Making a Commitment to Character

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

We all know that preparing young people with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed as adults is a primary function of a society. But who is really responsible and what skills and knowledge are needed? 

To begin, we believe that adults and institutions where children spend their time need to think about their role. Naturally, the family, media, and broader culture comes into play but it is time that schools and youth programs step up to the plate by promoting social and emotional skills and opportunities to practice them. 

Photo credit:
http://hummingwords.blogspot.com/
2013/12/to-children-with-love.html

In the recent past, school leaders claimed that their only responsibility was promoting academic skills as measured by test scores. We would argue that the responsibility for developing a positive school climate and developing social emotional skills is vital to academic learning and healthy development. In a new study released today by the Brookings Institution, "Non-cognitive skills and character competencies have as much of an effect on success as academic skill". This joins a growing body of research on non-cognitive skills, social emotional learning, school climate, growth mindsets, and the brain that points to the importance of these skills to academic learning in promoting healthy development - something that youth development researchers have been saying for a long time. 

Photo credit: http://wkirwan.edublogs.org/committocharacter/

Expanded learning youth programs, whether they are school-based or after school, also have an important role and there is room for much improvement in this area. According to research, afterschool programs that include social emotional learning are the most successful in positively impacting young people in every domain including academic success. And let's not leave off the role of parents and guardians.  

People ask, "What exactly are these skills? What can we do?". Because children are increasingly growing up in a "mean culture", now is the time for everyone to come together and promote these skills and opportunities to practice them. We will expand on these issues in future blog posts.

Leading the Pack in Future Afterschool Trends

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

Recently the National Afterschool Association (NAA) published an article calling out the 10 most important trends in afterschool for 2014. The Learning in Afterschool & Summer (LIAS) project and Temescal Associates led efforts in 2013 relating to these trends. Below we cite the trends from the above article and offer a brief summary of our work in 2013. 

Dale Dougherty

"1. With the mission of creating more opportunities for young people to develop confidence, creativity, and spark an interest in science, technology, engineering, math and the arts, the 'maker movement' and afterschool are natural allies in promoting learning thru making." - How Kids Learn III featured a keynote address from Dale Dougherty, Founder of the Maker Movement, and a hands-on workshop from MakerEd. Temescal Associates will look to expand our efforts to promote "maker spaces" in afterschool programs.

"2. While STEM will continue to be a focus for the afterschool field, I predict 2014 will be a year when we go deeper on STEM instructional training for the afterschool workforce." - The LIAS project promoted five important learning principles that STEM programs should draw upon to ensure that they truly engage young people.

"3. Until recently, it's often been difficult to get recognition for skills and achievements gained outside of school. Digital badges provide a way for young people to get recognition for the skills and experiences they gain in afterschool programs.  Potential employers, community members, and even college admissions staff can go to a student's online profile to see their portfolio of badges—linked to the work and projects done to achieve the badges—to get a holistic understanding of the student that goes beyond the classroom and beyond grades." - LIAS and Temescal Associates, in partnership with Public Profit and Youtopia, launched a major badging effort with afterschool groups across California. Badges will be awarded to exemplar programs, staff who receive certain professional development training, and youth who participate in and gain skills through their afterschool programs. We have been a leader in this area and will share more information soon.

Joseph Durlak

"6. Because conventional schooling in most places has not been able to focus productively on social and emotional learning and development, and because its benefits are so well demonstrated and wide-ranging, the afterschool field has a huge opportunity to fill a crucial need. I predict much attention will be given to the role of afterschool programs in promoting the skills necessary for success in school and in life." - LIAS and Temescal Associates has been promoting the importance of social emotional skills for several years through their blogs, including an interview with Joseph Durlak, and speakers at the How Kids Learn II and III conferences.

Dr. Jeff Borden, Vice President of Academic Strategy & Instruction in Pearson's Research and Innovation Network, published a similar article in eSchool News entitled Are these 8 trends the future of K-12?. Below, we quote from this article and share the work of LIAS and Temescal Associates.

Judy Willis

"6. Neuroscience & Learning Design: 2014 will see more and more assimilation of brain science into the culture of teaching. With liaisons like Judy Willis, neuroscientist and elementary school teacher, or even brain-science ‘navigators’ whose job it is to report on findings from the cognitive science world, it is becoming easier to digest information that used to be overly scientific and jargon-based. Soon, what we know about the brain will finally start to ‘move the needle’ in education. Imagine a learning ecosystem that enables the best memory techniques while boosting processing power, all the while controlling for variables like sleep, exercise, and food. That is what happens when teachers invite neuroscientists to conferences." - The LIAS project featured relevant findings from neuroscience and brain-based learning in our How Kids Learn I conference with our keynote by Dr. Michael Merzenich (UCSF), from Judy Willis, a video address, blog interviews, video interviews for training purposes, and resources posted on our website. 

