

MS: The teacher shortage is real. In speaking with superintendents and school

district leadership, it is a challenge to fill open teacher positions within the district. This is especially true in our more rural school districts. As increasing waves of baby boomers retire and interest in joining the teaching profession has been in steady decline, the demand and access to the quality gap is huge. 

As I connect with national after school providers across the country, they describe the challenges in their regions as being similar. Plain and simple, there are not enough young people choosing education as a career path, therefore credential programs are not able to produce the number of teachers required to meet the current demand. 

Recent studies suggest that the number of high school students interested in teaching as a career path has declined 55% in the last 10 years, from 9% of graduating seniors wanting to teach, to only 4%. I believe that those of us in the expanded learning space have a huge opportunity to influence young people’s perception of teaching as a career choice. Beyond opportunity, I believe we have a responsibility to all young people to place the best and brightest after school leaders in front of them, and my desired outcome is that this experience influences both the after school leaders as well as our young people, to promote teaching as a career choice. 

Q: How are afterschool and summer youth programs well-positioned to serve as good training grounds for young people who want to be teachers? 

MS: After school and summer present the best opportunities for those interested in education to gain tremendous real life experiences working with young people and working within the K-12 system. Year-round, after-school and summer staff earn hundreds, and in many cases, thousands of hours of classroom experience to build them up and prepare them for their career in education. Beyond experience at the point of service, our staff benefit from additional professional development and training around the systems and strategies that school districts deploy to accomplish their goals for all students.  

This is vital real world experience. They meet the school district support team, they collaborate with seasoned teachers, and often they interface with the superintendent. Developing these relationships while they are attending college and building their professional context for eduction provides a huge ‘foot in the door’ opportunity and will typically provide them advantages when competing for a teaching job against another candidate without after school or summer experience. They learn about the work, the culture, the preparation, the challenges, and they truthfully go into the profession incredibly well prepared. Here at Teaching Fellows we hear regularly from the over 40 superintendents we serve that are absolutely looking to our after school and summer staff as the best training ground and talent pool for future teachers in their respective districts.  

AL: Summer is a time to be different and step away from traditional classroom learning environments. At Aim High, our class size is 15-18 with two or three teachers in each classroom. Our curriculum is project-based and culturally relevant. We do two weeks of professional development before the kids come through the door. As a non-profit, we are freed from the constraints of public schools. We position ourselves at the intersection of rigor and fun. Young people are paired with lead teachers who have the opportunity to mentor. Summer can be a teaching laboratory. Lastly, many summer programs are community based and provide the opportunity to really know kids and their potential, issues and challenges very well.

Q: How are afterschool and summer youth programs well-positioned to encourage young people to consider the teaching profession as the next step in their career? 

MS: The population of millennials, which is our current college-age population, will far outsize the baby boomer numbers. The generation that follows the millennials will be even larger. This population trend coupled with the national rise in after school programs and systems of support will be the key to attracting, train and retain generations of future teachers. With after school and summer staff leaders now in this space, we have the tremendous opportunity to leave a lasting impression and challenge students to follow in our footsteps, to choose a career that shapes careers. 

The Teaching Fellows are uniquely positioned to encourage young people a few different ways; Teaching Fellows match the demographics of the students they serve so there is a built-in level of trust. Furthermore, Teaching Fellows are college-attending role models for young people, students look up to Teaching Fellows and think ‘if they did this, then I can do this too’. That type of influence is powerful. These two factors uniquely position Teaching Fellows, and many other after school and summer staff to be in positions to encourage and inspire young people into the education profession, and to pursue their dreams.

AL: Young youth workers in Aim High are given tremendous responsibility and opportunity. They also experience a culture of feedback and growth. Lastly, they work side by side with professional educators.

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About Aim High
Aim High is committed to closing the opportunity and achievement gaps in Northern California through their transformative summer learning program. They envision every middle school student having access to joyful summer learning, inspired and innovative teachers, and the support they need to succeed in school and life. Aim High creates life-changing opportunities during the summer and beyond. Their community:

• Nurtures the promise and potential of middle school students from low-income neighborhoods
• Prepares students for high school, setting them on the path to college and future success
• Inspires the next generation of teachers and educational leaders

About The California Teaching Fellows Foundation (CTFF)
CTFF seeks to inspire next-generation leaders with a passion for teaching and learning while impacting the lives of youth. They work to:

• Develop teachers and leaders who contribute to positive changes in the lives of students, their schools, and their communities.
• Produce diverse teaching professionals who implement innovative, effective teaching strategies.
• Fully engage the community in education and supporting future teachers and leaders. 

The LIAS Principles and the CA Quality Standards for Expanded Learning Programs

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

In 2010, the Learning in Afterschool & Summer (LIAS) project was launched to offer five research based principles that serves as a guide for programs wishing to increase the engagement, motivation, and learning of their young participants. 

