Integration of STEM and Social-Emotional Development in Out-of-School Time Programs: A Virtual Conference

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Out-of-school time (OST) programs today are grounded in the positive youth development framework. According to the National Research Council, high-quality OST programs apply the youth development framework to STEM by providing young people with rich, engaging learning experiences that couple STEM concepts with hands-on activities. These experiences apply STEM to real-world social contexts, foster youth voice and choice, build relationships with adults and peers, and support learning, thinking, interest, and identity development. Presently, there is emphasis for OST programs to focus on the development of social and emotional skills that impact all learning and performance. Social emotional skills, like perseverance, relationship building, problem-solving, and self-awareness, are also referred to as 21st-century skills, workforce skills, life skills, essential skills, or soft skills. For this conference, the term social-emotional development (SED), incorporating the above terms and social-emotional learning, will be used. There is a potentially deep and effective connection between SED and STEM, prioritizing skills that are mutually important to both fields.In this virtual conference, The PEAR Institute will convene practitioners and researchers who can imagine the power of an integrated vision of STEM and SED. An important aim of this conference is to catalyze OST programs toward the intentional and explicit integration of STEM and SED in a high-quality manner. Activities by which this will happen include: (1) mapping the practice landscape of STEM-SED integration in OST to understand the interest in, capacity of, and demand for such programming; (2) documenting exemplars that illustrate explicit and intentional program integration; (3) exploring existing and potential researcher-practitioner partnerships to understand methods, data, and data systems used to capture efficacy and effectiveness of integrated STEM-SED programming; and, (4) drafting a research agenda that focuses on the quality of implementation and impact of integrated STEM-SED programming. The target audience for this conference consists of professionals. Participants will represent the diversity of STEM and SED communities, including representatives of national youth-serving organizations (e.g., executives, research directors, practitioners), State Afterschool Networks (e.g., network leads, summer and afterschool practitioners, contributors to educational policy), and STEM learning ecosystems (e.g., community leads, OST practitioners, business leaders, college and university researchers). The conference format includes one short introductory session to set the stage and two longer working sessions. With input from the panelists and working group leaders, the team will produce a narrated slideshow focused on the mapping of the connections between STEM and SED to innovate assessment and data systems for research and practice. In addition to the narrated slideshow, the project team will produce two conference briefs for the field (i.e., one to two-page descriptions of findings), and an informal webinar regarding the conference outcomes.This award is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.