"8. Constructivism Will Flourish: Along with neuroscience and learning design above, more and more 'movements' have emerged out of and around constructivist teaching and learning. From the veteran project-based learning to up-and-comers like the Maker Movement, flipped learning, challenge-based learning, entrepreneurial linked education, etc., people are realizing that the old apprenticeship model is again possible, at scale, thanks to technology. Learning by creating is fostering connections between the learner and real products, services, or ideas and is, to many, a fundamental 'missing link' with most education today." - The LIAS project promoted these ideas in our project position statement and through our training offerings and speakers featured at our How Kids Learn I, II, and III conferences.

LIAS and Recent Trends in Education and OST (Part 2)

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

There are several new trends or movements as stakeholders look to improve the quality of formal education and learning outside of the classroom. They include the topics of school reform, Common Core Standards, extended learning opportunities, program quality measurement, STEM, 21st century learning skills, and social-emotional learning (SEL). We will dedicate this second blog post to briefly name and describe four more important trends and on the relevance of the LIAS learning principles according to leaders in each of these movements: 



OST PROGRAM QUALITY MEASUREMENT: Given the large federal and state investments in afterschool and summer programs, there has been a call to promote the quality of these programs. To this end, many organizations have developed tools and instruments to gauge the level of quality. The LIAS project conducted a crosswalk between leading quality measurement tools and the LIAS learning principles. This work revealed a high correlation between what the LIAS project calls for and what these instruments measured in the name of quality.   The one LIAS principle that was underrepresented in the program quality tools we examined was: expanding the horizons of program participants. 

Bill Fennessy

“The LIAS principles speak directly to the components required to create a quality instructional delivery framework.  When implemented, programs can truly engage the youth of today.  While many successful afterschool and summer programs already embody and demonstrate the LIAS principles, these principles now being clearly identified, defined, and articulated, will provide for an understandable and intentional approach to attain successful quality programming across the field.  In addition, the LIAS principles provide a common language for the field of afterschool that has been up until now missing and desperately needed.  I have personally seen the LIAS principles easily taught to line staff, which might not have been intuitive to them previously. I have witnessed the empowering affect it has had on them, resulting in improved program quality.  The LIAS principles have also given them the ability to understand for themselves, and communicate with others, their vital role and the value of afterschool and summer programming.”  - Bill Fennessy, THINK Together



STEM: There is a growing movement to increase young people’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  However, STEM activities are meant to be more than just content – they need to be designed to motivate and excite young people so that they will be tempted to pursue STEM activities and eventual careers beyond the life of any one activity or program.

“At the Coalition for Science After School, we find that there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding as to what high-quality STEM programming afterschool means. But once we apply LIAS principles to examine science afterschool, we can quickly identify what quality should look like and which promising practices we should support that may lead to increased youth interest and engagement in STEM. 

Carol Tang

LIAS principles outline the program characteristics most likely to foster scientific inquiry and sense-making in youth and help them recognize the relevance of science and technology to their future. LIAS principles help clarify what high-quality science in out-of-school settings should look like and makes STEM accessible to youth development and afterschool staff.  What I like best about LIAS is that it allows OST professionals to view STEM as a way to achieve their youth outcomes using existing best practices in youth development--science afterschool is seen as part of good youth development, rather than an added burden on afterschool program staff.”    - Carol Tang, Coalition for Science After School


21st CENTURY LEARNING SKILLS: In order for young people to be competitive in a knowledge-based economy of the 21st century, they need to learn to collaborate with others and connect through technology. The 21st century skills are broken into several categories:

• Ways of thinking - Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning
• Ways of working - Communication and collaboration
• Tools for working - Information and communications technology (ICT) and information literacy
• Skills for living in the world - Citizenship, life and career, and personal and social responsibility

Bernie Trilling

According to Bernie Trilling, Global Director at Oracle Education Foundation and co-author of 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times, “The five Learning in Afterschool & Summer 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.” 


SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING (SEL): SEL helps young people develop the skills to handle themselves and their relationships. These are also important skills for the workplace. They include recognizing and managing emotions, developing caring and concern for others, establishing positive relationships, making responsible decisions, and handling challenging situations constructively and ethically. “They are the skills that allow children to calm themselves when angry, make friends, resolve conflicts respectfully, and make ethical and safe choices.”  According to research, having these skills are related to more positive youth outcomes including academic outcomes.   

