The rising generation is indeed thinking about their place in the future workforce. But the question is much bigger than the age old, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” How do young people decide where they’ll fit? Where do they imagine their opportunity lies? How do they assess their own skills and readiness?

Connected Learning Alliance shares insights on these and more questions in their newly released research on Influences on Occupational Identity in Adolescence.

Download the full report and learn about related programming here.

Grand Rapids Business Journal recently spotlighted Western Michigan Center for Arts and Technology (WMCAT) for their participation and contributions to create the Reclaiming Digital Futures report and toolkit. The article focuses on WMCAT’s specific depth of knowledge and resources. As a partner based in a less populated area than those in major cities, WMCAT shared tools and strategies that are working to fit the needs of the types of communities that too often get overlooked in conversations about digital learning programs for youth. Reclaiming Digital Futures offers a range of adoptable and adaptable resource, but makes plain that each partner program is successful because they tap into the needs and interest of their own communities, offering tailored support and engagement. Visit digitallearningpractices.org to see what WMCAT has to teach you and read the GRBJ article here.

The New York Times reported on findings released by social and data scientist in the journal Human-Computer Interaction. The researchers say that the phrase, or even the  concept of what we think of as “screen time”, is both so broadly used and narrowly interpreted that it misses the mark. They tell us that our digital experiences are not mere habit, but part of our everyday life experience. Is it time to rethink the common conversations about screens for kids and all of us?
Read the full article here.

In their latest Public Health story, NPR’s Susie Neilson shed some light on the conversation about lasting effects of youth sports participation. Pediatrician Molly Easterlin played sports most of her childhood and attributes many of her life successes to skills she learned through team sports. Catalyzed by challenges she saw with her patients, Easterlin conducted years of research to find whether she could support her hunch that children who played sports were healthier, not just physically, but emotionally. She recently published her finding in JAMA Pediatrics. The research was clear that participation in team sports as a young person can significantly reduce depression and anxiety in people with childhood trauma. Read Neilson’s full article here.

 

Harvard Law Today recently published an article featuring SCE Board Trustee Martha Minow. The story focuses on Minow’s last lecture to the 2019 graduating class of Harvard Law School. She is a former dean of the school and has been a professor there for nearly 40 years. Minow’s lecture urged the graduating class to understand the immense power of asking the right questions.

The art of asking questions is just that, however, like all art, there is craft that can be learned.  It’s a skill that will serve not only the next generation of legal minds, but all of us. Read the full article here.

This week’s EdSurge podcast delves into a 2018 Pew Research study on teens’ social and emotional experiences in the digital age. The report looks at whether teenage angst and the struggle through those awkward years is now more difficult than ever before. With teens now living out social lives in dual arenas of physical and digital worlds, their experiences have become much less private and invite a greater deal of scrutiny. At the same time, many more of their interpersonal experiences have become strictly digital, making those face-to-face encounters perhaps even more stressful. Are teens suffering from depression and anxiety more frequently because of all this? Educators seems to believe so, and as a result are taking more proactive and more frequent measures to care for “the whole child.” Take a look at the associated article and listen to the podcast here.

We are excited to be sharing out news about the Reclaiming Digital Futures toolkit with a larger audience of educators and education administrators through EdSurge. A feature article launched on their website on April 29, spotlighted the exceptional work of two of the eight program partners included in the Reclaiming Digital Futures toolkit and report, The Beam Center and Free Spirit Media. The article sheds light on how these organizations’ best practices and those of others, made available via the toolkit, can be adapted by any youth serving organization interested in infusing digital learning into their programming.

Read the full article here:

Forbes recently published an online article in their Healthcare section that breaks down “What ESPN Has to Do With Improving Health.”  Forbes contributor Bruce Y. Lee delves in ESPN’s 2018 Corporate Citizenship Report, to look at how the network sees itself as “Using the power of sports to create social change.” Lee focuses on ESPN’s interest in improving health, especially for youth, through participation in sports. Lee references the The Aspen Institute’s 2018 State of Play report to help give some data and context around just how critical the decline of youth participation in sports teams has become.

ESPN is just one of many organizations committed to enhancing opportunities for youth to improve both physical and social emotional health through sports play. One of the major problem areas they are working to address is the lack of training for volunteer youth sports coaches. We are proud to have partnered with The Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program and National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development and guidance from a strategic advisory group of researchers, program providers, coaches, and athletes including young people, to  commission the EASEL Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to produce a white paper, Coaching Social and Emotional Skills in Youth Sports, which explains the evidence behind effective strategies youth coaches can use to build these skills in their young athletes.

The next wave of that work, now available, is Calls for Coaches: Coaching Social and Emotional Skills in Youth Sports  a guide which translates the white paper into actionable calls for coaches to implement in after-school and community-based sports leagues.

Read the full Forbes article on ESPN’s work to support youth sports here.