Professional Development

All educators share a common desire to support the social and emotional development of their students, yet the approaches taken by afterschool and in-school educators when pursuing this goal differ. The American Institute for Research (AIR) has created several briefs addressing how all educators could help students succeed in school, work and life. AIR's most recent brief on this topic suggests ways that afterschool and in-school educators could work together to support the social and emotional development of their student body.

The Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge is calling all students in grades five through eight for another year of groundbreaking science exploration. This exciting competition encourages students to apply critical thinking to solve a real-world problem and communicate their idea through a video submission. Discovery Education has worked with NAA to develop specific resources to help afterschool professionals implement the Young Scientist Challenge with youth in their programs.

In a Web search for the word STEM, Google returns more than 200 million results. STEM today is a hot topic and Web pages are being created at a frenetic pace, which can be quite overwhelming for users. Websites may have outdated information, be difficult to navigate and, occasionally, even provide bad information. Your time is precious, so to help you navigate the World Wide Web of STEM information I am providing my current pick of some of the best STEM resources available today.

I was born in Washington state and spent most of my life in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by Seattle Seahawks fans. In 2006, I moved to the East Coast and married into a family who bleeds the green of the Philadelphia Eagles. Since then, I've had two favorite bird teams. The past couple of years have been especially interesting, not only because these two bird teams have gone head to head several times, but because of the focus on the leadership provided by the coaches of each organization.