Joseph Durlak

“The LIAS principles of collaboration, meaningfulness, and expanded horizons are each consistent with the types of skills that compose SEL such as skills relating to managing one’s emotions, developing and maintaining satisfactory relationships with others, and enhancing self-awareness.  In general, the LIAS principles and the five SEL domains allows flexibility and adaptations to occur for work with different types of youth at different developmental stages, and with different needs and interests.” - Joseph Durlak, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, Loyola University, Chicago

Paul Tough, How Children Succeed and Non-cognitive Skills

By Sam Piha

Reporter, Paul Tough, recently authored a book entitled How Children Succeed.  It has stimulated conversation among educators and afterschool and summer providers. This book can be ordered by clicking here, and Paul can be heard on a recent This American Life radio broadcast by clicking here. 

Paul Tough, Author, How Children Succeed

Mr. Tough was unable to attend our recent How Kids Learn II conference but offered the responses below, many of which are drawn from his own website. 

Q: What made you want to write How Children Succeed?

A: In 2008, I published my first book, Whatever It Takes, about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone. I spent five years reporting that book, but when I finished it, I realized I still had a lot of questions about what really happens in childhood. How Children Succeed is an attempt to answer those questions, which for many of us are big and mysterious and central in our lives: Why do certain children succeed while other children fail? 

Q: Where did you go to find the answers?

A: My reporting for this book took me all over the country, from a pediatric clinic in a low-income San Francisco neighborhood to a chess tournament in central Ohio to a wealthy private school in New York City. And what I found as I reported was that there is a new and groundbreaking conversation going on, out of the public eye, about childhood and success and failure. It is very different than the traditional education debate. There are economists working on this, neuroscientists, psychologists, medical doctors. They are often working independently from one another. They don’t always coordinate their efforts. But they’re beginning to find some common ground, and together they’re reaching some interesting and important conclusions.

Q: What’s new?

A: Until recently, most economists and psychologists believed that the most important factor in a child’s success was his or her IQ. This notion is behind our national obsession with test scores. From preschool-admission tests to the SAT and the ACT – even when we tell ourselves as individuals that these tests don’t matter, as a culture we put great faith in them. All because we believe, on some level, that they measure what matters.

But the scientists whose work I followed for How Children Succeed have identified a very different set of skills that they believe are crucial to success. They include qualities like persistence, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. Economists call these non-cognitive skills. Psychologists call them personality traits. Neuroscientists sometimes use the term executive functions. The rest of us often sum them up with the word character.

Q: Who are the big thinkers behind these ideas?

Economist, James Heckman

A: The central scholar in this movement is James Heckman, a Nobel prize–winning economist at the University of Chicago. He’s the one who did some of the first work identifying and quantifying these non-cognitive skills. And in recent years he has been working to pull together thinkers from lots of different disciplines — psychologists and economists and neuroscientists and geneticists — to get them to share ideas and find connections between their theories.

The book includes plenty of others doing important research, from Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who studies self-control and grit; to Michael Meaney, a neuroscientist in Montreal who found a remarkable connection between a mother rat’s licking-and-grooming habits and the future success of her offspring; to Suniya Luthar, a psychology professor at Columbia University who has written about the unique stresses faced by kids who grow up in affluence.

Q: How do these ideas play out in the lives of actual kids?

A: There’s a lot of science in How Children Succeed, but much of the book is taken up with stories of young people trying to improve their lives, and the teachers and counselors and doctors trying to help them, often using unorthodox methods.

Sometimes these kids are achieving great things: Take James Black Jr., a student who just graduated from Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn. He grew up in a low-income neighborhood, he has siblings who’ve spent time in prison, and he doesn’t do great on traditional tests of cognitive ability. But he might be the best thirteen-year-old chess player in the country. I followed him for a year, trying to figure out why he’s so successful.

James Black, Jr. was featured in a recent documentary
entitled Brooklyn Castle

When I started my reporting, I thought what everyone thinks: that chess is the ultimate intellectual activity, a skill inextricable from IQ. But to my surprise, I found that many chess scholars now believe that chess success has more to do with non-cognitive skills than with pure IQ. James’s chess teacher at IS 318 is a woman named Elizabeth Spiegel. She’s a great teacher, and I think what makes her so good is that she’s able to help her students develop their non-cognitive skills to high levels — in James’s case, to very high levels.

