Description of:

o The program site: Elementary (mostly 1st-3rd)

The 103 Saint Korean Catholic Church, Korean School
(103SKCC Korean School)
o Facility: There are multiple rooms used. There are 9 different rooms with
different grade level that has similar educational background.
o Students (demographics, grades served, number served):
They are Korean, Korean-American, and American. It is mostly 1st to 3rd
grade level who shares similar Korean language level. There are about 13-15
students in each class.
o Staff: Staffs are all full Korean who speaks fluent Korean and semi-fluent
English/ fluent English.
The strength of each staff is very well organized with their materials, and clear
goals.
o Daily schedule, activities/general program structure, etc:
It is divided with three periods, and each period of time, instructor is prepared
for materials to teach. In their program plan, they must integrate with arts,
music or technology to learn Korean. The activities are wide range between
each instructor because individual instructor is responsible to come up with
their own activities to do in class. They create their own program plan for
each day.
o Student needs:
I noticed that students are very engaged in activities that they are doing but
many times, there arent too many options for them to choose an activity. In
each class, the program leader is come up with their own activity and students
need to do it without choosing any other options.
Journal Entry #1 Theme/Topic: What evidence do you see in your fieldwork that the
program is integrating the LIAS principles?
First of all, LIAS tool is stand for Learning in Afterschool And Summer that could
prepare for youth in the 21st century. The purpose of this tool is to engaging youth in assessing
the alignment between the programs and the LIAS learning principles. It is divided into three
categories of score such as early, developing, and mature. Also it is asked to write some evidence
of why we choose that category of score. LIAS learning principle is divided into categories of
active, collaborative, meaningful, supports mastery, and expands horizons. Active principle is
looking for if the acidities in this program result in some kind of a finished product, or have
opportunities did youth had to do project-based work themselves.

I think my field work site of the program is very active because most of the activities are
project-based work and they do finish the work by themselves. Also students are involved in
activities that allow them to learn through multiple senses and by doing. For example, (I did
wrote this activity in my LIAS observation chart) the activity was asked students to think about
the words that they learned past weeks then asked to write them in their own word book that
they were making. And also they needed to draw pictures next to the word so they could tell
what that word mean. In addition, they get to create their word book as creative as they want,
and they made their own decisions about what to do or how to do it with the book. After finished,
they get to share with their classmates and take it to home a finished product.
Second, I thought it was somewhat collaborative because they get to work with others by
helping them with come up with the words that they learned. However, they did not get to
actually work in groups to finished only one project because it was individual work.
Third, I thought it was very meaningful because the activities give students a meaningful
thought or work at the end of the project. With the same example of making their own word
book, they get to practice writing the words that they learned in past week, so it was great ways
to practice old materials to refresh their mind. Additionally, they were given frequent
opportunities to reflect on, assess, and discuss their own progress while they were doing. Most
importantly, I thought it was very meaningful because individual students were motivated to
create their own book with the words and picture they wrote, and it find the topic very
meaningful to have the ownership over the learning.
Fourth, I think the program is developing in the principle of supports mastery because
students were engaged in activities but not given to the opportunities to learn new skills such as
learning new words, or material.
Lastly, it was early expand horizons because it was mostly practicing and review of the
words that they already have been learned so it was not something that they learned new thing.
Also I thought it was early or developing in this principle because this project/activity werent
really able to learn directly from their community members or go out into the community.
Overall, I think the program is well integrated with the LIAS principles. I looked at specific
activity to make a comparison between each principles but mostly, the program is very active,
meaningful, collaborative, expand horizons, and support mastery.

