Keynote Speaker - 2023 College Research Conference
Opportunity Landscaping: Infrastructuring Healthy Learning Communities to Power Positive STEM Futures
presented by Dr. Nichole D. Pinkard
Research examining what it means to know and teach in out-of-school time (OST) community-based spaces has shown 1) the inadequacies of focusing on schools as the sole lever of change in our pursuit of equitable, healthy learning environments for youth; 2) the availability and affordances of communal learning resources and tools that derive from youths’ backgrounds and communities; and 3) how youth learning across places and spaces ties directly to their involvement in social networks and events critical to development and identity shaping (Gordon, 1999; Majors, 2023; Pinkard, 2019). Technological advances and the rise of interconnected devices have ushered in new ways of reimagining education as a ‘networked ecosystem, supporting learners and information to move freely across connected nodes including and beyond school” (Pinkard, 2019). This talk outlines an approach to documenting a community’s opportunity landscape of civic institutions, community-based organizations, places, and policies that collectively shape the opportunities available to youth, families, and educators. This talk will argue that learning how to tune a community’s opportunity landscape is crucial to account for youth progress along STEM pathways fully.
Nichole Pinkard is the Alice Hamilton Professor of Learning Sciences in the School of Education and Social Policy, and the Faculty Director of the Office of Community Education Partnerships at Northwestern University. She is also the founder of Digital Youth Network and L3, a social learning platform that connects youth’s learning opportunities across the school, home, community, and beyond.