__________________________________
A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, Paul Tough is also the author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, which focuses on the steps necessary to improve the lives and education of underserved children. Through the case study of the Harlem Children's Zone, Tough describes the inspiring struggle to establish a way to combat poverty that could be replicated nationwide. Tough has also contributed to This American Life and The New Yorker, where he has honed his focus upon education, poverty, parenting, and politics.

The Importance of Social-Emotional Learning

By Sam Piha

Joseph Durlak

Joseph Durlak and his team have produced some seminal studies that examine the impact of in-school and afterschool programs that promote social-emotional learning. Two of his most important studies offered a meta-analysis, examining high-quality evaluations of the programs and their many effects on youth outcomes. We urge the readers to review these studies when reflecting on the implementation of their own programs. Readers should also visit the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) website. Below we offer a brief interview with Dr. Durlak. 

Q: In partnership with a number of your colleagues, you conducted two meta-analyses regarding the effectiveness in school and after school efforts to promote social-emotional learning. Can you briefly explain what is meant by social-emotional learning and competencies? 

A: In brief, social and emotional learning (or SEL) focuses on the systematic development of a core set of five interrelated social, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral competencies that help children more effectively handle life challenges and thrive in both their learning and their social environments. These skills fall into five areas:   self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Representative competencies in these areas include the abilities to recognize and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspectives of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle interpersonal situations constructively (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2013).

Q: In your research you were interested in whether youth gained social-emotional competencies and whether this had an impact on school behavior and academic success. What did you learn?

A: Overall, we found that the 213 programs that we evaluated were successful in improving students functioning in all six of the outcome areas we examined.  

In perhaps the most important finding, programs were able to improve students’ academic performance (grades and test scores) to a degree that corresponds to an 11% percentile gain in academic performance.  This type of gain corresponds to what many educational interventions have been able to do based on other evaluative research.  SEL Programs also significantly improved students’ self-perceptions, their social and emotional skills, and their prosocial attitudes (e.g., toward school ) and significantly reduced levels of conduct problems and emotional distress (e.g., symptoms of anxiety and depression).   

Q: In these studies, the effectiveness of these efforts were conditional on the quality of the implementation. You identified some key characteristics of implementation that were vital to the program’s success. Can you briefly describe these characteristics? 

A: Extensive research on both children and adults suggests that skills training is most effective when certain principles are followed. Many of these principles are consistent with educational research on effective teaching practices. 

We found that four characteristics representing four of these principles were associated with programs that were more effective than others.  We constructed the acronym, SAFE, to capture these features. ‘S’ stands for Sequential, meaning that programs had a carefully sequenced plan that was designed to develop SEL skills.   This was usually accomplished by a specific curriculum or protocol that built competencies in a coordinated, step-by-step fashion.  ‘A’ stands for Active and means that active forms of learning involving practice and feedback were used to develop skills. Hands-on learning followed by constructive feedback leads to skills acquisition. ‘F’ stands for Focused, meaning that sufficient time was set aside exclusively for skill training, ‘E’ stands for Explicit and means that the skills targeted in each program were clearly explained to students so they knew what was expected of them. 

Aside from these four program characteristics, we also found that programs that were associated with better implementation were more effective than those that experienced problems with implementation.  Implementation involves several dimensions but basically refers to the extent to which intended programs are conducted as planned. 

In other words, effective SEL programs are both well-designed from the start and well executed when they are put into action.   

Q: There is growing discussion of the importance of non-cognitive skills. How are these non-cognitive skills related to the SEL skills that are promoted by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)?

A: In general, there is now growing evidence that success in school and later life is not dependent solely on one’s cognitive or intellectual abilities.  The different domains of functioning are not independent. We have shown that fostering students’ personal and social development via SEL programs can also improve their academic development.   

Q: The LIAS project is promoting 5 key principles that we should apply in our afterschool and summer programs: learning that is active, collaborative, meaningful, supports mastery, and expands horizons. Can you say a bit about the relevance of these principles and how they overlap, or not with social-emotional learning?

A: There is considerable overlap and sometimes only the terms are different. For example, learning that is active and that supports mastery relates to both the ‘A’ and ‘F’ of our acronym in that students need to practice new skill and we must devote sufficient time and attention to foster student mastery. 

The LIAS principles of collaboration, meaningfulness, and expanded horizons are each consistent with the types of skills that compose SEL such as skills relating to managing one’s emotions, developing and maintaining satisfactory relationships with others, and enhancing self-awareness.  In general, the LIAS principles and the five SEL domains allows flexibility and adaptations to occur for work with different types of youth at different developmental stages, and with different needs and interests.

