More than a babysitter: Looking back on an effective summer enrichment program

Each summer families across the globe send their children to summer camps and daycares for what amounts to babysitting. This study takes the discussion beyond babysitting and explores a unique summer enrichment program offered to rising second through fifth grade students in a modified enrichment camp model. During the four-week program, students were engaged in standards-based academic instruction in reading, mathematics, and science designed to provide enrichment activities to better prepare them for academic success in the upcoming year. Students were pre-tested over standards from the first quarter of the upcoming year. Then, they were taught the standards and post-tested. Analysis of the pretest and posttest data suggests that the program was successful in increasing students’ content knowledge in each of the subject areas taught. The findings imply that summer programs intentionally offering standards-based academics in an enrichment camp environment can be used to provide learning opportunities that diminish academic opportunity gaps.

Les effets des programmes d’été de littératie: Les théories sur les opportunités d’apprentissage et les élèves « non traditionnels » dans les écoles de langue française en Ontario

According to studies from the United States and English Canada, student achievement gaps grow over the summer months when children are not attending school, but summer literacy interventions can reduce those gaps. This paper presents data from a quasi-experiment conducted in eight Ontario French language school boards in 2010, 2011 and 2012 for 682 children in grades 1-3. Growth in literacy test scores between June and September are compared for 361 attendees of summer literacy programs and 321 control students. Summer program recruits initially had lower prior literacy scores and grades, and tended to hail from relatively disadvantaged social backgrounds. Yet, summer programs narrowed those pre-existing gaps. Effect sizes from a variety of regression and propensity score matching models ranged from .32 to .58, which is quite sizeable by the standards of elementary school interventions and summer programs. Effects were stronger among students whose parents reported not speaking French exclusively at home. Our paper considers learning opportunity theory in light of the “non-traditional” student in Ontario French language schools.

Les effets des programmes d’été de littératie: Les théories sur les opportunités d’apprentissage et les élèves « non traditionnels » dans les écoles de langue française en Ontario

According to studies from the United States and English Canada, student achievement gaps grow over the summer months when children are not attending school, but summer literacy interventions can reduce those gaps. This paper presents data from a quasi-experiment conducted in eight Ontario French language school boards in 2010, 2011 and 2012 for 682 children in grades 1-3. Growth in literacy test scores between June and September are compared for 361 attendees of summer literacy programs and 321 control students. Summer program recruits initially had lower prior literacy scores and grades, and tended to hail from relatively disadvantaged social backgrounds. Yet, summer programs narrowed those pre-existing gaps. Effect sizes from a variety of regression and propensity score matching models ranged from .32 to .58, which is quite sizeable by the standards of elementary school interventions and summer programs. Effects were stronger among students whose parents reported not speaking French exclusively at home. Our paper considers learning opportunity theory in light of the “non-traditional” student in Ontario French language schools.

EXPRESS: Political Identity and Preference for Supplemental Educational Programs

The market for supplemental educational programs–tutorials, educational materials, summer programs–has burgeoned. Thus, it is important to understand factors that may influence parents’ choices for supplemental educational programs (SEPs). This article examines how parents’ political identity affects their preference for SEPs contingent on their focus on self. Using two main educational orientations−conformance-orientation and independence-orientation−the authors argue that SEPs with conformance-oriented pedagogy may be preferred more by conservative parents due to their higher need for structure. This association of political identity with preference for SEPs is moderated by self-focus. Counterintuitively, when using political orientation to target messages for SEPs, firms should frame messages to focus parents on their selves for identity-consistent effects to manifest. Five studies–including a field study–test this theorizing and replicate key results using different measures of political identity and self-focus.

Pandemonium

This chapter explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and how California UC Links programs adapted and transformed undergraduate and K-12 program activities in response to the deepening COVID-19 crisis. The authors review challenges faced by programs and how they leveraged and strengthened existing partnerships to engage K-12 participants. Emerging responses to the ever-changing context of the pandemic are also explored, and the authors focus on re-envisioning the UC Links undergraduate course and school- and community-based activities. Innovative activities that UC Links programs and their partners designed and piloted in the Spring and Summer quarters of 2020 are explored, including distributing resources, creating mediated hands-on activities, producing mediated virtual activities, and bridging after- and in-school activities. Learnings from virtual summer programs and Fall 2020 collaborative activities are summarized as context for both understanding and co-constructing future activities developed in response to shelter-in-place conditions.

STEM Learning Ecosystems: Building from Theory Toward a Common Evidence Base

An innovative system-building initiative known as the STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice (SLECoP) is transforming U.S. STEM education through cross-sector partnerships between schools, afterschool and summer programs, libraries, museums, and businesses, among others. Although logic models exist to describe how SLEs can make positive contributions toward youth STEM learning in theory, it is unknown how individual SLEs are motivated or equipped to collect the evidence needed to demonstrate their value or abilities to solve the problems they were formed to address. The present study describes the results of a 34-item qualitative survey—completed by leaders of 37 SLEs from four U.S. regions—designed to understand where SLEs are in their evaluation planning, implementing, and capacity-building processes. We found that most SLEs were championed by the extended education sector, and all were highly motivated to conduct evaluation and assessment. Most communities reported a willingness to create a shared vision around data collection, which will help researchers and practitioners track, understand, and improve STEM quality and outcomes in and out of school.