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Go on a quest to build your technology power, equity power, relationship power, and personalization power. This Y4Y course will help you gain the virtual edge to be smart and flexible about adding hybrid and virtual settings to your in-person program to increase learning and engagement. You can also find ready-to-use tools and visit the virtual library to find more helpful resources.

Project-based learning (PBL) is helping students become more engaged and creative. A new article from Edutopia summarizes two gold-standard studies demonstrating that PBL is a beneficial education strategy, including for historically marginalized students. This blog post can be helpful to educators seeking research on the effectiveness of PBL.

The Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT) is a new resource from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This resource assists educators and curriculum developers in creating the most effective health education curriculum and providing the best quality health education for students. The HECAT resources include guidance on reviewing health education curriculum, customizable templates, and tools to analyze curriculum fundamentals.

The Afterschool Alliance, along with The Institute for Citizens & Scholars, hosted a webinar moderated and led by students from the Kentucky Student Voice Team. The students shared content from a case study, The Co-Creation Generation, which is intended to serve as a resource for advocates who want to create meaningful youth-led and intergenerational initiatives. The webinar archive includes a question-and-answer session, strategies for youth-led initiatives, and student perspectives.

A growing evidence base suggests that afterschool and summer learning programs can have a positive influence on young people under the right conditions. A new brief from American Institutes for Research offers a potential pathway to understanding how learning and development happen in quality programs. This pathway emphasizes three key competencies—relationships skills, a sense of agency, and identity development—that research suggests can facilitate learning and development in other areas, including academic subjects.

In August 2020, America’s Promise Alliance and The 74 co-hosted a virtual youth town hall about returning to school in the age of COVID-19. Fifty-three percent of students who participated in the virtual town hall reported that their schools had not sought their opinions on reopening. The town hall also captured students’ experiences during the pandemic and suggestions for supporting education and engagement.

Staying engaged during online learning and a pandemic is challenging. This blog post from American Youth Policy Forum outlines ways educators can help students remain engaged, motivated, and enthusiastically learning. Ideas include creating a welcoming environment, focusing on relationships, maintaining constant communication, and teaching students how to self-regulate. Each suggestion includes examples and links to resources.

Between ongoing stress and trauma and the amount of time students are seated at computers, physical education is more important than ever. This 15-minute webinar from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation showcases best practices to keep students active during online learning. Free registration is required. 

Are you looking for ways to build relationships and nurture your learning community during virtual programming? This blog post from Edutopia lists several examples. Strategies include smaller group size, one-to-one and small-group check-ins, and creative use of visuals and video. 

Encouraging students to talk about what they are reading or to talk through a math problem helps them build or clarify their understanding of a topic. A new blog post from Match Charter Public School outlines strategies and examples for fostering academic discussions in a virtual environment. Strategies include establishing conversational norms, choosing lines of questioning that promote meaningful engagement, encouraging active participation, and planning supports for English learners and students with individualized education plans (IEPs).