Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELOs)

The way students spend their time outside the classroom significantly shapes their achievements in lifelong learning. Afterschool learning time, which is called Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELOs) provides quality experiences with skills development beyond the classes. Typically, the importance of ELOs programmes appears during the summer break which presents a valuable opportunity for students to explore and enrich new interests. Expanded Learning Opportunities as described in the Expanded Learning Opportunities Guide (2018), refer to the various programmes offered by schools and community-based organisations to provide enriching experiences for young individuals. These experiences take place after-school and during the summer. ELO programmes encompass a range of activities such as clubs, field trips, and tutoring programmes, aiming to foster skill development through hands-on and experiential learning. What’s more, by students engaging in these diverse and captivating learning experiences, they have chance to cultivate essential social competencies (e.g., self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, and social skills).

On the other hand, (20%) of student’s time is spent in school. However, the remaining (80%) of their time holds significant potential to acquire new skills. It’s crucial to recognise that how students and youth choose to spend this substantial portion of their time can have a profound impact. This presents a valuable opportunity to utilise that time effectively, offering support for their academic and social development. In their meta-analysis of the research literature about afterschool, Durlak, Weissberg, and Pachan (2010) found that “... participants demonstrated significant increases in their self-perceptions and bonding to school, positive social behaviours, school grades and levels of academic achievement, and significant reductions in problem behaviours.” Moreover, “there were significant increases in youths’ self-perceptions, bonding to school, positive social behaviours, school grades, and achievement test scores. Significant reductions also appeared for problem behaviours” (Lauer& Smith, 2011).

Based on the findings from the aforementioned research, Lauer and Smith (2011) propose several strategies for expanding learning opportunities through community Learning Centers, as follows: 1. Align in-school and out-of-school learning: Afterschool and summer learning programmes can do what they do best — offering homework help and hands-on, fun activities — in service to the same standards and objectives that students are expected to meet during school time. 2. Identify and respond to individual learning needs: A key aspect of focusing on out-of-school-time activities is individual students’ learning needs. Afterschool and summer programmes can usually accommodate more intensive interventions for striving readers — interventions that give striving readers more learning time in more individualised settings outside of the school-day classroom — and can be especially effective in stemming summer learning loss. 3. Partner with families: Afterschool and summer programme staff often have more opportunities than school-day staff to interact and develop positive relationships with families. additionally gathering information about students’ interests, coordinating services, and connecting families to each other for support. 4. Partner with community groups and organisations, and treat school, home, and community as a unified system: Unlike any other major education initiative, the 21st-century community learning centres require school-community partnerships, family engagement, and varied engaged learning opportunities for young people.

In summary, one benefit of ELOs is that they can help students enhance important skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration. These skills are essential for success in work, and life. Another benefit of ELOs is that they can introduce students to careers and help them build relationships with mentors and professionals in their areas of interest. This can be particularly important for students who may not have access to these resources otherwise. As a result, when initiating an ELOs programme its needful to prepare one to two specific goals to concentrate on.