Lessons in Adolescence

The production of our third season is officially underway! Our first episode will be available for listening on your preferred podcast platform later in October. Season Three will be packed with new guests, more lessons, and fresh showcases of research, practice and advocacy all focused on young adolescent learning and development. Before we dive into Season Three, let’s listen in on some of the c...

In the Lessons in Adolescence podcast we feature conversations with researchers, practitioners, program developers and advocates. Drawing content from our past two seasons of episodes, we are offering a series of Mini Lessons on important topics relating to positive early adolescent development and effective middle level education. This mini lesson is about Belonging. Vital to the learning and dev...

In the Lessons in Adolescence podcast we feature conversations with researchers, practitioners, program developers and advocates. Drawing content from our past two seasons of episodes, we are offering a series of Mini Lessons on important topics relating to positive early adolescent development and effective middle level education. This mini lesson is about Career Exploration. Research has shown t...

In the Lessons in Adolescence podcast we feature conversations with researchers, practitioners, program developers and advocates. Drawing content from our past two seasons of episodes, we are offering a series of Mini Lessons on important topics relating to positive early adolescent development and effective middle level education. This mini lesson is about Out-of-School-Time. When looking at the...

In the Lessons in Adolescence podcast we feature conversations with researchers, practitioners, program developers and advocates. Drawing content from our past two seasons of episodes, we are offering a series of Mini Lessons on important topics relating to positive early adolescent development and effective middle level education. This mini lesson is about Racial Identity. Issues of institutional...

In the Lessons in Adolescence podcast we feature conversations with researchers, practitioners, program developers and advocates. Drawing content from our past two seasons of episodes, we are offering a series of Mini Lessons on important topics relating to positive early adolescent development and effective middle level education. This mini lesson is about Relationships. Relationships are undoubt...

In the Lessons in Adolescence podcast we feature conversations with researchers, practitioners, program developers and advocates. Drawing content from our past two seasons of episodes, we are offering a series of Mini Lessons on important topics relating to positive early adolescent development and effective middle level education. This Mini Lesson is about Summer Learning. Engaging youth in summe...

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 o...

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 no...

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 th...

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 s...

This episode features a conversation with Clark McKown, 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...

This episode features a conversation with Nat Kendall-Taylor, CEO of FrameWorks Institute. FrameWorks plays a unique role in the social sector. It uses the science behind how human beings learn about and understand the world around them in order to position or frame social causes in ways that compel people to take positive action or change. For a number of years, FrameWorks has been developing str...

This episode features a conversation with Daquan Oliver, Founder and CEO of WeThrive. Still in the first decade of his career, Daquan has earned prestigious professional fellowships in the social sector, with Ashoka and Echoing Green, and was featured as one of Forbes magazine’s thirty under thirty social entrepreneurs. WeThrive is the social enterprise Daquan founded in 2014. WeThrive offers midd...

This episode features a conversation with three authors of “Career Exploration in the Middle Grades: A Playbook for Educators,” which was developed in partnership between the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) and American Student Assistance (ASA). Stephanie Simpson is CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based AMLE, which represents tens of thousands of middle level educators across the country and o...

This episode features a series of comments and reflections and perspectives on the power of youth voice in helping young adolescents figure out what they care about and who they are, and the worth they see in themselves. First, we hear from Juleny Santa Cruz, Youth Council and Project Manager for Mikva Challenge, a Chicago-based organization that pioneered a type of experiential civics learning pr...

This episode features a conversation with Daren Graves, Associate Professor of Education and Social Work at Simmons University and Adjunct Lecturer of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Daren’s work centers on racial identity development among youth. His most recent work is Schooling for Critical Consciousness , which shows “how schools can help Black and Latinx youth resist the ne...

This episode features a conversation with Nate Pietrini and Yolanda Luna-Mroz from High Jump, a 30-year-old academic enrichment program offered to high achieving but under-resourced students in Chicago. Nate is a former teacher and principal, and now High Jump’s Executive Director. Yolanda is Chief Programs Officer, having also been an educator and school leader. Both are working to expand High Ju...

This episode features a conversation with Nadia Selby and Elizabeth Micci from Citizen Schools, a 25-year-old Boston-based nonprofit that offers middle-school aged youth experiential learning opportunities through a blend of out-of-school time programming, in-school professional development, and community partnership. Nadia is a veteran of the organization, having worked there for some 14 years, a...

This episode features a conversation with Christine Bae of Virginia Commonwealth University, Tracyee Hogans Foster of Richmond Public Schools, and Michael Stange of Chesterfield County Public Schools. The three are engaged in a 5-year-long initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to examine student engagement in science instruction in the middle grades through a method called "aut...

This episode features a conversation with Lynsey Wood Jeffries and Nyasha Rusununguko from Higher Achievement. Lynsey is CEO and Nyasha Director of Program Operations for the 45-year-old, Washington DC-based nonprofit serving middle-school age youth in the out-of-school-time space with a blend of academic enrichment, mentoring, and community-building, culminating in high school and ultimately coll...

We're excited to announce that production on the second season of the "Lessons in Adolescence" podcast is officially underway! Our first episode will be available for listening on your preferred podcast platform Wednesday October 27th. Season two will be packed with new guests, more lessons, and fresh showcases of research, practice and advocacy all focused on young adolescent learn...

This episode features a conversation with Kiana Dixon and Janikaa Jackson. Kiana and Janikaa are students at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York and are alumni of the Peer Group Connection (PGC) program offered by the Center for Supportive Schools (CSS). PGC positions upper class-men and women in high school to mentor incoming 9th graders transitioning into high school from middle school. They...

This episode features a conversation with three leaders of one of the largest and longest standing summer learning programs geared toward middle-school aged youth: Breakthrough Collaborative. Elissa Vanaver is Breakthrough’s CEO, who has led the organization through a new strategy that looks to codify its programming and solidify its large network of local affiliates across the country serving mor...

This episode features a conversation with Jennifer McCombs and Nancy Deutsch. Jennifer is a Senior Policy Researcher and Director of the Behavioral and Policy Sciences Department for the RAND Corporation, one of the world’s leading research institutes. She has been one of the main authors of several works building the knowledge base on summer learning, including a series funded by the Wallace Foun...