___________________________

Joseph Durlak is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago. He currently lives in Santa Fe. New Mexico, where he remains active writing, editing, consulting, and reviewing. His primary interests are in prevention programs for children and adolescents, meta-analysis, community psychology, and social and emotional learning programs. He has published major reviews on prevention programs for youth, after-school programs, program implementation, and school-based social and emotional learning programs.  He is currently editing contributions for the Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning, to be published by Guilford in late 2013.   

Social-Emotional Learning: The Responsive Classroom

By Sam Piha

There has been much discussion of the importance of social-emotional learning. This discussion has been amplified by a recent study showing the effectiveness of Responsive Classroom approaches. This study was recently featured in Education Week. While they focus on the classroom, the principles and practices are very relevant to afterschool programs. Their principles and practices are very well-aligned to the LIAS principles. Below we offer a major excerpt from the Responsive Classroom website. Check it out.

___________________________

"The Responsive Classroom approach is a way of teaching that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. Developed by classroom teachers, the approach consists of practical strategies for helping children build academic and social-emotional competencies day in and day out.

Guiding Principles

The Responsive Classroom approach is informed by the work of educational theorists and the experiences of exemplary classroom teachers. Seven principles guide this approach:

1. The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
2. How children learn is as important as what they learn: Process and content go hand in hand.
3. The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
4. To be successful academically and socially, children need a set of social skills: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.
5. Knowing the children we teach—individually, culturally, and developmentally—is as important as knowing the content we teach.
6. Knowing the families of the children we teach and working with them as partners is essential to children's education.
7. How the adults at school work together is as important as their individual competence: Lasting change begins with the adult community.

Classroom Practices

The Responsive Classroom is a general approach to teaching, rather than a program designed to address a specific school issue. It is based on the premise that children learn best when they have both academic and social-emotional skills. The Responsive Classroom approach consists of a set of practices that build academic and social-emotional competencies and that can be used along with many other programs.

These classroom practices are the heart of the Responsive Classroom approach:

• Morning Meeting—gathering as a whole class each morning to greet one another, share news, and warm up for the day ahead
• Rule Creation—helping students create classroom rules to ensure an environment that allows all class members to meet their learning goals
• Interactive Modeling—teaching children to notice and internalize expected behaviors through a unique modeling technique
• Positive Teacher Language—using words and tone as a tool to promote children's active learning, sense of community, and self-discipline
• Logical Consequences—responding to misbehavior in a way that allows children to fix and learn from their mistakes while preserving their dignity
• Guided Discovery—introducing classroom materials using a format that encourages independence, creativity, and responsibility
• Academic Choice—increasing student learning by allowing students teacher-structured choices in their work
• Classroom Organization—setting up the physical room in ways that encourage students’ independence, cooperation, and productivity
• Working with Families—creating avenues for hearing parents' insights and helping them understand the school's teaching approaches
• Collaborative Problem Solving—using conferencing, role playing, and other strategies to resolve problems with students"

Skills That Matter and the Role of Afterschool and Summer Programs

By Sam Piha

Sam Piha

There is a growing body of research that suggest that young people's development of non-academic skills are critical to their academic achievement and success. In fact, there is good evidence that the acquisition of these skills are better predictors of academic achievement and life success than standardized test scores. These skills are referred to as social-emotional competencies and non-cognitive skills. We believe that afterschool and summer programs are well-positioned to develop these skills and educate stakeholders as to their importance. It is important to note that having an impact on youth outcomes requires strong program design and consistent implementation. 

Jenny Nagaoka

Pedro Noguera

The Learning in Afterschool & Summer project will use the upcoming How Kids Learn II conference and several future blogs to highlight these important skills. At the conference, we will hear from Dr. Daniel Goleman (via video), Founder of Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and the author of Emotional Intelligence. The conference will also feature a presentation by Jenny Nagaoka, University of Chicago, on the role of non-cognitive skills in adolescence. We expect that we will also hear about the importance of these skills from presenter, Dr. Pedro Noguera from NYU. 

Joseph Durlak

A future blog will focus on the Responsive Classroom approach - a way of teaching that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. In addition, future blogs will feature interviews with Joseph Durlak and Paul Tough. Dr. Durlak is known for his meta-analysis studies of the impact of in-school and afterschool programs that worked to promote social-emotional learning and key features of implementation that are required for impacting youth outcomes. Paul Tough is a writer whose articles and books examine the importance of non-cognitive skills. His latest book, How Children Succeed, is having a major impact in the fields of education and youth development.  

Practitioners can find more articles on social-emotional learning and activities that promote these competencies on the Edutopia website.