Four years later, the California Department of Education (CDE)/After School Division released the California Quality Standards for Expanded Learning Programs (CA Quality Standards). LIAS staff served on all three phases of the development of these standards to ensure that the LIAS principles were embedded. These standards focused on points of direct service with youth (#1-6) and standards that are intended to guide program managers (#7-12). 

Many afterschool and summer leaders asked how the LIAS learning principles correspond to the CA Quality Standards. To address this question, we issued a “crosswalk” paper, which correlated the LIAS learning principles with the CA Quality Standards for points of service with young people. This “crosswalk” paper can be found on the LIAS website here.

Below we offer a summary of this crosswalk. 

Learning that is Active: 
Learning and memory recall of new knowledge is strengthened through different exposures – seeing, hearing, touching, and doing. Afterschool and summer learning should be the result of activities that involve young people in “doing” – activities that allow them to be physically active, stimulate their innate curiosity, and that are hands-on and project-based. 

Learning that is Collaborative: 
Afterschool and summer programs should help young people build team skills that include listening to others, supporting group-learning goals, and resolving differences and conflicts. Collaborative learning happens when learners engage in a common task where each individual depends on and is accountable to each other.

Learning that is Meaningful: 
Learning is meaningful when youth have some ownership over the learning topic, the means to assess their own progress, and when the learning is relevant to their own interests, experiences, and the real world in which they live. Community and cultural relevance is important to all youth. 

Learning that Supports Mastery: 
If young people are to learn the importance and joy of mastery, they need the opportunity to learn and practice a full sequence of skills that will allow them to become “really good at something.” Afterschool and summer activities should be explicitly sequenced and designed to promote the layering of new skills. 

Learning that Expands Horizons: 
Afterschool and summer programs should provide learning opportunities that take youth beyond their current experience and expand their horizons. They should go beyond the walls of their facilities to increase young people’s knowledge of their surrounding neighborhood and the larger global community. 

•••

You can read other blogs by the LIAS project by going to: 

• Expanded Learning 360°/365 Project website 
• LIAS Blog Written for the California Afterschool Network

Announcing the How Kids Learn Foundation and Wallace Foundation Survey

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

Over the last five years, we have sponsored an annual How Kids Learn conference. This year, we are sponsoring a number of How Kids Learn Speaker’s Forums.

Temescal Associates/LIAS is proud to announce that we have created a new non-profit entitled, the How Kids Learn Foundation. This was done to expand our reach and the effectiveness of our educational efforts. This will also allow us to diversify our funders. 


The HKL Foundation is dedicated to improving the effectiveness of settings that support the education and healthy development of youth. This includes schools and out-of-school time programs. 

The Foundation will provide educational activities such as Speaker's Forums, trainings, and conferences for organizations that promote the healthy development of youth.

We have assembled a prestigious board to help guide our activities and will provide an update as we go forward. 


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The Wallace Foundation has been a longtime supporter of the afterschool movement. The Foundation is currently conducting market research to better understand Policymaker, K-12 Public School Leader and Afterschool Leader opinions about trends relating to desired outcomes of K-12 education and afterschool programs. They are especially interested in the importance of social emotional learning.


We urge you to take the time to complete this survey. It is important that those

who understand the work of afterschool and summer programs provide their unique perspectives on this work. This survey will take about 15 minutes to complete. Your responses will be strictly confidential and not be attributed to you or your organization. To begin the survey, please click here.


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You can read other blogs by the LIAS project by going to: 

• Expanded Learning 360°/365 Project website
• LIAS Blog Written for the California Afterschool Network

Dr. Pedro Noguera: PBS News Hour and HKL V in Los Angeles

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

Pedro Noguera is a Distinguished Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA. Dr. Noguera has been a long time supporter of the LIAS project and the How Kids Learn conferences. He will also be a featured speaker at our upcoming How Kids Learn V conference in Los Angeles on January 21, 2016. 

Dr. Noguera was recently interviewed by PBS correspondent, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, on the PBS News Hour. The interview was part of their ongoing series entitled “Race Matters”. Dr. Noguera addressed the question, “How do we solve stubborn segregation in schools?” Click below to view the interview (8 minutes). 

Dr. Pedro Noguera

You can view an interview that we did with Dr. Noguera on the LIAS learning principles by clicking here. You can also view his last presentation at the How Kids Learn II conference by clicking here. To register for the HKL V conference in Los Angeles, click here. 

The LIAS Principles Impact Both Students and Staff Alike

By Guest Blogger, Frank Escobar

Frank Escobar,
Manager of After School Programs
Visalia USD

Running after school programs is no easy task.  Ask anyone in the field and they’ll show you there battle wounds. However, insert 11-14 year olds and the difficult meter goes through the roof.  Sometimes its just better to not know what you don’t know. Perhaps that’s why I’m still here.  Leaning a bit but still standing.  

In the early years it was the kids, the parents, the politics. I was new to the field and trying to identify the secret sauce for recruiting and retaining enough students to keep the grant. At the same time, keeping the ratio low enough to prevent our college-age staff from getting completely run over by the middle school mack truck. Not sure we ever completely figured it out but we’ve certainly made improvements.  

