Search for: All records

Uniting social, emotional, and academic development is necessary to ensure all young people develop the thinking and feeling skills needed to succeed in a STEM-driven future. Scientific discoveries and technological innovations are transforming society, and while they may improve our quality of life, they also introduce social and ethical quandaries that young people must be equipped to navigate. For example, there are both opportunities and risks to using artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and renewable/alternative energy sources. Although the public discourse supports bringing STEM and social-emotional development (SED) together, and demands evaluation and measurement of outcomes, integrated STEM+SED in educational research, practice, and policy is largely abstract and aspirational. Given that jobs of the future will be STEM-focused and will require SED/21st-century skills—such as working in diverse teams, solving complex problems, and persevering through failures—it will be important to implement and measure STEM+SED together at the teaching and learning levels. To move the field toward meaningful integration of STEM+SED practices and skills, we convened a National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded virtual conference: Mapping Connections Between STEM and Social-Emotional Development (SED) in Out-of-School Time (OST) Programs. This conference—attended by 49 stakeholders from STEM and SED research, policy, and practice—focused on identifying the measurable STEM+SED qualities and skills important for youth success and prioritized by both fields. From this conference emerged consensus for a common frame to explore STEM+SED integration—focusing on Active Engagement, Agency, Belonging, and Reflection—which we and our partners are using to generate knowledge, resources, and tools to advance the integration of STEM+SED in formal and informal learning environments. The preliminary findings and recommendations from this conference provide a starting point for areas to prioritize, explore, and set the stage for more rigorous, relevant, andhigh-quality research on integrated STEM+SED. We begin by telling the story of our conference, including our initial focus on OST, our choice of the term “SED,” and our approach. We then show how discoveries during and after the conference push this essential STEM+SED agenda forward in research and practice. We conclude with recommendations by and for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to promote synergy between the fields of STEM and SED across all learning environments.