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Quality Counts!
Quality Programs have Great Programming
...and often that programming begins with a community activity! Do your children start the program day off by sharing an activity, such as gathered around an adult reading a story? This type of centering activity settles children down, sets the tone for the day, builds community, presents a model of reading, and allows the adult time to discuss a topic with children. Classroom teachers figured this management idea out early with such things as challenge problems, circle time, or read alouds. Try starting your day with an activity like this to see if it makes a difference in the way your children work the rest of the program time!
Reading aloud to children is widely recognized as the single most important activity leading to literacy acquisition. Do you have children who need better literacy skills? Are you unsure of what to do with a read aloud book? Do you have volunteers that need a bit of training on how to read a book aloud to children? This 12-minute video is for you! Click here for titles of great books to read aloud!
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Free and Easy
Practices that increase the quality of your program immediately:
1. Plan ahead! It is impossible to come up with project based or experiential activities at a moment's notice. Lesson plans need to be written. Materials need to be gathered. Staff members may even need to practice the activity before doing it with participants. For truly successful enriching experiences, preparation is required.
2. When finding activities, do not reinvent the wheel! You do not have to sit in your office all day coming up with ideas for engaging, hands-on programming. Program sites that have passed the safety check can borrow vetted curriculum from the Dallas AfterSchool Network Lending Library. Click here to view the most up-to-date catalog of offerings. If that curricula does not meet your needs, talk to your peers about activities that have been successful in their programs. When all else fails, a Google search reveals hundreds of participant-tested activities designed to get children involved, engaged, and learning.
3. Allow participants freedom to be creative. For art time, set out a variety of supplies for participants from which to choose. If the task is to create a fish, some children may choose to draw a fish, while others may paint one or make a 3D model.
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As Seen in Our Programs
Quality Advisors share exemplary practices as seen in our client programs:
Wesley-Rankin Community Center participants implode soda cans using the NASA Afterschool Universe curriculum provided by Dallas AfterSchool Network. Students explore astronomy concepts through engaging hands-on activities and soar past the solar system to explore other parts of the Universe!
Children in the Thriving Minds Afterschool Program at Comstock Middle School display their Tae Kwondo skills during a showcase of all the clubs' talents. Tae Kwondo and other martial arts are a great way to fit structured, skill-building physical activities into a program.
During the same showcase, these mugs made by the pottery club are on display. They are handcrafted as part of a community service project to be donated to children at Children's Medical Center of Dallas. What a fun and creative way to develop positive character traits through community outreach!
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Academically Speaking
Appropriate activities that support learning:
Creating a high quality activity is not always about the activity being completed, but how it is presented. Below is an example of the same activity approached in two ways. Can you determine which is a higher quality approach?
Task: To build a boat that can float across a tub carrying 25 "swamp slugs"
Materials:
two Styrofoam plates, two drinking straw, one piece of computer paper, scotch tape, scissors, 25 raisins (aka "swamp slugs")
Teacher Driven Approach
The teacher says, "Today we are making boats. Everyone start by drawing a triangle on your paper that looks like the one I have drawn here on the board. Then cut out the triangle and tape it to the top of one straw. This is your sail. Now attach the straw to the middle of a Styrofoam plate using the scotch tape. Count out 25 "swamp slugs" and put them on the boat around the edge of the straw. Now we can test our boat by blowing on the sail to see if we can float it across the tub."
Student Driven Approach
The teacher says, "Today, you will all work with your team to build a boat. Your boat needs to be able to float across a tub of water carrying 25 'swamp slugs.' You may use any of the materials on your table, and you have 30 minutes to create your boat. When you are finished we will test your boats by setting them afloat in this tub. You'll have to figure out a way to move the boat across the tub. Does anyone have any questions?"
While both approaches complete the task, only one, the "student driven approach," encourages teamwork and develops critical thinking and problem solving skills, making it a higher quality activity. How can you make your activities more student driven?
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Behaviorally Speaking
Suggestions for Managing Participant Behavior:
Giving Clear Instructions
When moving from one activity to the next, participants often become unfocused, distracted, restless, and noisy. Make sure participants understand your expectations for transitions by giving them clear instructions. Clear instructions should not only give directions on what to do, but how and when to do it. Here are three ways to tell participants to line up. Notice the differences that move quality from just okay to best. Practice giving clear instructions with your staff, too. (As a tip--it's easy to find something to praise when you give clear instructions. Just look for the participants who completed the task just as you asked!)
Okay: "It is time to go to art. Everybody line up by the door right now."
Better: "It is time to go to art. I need everybody to stand up and walk quietly to the door and line up right now."
Best: <5 minutes till transition time> "Class, can I have your attention? In 5 minutes we are going to art class, so begin to wrap up what you are working on and put your materials away." <5 minutes later> "Class, it is time to go to art. Please listen carefully to my instructions. When I tell you to go, I need everyone to stand up, push your chairs in, and, without talking, walk to line up by the door. Ready, go."
Still have questions on how to handle a specific behavior? Get some quick tips on what to do from Discipline Help: You Can Handle Them All, a reference for handling 124 misbehaviors. Now available as a smart phone app!
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It Takes a Bit of Work
These quality practices take a bit of time or money to implement:
Stay-cation: Afterschool Style
A "stay-cation" is a vacation where the person explores their home city instead of traveling. In afterschool, think of a "stay-cation" as a field trip that can be taken without leaving your facility! Many organizations offer exciting experiences by coming to your site. A great example is the Creature Feature offered by the Dallas Zoo. The Creature Feature brings zookeepers to a site with a collection of their animal friends! Students love and learn from this close encounter with animals, and because traveling is not involved, it is more affordable than a regular field trip!
Make Each Activity Count
Activities should be selected to support your program's mission statement. Outdoor games or unstructured play can be used to support your mission if your program strives to provide healthy physical activity or to promote social learning. Before you implement an activity, be mindful of how it relates back to your mission.
Incorporate Themes
Work with program staff and participants to determine themes or topics on which to focus for a period of time. For example, your group may choose the theme 'Around the World' where each week focuses on a different country or continent. Children learn math concepts by looking at geometric features of flags, crests, or shields. Reading focuses on stories from that area. Children may even put on a play of their story. Outdoor time can include playing popular games from that part of the world. If your focus is on health and nutrition, children can compare healthy diets from Kenya, China, Spain, Brazil, etc.
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Research says...
This piece of research will help you explain the importance of quality to your stakeholders:
"Project-based learning is not characterized by students sitting at desks, passively receiving information from teachers who are at the front of the room talking. Rather, teachers act more like facilitators, coaches, and collaborators than the controllers of all decisions and, ultimately of the outcomes of the work. Project-based and experiential learning build on the notion that children are capable intellectually and socially of learning what they need to learn, but that they must have the opportunity to take an active role in their own learning. From this perspective, they are not "empty vessels" waiting for knowledge to be poured into them, nor are they "skill machines" who grow academically by accruing, year after year, a set of requisite capacities, definitions, formulas, and facts."
In Project-Based and Experiential Learning in After-School Programming, learn more about what project-based and experiential learning is, why it is important, and some examples of activities appropriate for an afterschool program!
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For archived copies of Quality Counts!, click here.
Dallas AfterSchool Network is a 501(c)(3) organization making afterschool better for more than 12,000 children in our community.
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www.dasn.org
214-306-8400
2902 Swiss Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204
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