This study investigates the effect of out-of-school activities on gifted students' affective and behavioral tendencies. Mixed method research with a single group pre and post-test experimental design was used in this study. Twenty-five gifted students from Turkey-Istanbul participated in this study. "Environmental Affect Scale" and…

In the United States, the dearth of quality expanded learning opportunities (ELO), such as afterschool and summer programs, has long been recognized as a national concern (DeKanter et al., 2000). The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this problem, as expanded learning opportunities of all kinds became increasingly limited in spring 2020 (Carver &…

Out-of-class activities play a crucial role in student learning. However, student opinions on the design of these activities are rarely measured across several different classes. The purpose of this study is to understand students' preferences and attitudes towards new "Engaged Mathematics Labs" in which professors and teaching…

Today, students' academic achievement is slowly seeing a return to pre-pandemic trends. Researchers do not estimate a full recovery in the near future, and studies show students continue to struggle with feelings of stress, isolation, anxiety, and depression. As the nation seeks solutions to help young people amidst these struggles, voters and…

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…

It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) that all students, including those with disabilities or special healthcare needs, must have equal opportunity to safely take part in school-sponsored before, after, and extended school year programs and activities, also known as Out of School Time (OST). The registered…

This mixed methods study examines the creativity of Black girls as they learned to code virtual environments in an afterschool program. The afterschool program, West Philly Tech Camp/Black Girls in Computing was a nine-week program in which students learned to code a virtual chatbot using Python. The program's design was guided by culturally…

Written expression is a complex and critical skill that many students in the U.S. struggle to master (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Meanwhile, the COVID pandemic has expedited the need to find feasible interventions that support students writing in a virtual landscape (The National Association of School Psychologists, 2020).…

Digital learning resources are commonly employed to support learning in out-of-class contexts, either as a complement to the learning in formal classrooms or as an alternative that can be used by learners to pursue personal learning goals. This study identified a significant gap in the literature concerning children's use of digital technology to…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine tensions around play, performance and artmaking as becoming in the mix of expected and taken-for-granted discourses implicit in an after-school ceramics makerspace (Perry and Medina, 2011). The authors look closely at one adolescent girl's embodied performance to see how it ruptures the scripts for compliant…

Michelle (Micki) Seligson has been nationally recognized as a leader in afterschool and in childcare policy and practice. In 1978, she founded the School-Age Childcare Project, which became the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at Wellesley College. To commemorate NIOST's 40th anniversary, she sat down with Georgia Hall, director…

In this study, the authors analyzed data from a sample of thirty-two middle school students from an urban school district in the southeastern United States who used MIT's App Inventor to design, create, and remix mobile apps during an afterschool program for one school year. This paper focuses on computer science learning outcomes as measured by…

Vol. II: Short-Term Programs features eight OST STEM programs for females from across the United States that run one to three days in length, in most cases, a single day. In this book, the chapter authors describe their programs, the effectiveness of those programs, and practical implications of their program evaluation data. This book series is…

All students deserve access to a high-quality education and the resources they need to thrive. However, in Michigan this has not been the reality for far too long, particularly for students who are the most underserved. Longstanding inequities have persisted and worsened since the beginning of the pandemic, and Michigan has fallen further and…

Out-of-school time (OST) programs serving predominantly racialized minority communities can help reduce racial disparities in STEM as they provide a culturally affirming learning environment that includes supportive staff of similar ethnic identities as the youth. However, staff at OST programs located in underserved communities that serve…