Journal Entry #2 Theme/Topic: What are the strengths of your program director? What
qualities, skills would you say are most important to his/her work and why?
The strengths of my program director are that he sets clear goals and he knows that a
desired outcome is a cornerstone of afterschool program success. Also he demonstrated good
leadership skills and controls both staffs, instructors and parents very well. According to the
article, Making Afterschool Programs Better by Huang and Dietel the key components of
effective afterschool is to have clear goal, good leadership skills, well-trained staff, wellorganized program, and do evaluations. My site director is have very clear, rigorous, and
supported across the program in structure and content. For example, he wanted the site to be
organized and structured, so he asks each instructor to have their program plan done before the
program starts. Also he asks for each weeks program plan with specific details for each period
of times what we are going to do with students in class. Instructors need to create weekly,
monthly and yearly program plan. This will make the program very structured, organized and
prepared for better qualify afterschool program. His main goal of the program is to give students
more, and be passionate about teaching these students with their learning. These students are
present to learn, engage, and play.
Also with many experience of working with children, he shows great leadership skills.
He knows how to effectively communicate with instructor/staff and parents. I think the most
important thing in afterschool is to have good relationship with all of staff members. But he
knows how to maintain a good relationship with each one of staffs, and even with volunteers. We
have weekly meeting to come up with ideas, better solutions or some kinds of event. He builds
good relationship with each staffs and it brings good quality after school program because then
each instructor more wants to come to the site to teach students with positive influence. In
addition, he takes care of volunteers and gives advice to them at the end of the day. Taking care
of each volunteer is not a hard work but it requires some efforts to do it, and he does a good job.
I think building these good relationships with staffs and volunteers is to bring up the quality of
staffs which leads to have better quality of the program. He hires and asks each instructor to take
some of train courses, and classes before they starts teaching. Training is a bit longer than other
sites that Ive been working but this makes me become a good volunteer and then now a good
teacher. Training is really important because it allows staff and instructor to be prepared, and
also give them a clear goal. The program provides time for students to study, learn, and practice
which includes motivated activities, frequently uses technology, science, and the arts to support
youth development, student learning and engagement (Huang, D. & Dietel, R. 2011). Even
though the program is learning a Korean (language based) but he integrated language with art
and music. He asks instructor to create program plan with use of technology, arts, and music
because he knows that it will make student motivated to learning Korean with different kinds of
areas. He does not uses evaluation very frequently, but he does it once in at the end of year and
see what needs to be improved. The strength of his work is that he has all these five components
used in his program and work hard to make a high quality afterschool program.

Journal Entry #2 Theme/Topic: To what degree does your program have a unique
"culture" that students may feel like they belong to? How do program staff work to create
that culture? What is important about that?
Since my site is the Korean School, the goal of the program is learning Korean, and
Korean cultures. It gives the students clear idea of where they belong to and it is great way to
learn some other cultures for American students. The program staffs are creating the program
plan with some of Korean traditional holiday event. For example, there is Korean Thanksgiving
Day called Choo Suk, and instructors is creating program plan with some of activities that they
could do that relates with Korean Thanksgiving Day. From my class, we had activities that
students could play Korean traditional old games that have been coming from old cultures where
ancients were playing during the Korean Thanksgiving Day. By playing games, they are actively
engaged and learned the cultures of the Korean Thanksgiving Day. In addition, there is Hangual
Nal that celebrates Korean language. Hangul is the Korean name for Korean alphabets. They
get to learn the history of Korean language and learn who made Hangual and stuff.
Integrating Korean cultural events with learning Korean will have students feel like they
are belong to Korean community. Even though, some students heritage is not Korean, they get a
great chance to learn new culture and new language. I think learning new culture, and learning
ones own cultures is really important. From my own experiences, I born in Korean bur raised in
American since I was in 7th grade. Learning both cultures gave me more opportunities to see the
world differently, and I get to explore so many things in many different ways. When I was in
high school, I learned Spanish and learned their cultures by listening, speaking and writing their
words. Also tasting their food was another fun way to experience other culture. When I went to
College, I learned Japanese, and it was very fun to learn many different languages. Even though,
Im Korean, I learned many different languages and their cultures. I think it was great
experienced to learn many different cultures. While I was learning new language and culture, I
felt like I belong to their cultural.
I think in afterschool programs should teach students with different cultures, and
histories to give students more opportunities to widen their knowledge. The best way to learn
new cultures is to learn different languages. By learning different language, students get to learn
their history, culture, people, and food. The fun activity we did in the program was to choose one
of Korean traditional food, and make them. Students were very engaged, and had a lot of fun
while they were making the food. Before they get to cook, they needed to look for a history parts
of the food, then look up the recipes and wrote a recipe book for the final project. This activity
was for upper grade level, and they said it was really fun. With different kinds of activities,
learning history of culture, and language can be fun and active. At the end, students will feel that
they are belongs to one community which could bring motivations to learn Korean.