These 3 Quick Listens are from Episode 25 in Season 2 of the Lessons in Adolescence podcast. Listen to more where ever you get your podcast or online at: https://education.virginia.edu/faculty-research/centers-labs-projects/youth-nex/remaking-middle-school/youth-nex-rms-podcast-page

This episode features a conversation with Clark McKowan, President and Founder of xSEL Labs and associate professor of behavioral sciences at Rush University Medical Center. xSEL Labs conducts an array of research in the education and youth field specific to social and emotional learning, or SEL. Notably, xSEL labs also develops assessments for student social and emotional competencies, as well as school climate and SEL for adults. xSEL Labs is currently building a new set of SEL assessments for middle school aged students, which are being designed not only with middle school students in mind but with their direct input.

Clark and Jason talk about the history of xSEL Labs, the key differences of social and emotional learning for adolescents versus for younger children, and the evidence-based methods xSEL Labs uses to develop SEL measures as well as when and where and how in school environments the measures are administered. They then address important ways to factor racial and cultural inputs into SEL measures, Clark’s views on the current state of the SEL field and where it’s going, as well as emerging ways xSEL Labs is looking to provide more support to educators to implement SEL programming most effectively.

Episode 25 Quick Listen 1

These 2 Quick Listens are from Episode 26 in Season 2 of the Lessons in Adolescence podcast. Listen to more where ever you get your podcast or online at: https://education.virginia.edu/faculty-research/centers-labs-projects/youth-nex/remaking-middle-school/youth-nex-rms-podcast-page

This episode features a conversation with Julie Lammers and Rahul Choudaha. Julie is Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Corporate Social Responsibility for American Student Assistance, or ASA, an organization that invests in and advocates for greater career exposure and exploration for youth as early as the middle grades. Rahul is Managing Director, Higher Education at Morning Consult, a firm specializing in survey research and business intelligence. The conversation centers around a soon-to-be-released survey of employers and adolescents around alternative, non-traditional, or non-degree postsecondary education opportunities. 

Julie, Rahul and Jason talk about how the survey came about, how it was designed to capture both employer and youth perspectives, the partners involved in the effort, what we mean by multiple pathways in the postsecondary space, the perceptions of those pathways that the survey showed, and some of the delicate communication challenges that highlight the value of multiple pathways without setting different expectations for youth driven by certain biases. They then look further into the findings of the survey, specifically addressing the motivations for pursuing alternate pathways, such as the avoidance of debt and accelerating a path to employment, how to change the narrative to better legitimate multiple pathways such that they are not viewed by both employers and youth as riskier than traditional college, and what some of the structural changes that may be necessary are in the K-12 education system, federal policy around postsecondary education financing, and employer hiring practices in order to make multiple pathways more viable and perceived by both employers and youth as more valuable.

Episode 26 Quick Listen 2

Episode 26 Quick Listen 1

These 3 Quick Listens are from Episode 27 in Season 2 of the Lessons in Adolescence podcast. Listen to more where ever you get your podcast or online at: https://education.virginia.edu/faculty-research/centers-labs-projects/youth-nex/remaking-middle-school/youth-nex-rms-podcast-page

This episode features a conversation with three educators working to remake parts of the middle grades experience in a Chicago public school through a Liberatory Design process. Joyce Pae is principal of The Chicago Academy, or TCA, a preK through eighth grade school in the northwest side of the city. Oscar Newman is a National Board Certified science and math teacher at TCA. Shelby Hildreth is the Director of Program Design on the LiberatED Way team at AUSL, which is facilitating the Liberatory Design work at TCA. The process works to engage educators to reflect on teaching and learning and school environment and policy to advance equity in deep, specific and measurable ways.

Joyce, Oscar, Shelby and Jason talk about The Chicago Academy and the students and community it serves, some of the immediate challenges educators are facing this year as we continue to work through the pandemic, what the Liberatory Design process is, the way it’s being paired with adolescent development to focus on the middle grades, the application of the design process at TCA, the specific equity challenges that were identified and addressed through the process, the ways TCA worked to amplify youth voice and test new strategies that better aligned with adolescent developmental needs, and how educators across different contexts and environments can utilize Liberatory Design to address their own challenges.

Episode 27 Quick Listen 3

Episode 27 Quick Listen 2

Episode 27 Quick Listen 1

These 2 Quick Listens are from Episode 28 in Season 2 of the Lessons in Adolescence podcast. Listen to more where ever you get your podcast or online at: https://education.virginia.edu/faculty-research/centers-labs-projects/youth-nex/remaking-middle-school/youth-nex-rms-podcast-page

This episode features a conversation with Joel Daniel Harris, Founder and “Executive Dreamer” of TomTod, a nearly ten-year-old youth development nonprofit based in Canton, Ohio that offers summer learning opportunities for middle school aged youth, as well as after school and in-school programming. TomTod provides a variety of community-based, immersive experiences for thousands of youth across northeast Ohio that are deeply influenced by adolescent development and rooted in community and relationships, focusing on what young adolescents are capable of here and now, and not just in the future, which can work to change what most people think of the middle school period.

Episode 28 Quick Listen 2

Episode 28 Quick Listen 1

These 2 Quick Listens are from Episode 29 in Season 2 of the Lessons in Adolescence podcast. Listen to more where ever you get your podcast or online at: https://education.virginia.edu/faculty-research/centers-labs-projects/youth-nex/remaking-middle-school/youth-nex-rms-podcast-page

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Ken Ginsburg and Dr. Jillian Baker from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Ken is a physician in the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Founder and Director of Programs at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication (CPTC) at CHOP. Jill is a public health expert and Executive Director of the CPTC. CPTC develops and disseminates a range of tools and resources for parents, family members, caregivers, and adolescents, on a range of issues central to strengthening family relationships. These relationships remain core to healthy adolescent development, despite common perceptions of teens pulling away from their parents and other adults in favor of their peers.

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