Great advice from experienced veterans, thoughtful tools from the field, some amazing trainings from some amazing trainers and even a few out-of-town tours.  And as we got better on attendance we began to focus on impact.  One of the tools that helped us in that area was, at the time, the newly released Learning in After School and Summer Principles.  

The principles gave us tangible targets to shoot towards. They were clear, relatable, and reasonably identifiable in everyday program. As we improved in our understanding of these principles, we naturally improved in the facilitating of these principles.  We saw active learning in our programs, increased student collaboration, learning that was thoughtful and meaningful, mastery-building and horizons being expanded. It was enlightening, exciting and honestly, still is.  

As we became better versed in offering these types of experiences and outcomes in our program, I began to notice something interesting.  I noticed that not only were our students benefitting from the affect of these important principles but so were our college-age workers. You see, unintentionally, while we were building the capacities of our staff members to implement the principles in their programming with students, we were also implementing them with our staff. 

Our training and professional development was becoming more active, our instruction (and play) in the training room more meaningful. Our learning environments were becoming more collaborative and our training focuses narrowed in on building mastery skill-sets, particularly around behavior management (if you know what I mean). And at the end of the day, we began to see our staff expanding their own horizons. They were learning about things they never had interest in. Seeing things they never bothered looking for. Doing things they never believed important. The LIAS Principles were becoming an integral part of our program cultural for both students and staff. 

PULSE Staff Holiday Dinner

Today, with the significant workforce challenges we face in after school and expanded learning, we attempt to do our best in sustaining the best and brightest. Unfortunately, that’s rarely possible. The best and brightest normally move on (and up) and take their talents to better paying playgrounds. However, it is in most cases that what contributed to their best and bright was what they learned and practiced right here in the expanded learning field. With so many tangible, transferrable skill-sets acquired in this work many of our best and brightest are shining even brighter right now in their warm and cozy classrooms. Particularly those who were fortunate enough to work in programs that asked them to integrate those 5 LIAS Principles. It’s called the bi-product affect. A secondary or incidental result, often unforeseen or unintended.  

Although, I find it pretty hard to believe that the engineer behind these principles would do anything unintended. All to say, I sincerely believe that the introduction, acceptance, and application of the LIAS Principles have meant more to our field than what might have been expected. These principles, while aimed at our young ones, have also impacted our other young ones teaching our young ones. That they say, is a double-whammy. Or, maybe in this case, a double-Sammy!

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Frank is currently the Manager of After School Programs at Visalia Unified School District in Visalia, CA as well as speaker, trainer and consultant for the after school and youth development fields. A popular speaker and trainer at school assemblies, youth and after school conferences, Frank has spoken to thousands of middle and high school youth and trained hundreds of educators and youth program workers across the country.  

A former collegiate and professional football player, Frank realized his passion for working with youth during his high school years mentoring younger athletes. Knowing one day he'd be hanging up his football cleats for a more practical profession, Frank obtained his degree in education from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN.

Register Now: How Kids Learn V Conference

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

Preparing youth for success in career and work is an important responsibility of the expanded learning movement. If we are to achieve economic equity, young people must have access to activities that prepare them. This means starting with activities for young children to build their "soft" skills and help make them aware of diverse career fields. It also means offering experiences for older youth that build their "soft" and "hard" skills and experiences in workplace settings. (See previous posts on Employability Skills and on the Work-Based Learning Continuum.)


This will be the focus of our upcoming How Kids Learn V Conference, in Berkeley on December 10, 2015 and Los Angeles on January 21, 2016. 

Hear from leading thinkers and researchers, and innovative afterschool practitioners. We will also feature a number of young people who will tell us how preparation experience in expanded learning programs affected their lives and how we can be more successful. 

Speakers will include: 

• Pedro Noguera, Distinguished Professor of Education, UCLA (LA Only)
• Jenny Nagaoka, Deputy Director, University of Chicago and lead author of the recently released Wallace Report entitled, Foundations for Young Adult Success (Berkeley Only)
• Alvaro Cortes, Executive Director, Beyond the Bell/LAUSD (LA Only)
• Alex Taghavian, Vice President, Linked Learning Alliance
• Michael Funk, Director, After School Division at the California Department of Education 
• Beth Kay, Linked Learning Manager, Foundation for California Community Colleges

In addition to the above speakers, we will host a bevy of workshops led by innovative practitioners who work with young people, K-12. Workshop topics include:

• Serving Elementary School Youth
• Serving Middle School Youth
• Serving High School Youth
• Partnering with Community Colleges
• Youth Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise
• “Girl Power”: Serving the Needs of Girls and Young Women (Berkeley Only)
• “Cyber Patriots”: Preparing Youth for Success (LA Only)

For more information, go to www.howkidslearn.org.

To register:

• Berkeley, December 10, 2015: http://bit.ly/HKLVBerkeley
• Los Angeles, January 21, 2016: http://bit.ly/HKLVLosAngeles