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Jaida VanDunk
Lao
Education 160
December 1, 2016
Fieldwork Reflection
For my 20 hours of fieldwork, I had the pleasure of volunteering at the
Turtle Rock (T-Rock) After School Academy. The program served students
between kindergarten and 6th grade, and students were split up in three
different groups: children between kindergarten and second grade, children
between third and fourth grade, and children in fifth and sixth grade. While I
did engage with students of all ages, I am planning on teaching younger age
groups in the future, so I spent most of my time 2nd graders and below, and it
was a really great learning experience that made me even more excited for
my future career. As a volunteer, it was my job to engage with the students
and participate in setting up planned activities and games, and sometimes
even participating in the games to guarantee the involvement of all
students. Turtle Rock does a really great job of providing a safe, fun
atmosphere for students to enjoy themselves and build friendships, however,
I did notice some weakness in the program. While the staff does a great job
of creating activities that allows the students to be active and excited, the
activities rarely created opportunities to further develop mastery and
promote positive youth development. By identifying Californias 12 Quality

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Standards for ASPs and using the LIAS observation tool to determine whether
or not T-Rock meets these standards, it became clear that the weaknesses
identified can be improved by reforming program design, incorporating SAFE
features into the new program design, and establishing new goals within the
program.
In 2014 the California After-School Network released a detailed
publication explaining the 12 standards that after school programs should
meet in order to be considered a quality program, as well as how to
incorporate these standards into after school curriculum and asses programs
to determine whether or not they meet the 12 standards. The 12 standards
of a quality after school program are: the program provides a safe and
supportive environment, promotes active and engaged learning, promotes
skill building, encouragement of youth voice and leadership opportunities,
encouragement of healthy life choices and behaviors, promotes a diverse
and equitable environment, maintains a quality staff and clear goal,
promotes collaborative partnerships both within and outside of the faculty,
continuous improvement and overall effective program management. While
Turtle Rock definitely created an environment were children were
comfortable, there were very few leadership and skill building opportunities. I
came to this conclusion by using the LIAS tool to assess activities within the
program.
The LIAS tool is a rubric designed to assess the quality of after school
programs through the observation of an activity demonstrated at the

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program. The LIAS tool measures the quality of a given program by assessing
how active and engaging an activity is, whether or not the activity is
collaborative, analyzing how meaningful the activity is, and determining
whether or not the activity builds mastery and expands horizons. The rubric
is divided into the five different categories and each category is either
ranked as early, developing, and mature. If a category is early, that means
that the activity is not as effective in displaying certain quality standards as
it should be. The ranking developing means that the activity is on the right
track, and mature is an example of a quality activity. When I used the LIAS
tool to assess T-Rock I observed a game of jeopardy, where the students
were divided into groups and worked together to answer categorized
questions for a prize. I think that the activity itself was a good idea and the
children were initially very excited, but the game quickly became out of
control and the potential of further developing the students knowledge of
certain subjects was lost. I think that the jeopardy activity was ultimately
unsuccessful because the students werent really used to activities that
require them to think critically and work as a team. I volunteered for a total
of 22.5 hours at Turtle Rock, and I quickly noticed that most of the activities
were not intellectually challenging. Majority of the activities I observed at TRock were some variation for dodgeball, and while the children were always
vey engaged and happy to play, the games didnt involve any type of
leadership skills or collaborative efforts. When a student would get hit by a
ball and have to sit out, the dodgeball game usually involved several

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loopholes that would allow the child to get back in the game, so the games
werent even meaningful because the students werent even forced to learn
the values of winning vs. losing and why its ok to lose sometimes. However,
I do feel like T-Rock can easily solve these issues by altering the program
design.
As discussed in class, high quality programs frequently feature projectbased learning. The article Learning with excitement: Bridging school and
after-school worlds and project-based learning also explains the benefits
children receive from project based learning. One of the most enriching
activities that I saw at T-Rock was the production of the Drama-Rama which
was a musical created by a group of students between 1st grade and 6th
grade. The children worked an hour per week for 9 weeks with each other
and the T-Rock leaders to write a musical, put together costumes and
memorize their lines. At the end of the 9 weeks, parents of the performing
students and students who werent participating gathered to watch the
children perform. This is one of the best activities that I saw at Turtle Rock
and I was disappointed that I didnt get to observe it for my LIAS tool. This
was probably the only project I saw that required effective collaboration
skills, and had an actual end result. I feel like if all of the students were
required to participate in a similar project, even a much smaller project,
majority of the issues I observed in the program would immediately be
resolved. The program design can also be improved by incorporating more
SAFE features.

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SAFE Features procedure that can be enforced by staff to improve

things like social behavior, self-perceptions and other developmental factors
in students. The procedures consist of: (S) making sure that staff is trained
and prepared, (A) creating active learning by having students practice new
skills, (F) by focusing specific time and attention on skill development, and
(E) being explicit in defining the skills (Durlak, Weisberg, 2). Again, none of
these procedures are really enforced at Turtle Rock. For example, the
teachers who are hired dont need certifications for the job, and as a
volunteer the only requirement I needed was a TB test. Further training, even
for volunteers, would allow leaders to think more critically about the
activities they create for the students and what skills they want them to
develop on a daily basis.
Creating clearer goals for their program and students could also
potentially help Turtle Rock meet more quality standards. In class we
discussed that the program goals should be clearly defined, should have a
specific emphasis, etc. but I didnt see anything like this at Turtle Rock.
Besides keeping the children safe and happy, there werent any further goals
to contribute to the childrens enrichment.
Although the children who attend T-Rock are clearly comfortable in their
environment and engaged in what theyre doing throughout the course of
the program, Turtle Rock wouldnt necessarily meet all of the 12 Quality
Standards of an after school program. However, I do think that T-Rock is on
the right track to become an effective ASP. Through effective assessments,

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revision of programming, incorporation of SAFE procedures and clarification

of the programs goals, I think that T-Rock can easily become an all-around
quality program.

Work(s) Cited
California Department of Education After School Division and the California
AfterSchool

Network (September, 2014). A Crosswalk between the

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quality standards for expanded

tools. Retrieved from:

learning and program quality assessment

http://www.afterschoolnetwork.org/post/crosswalk-

between-quality-standards-

expanded-learning-and-program-quality-

assessment-tools
Durlak, Joseph, and Roger Weissberg. "Afterschool Programs That Follow
Evidence-Based Practices to Promote Social and Emotional Development
Are Effective." A Compendium on Expanded Learning, .
Noam, G. G. (2003), Learning with excitement: Bridging school and afterschool worlds and

project-based learning. New Directions for Youth

Development, 2003: 121138.

Retrieved

from: https://eee.uci.edu/15w/12320/syllabusandreadings/Noam_G+bri
dge.pdf