What Students Know About Summer School: Middle Schoolers’ Perspectives on a Summer Learning Program

• In Event: Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Youth Engagement: Perspectives, Participation, and Program Practices

Abstract

This paper describes one phase in a larger study of a summer program for middle school students designed to help failing students. Student perceptions of their experiences, confirmed through observations of courses, provide the dominant insight. The paper contributes to an emerging understanding of the tensions surrounding the use of summertime as formal learning time. The insights given by the student participants in the study are supported by literature on teens’ preferences and needs such as opportunities for choices, schedules that accommodate sleep patterns, time for relationships along with boundaries for developing maturity, and still include the wish for a bit of summer fun.

Authors

• Mindy Spearman, Clemson University

• Amanda Bell Werts, Appalachian State University

• Matthew Moore, Clemson University

• Candice Vanette Moore, Stone Academy

• Jane Clark Lindle, Clemson University