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Mistakes provide opportunities for students to learn and for educators to reflect on instructional practices and learning goals. This blog post from Achieve the Core, a website that supports the implementation of Common Core State Standards, describes how one educator revised his approach to understanding student mistakes. New strategies include using a student’s mistake to ask what learning goals a teacher should pursue and then customizing learning to support these goals.

You for Youth (Y4Y), the U.S. Department of Education web portal for 21st CCLC practitioners, has an updated literacy course. Offerings include an introduction to afterschool literacy, implementation strategies, staff coaching, a list of ready-to-use tools, and a “learn more library” with links to external resources.

The Statistics in Schools program provides high-quality and free curriculum materials for educators using Census Bureau data. New activities, designed specifically for the 2019–2020 school year, spotlight the 2020 Census and the importance of making sure everyone is counted, especially children. Activities are available for pre-K through 12th grade, English language learners, and adult English as a second language students.

Afterschool is the ideal environment to bring civics concepts like the branches of the U.S. government, the Electoral College, and trade tariffs to life. This blog post from Y4Y outlines some of the civics resources the project has available on the Y4Y site. Resources include professional development on civic learning and engagement, a citizen science course, and a service-learning toolbox.

The Science of Learning and Development (SoLD) Alliance explores and strengthens systems and settings that bolster whole-child efforts through research, policy, and practice. A new briefing paper from the American Institutes for Research explores SoLD in afterschool and in other systems and settings where young people learn, live, and play. The brief includes select findings from the SoLD Alliance’s efforts; key takeaways on relational settings, cultural competence, and trauma and adversity; suggestions for supporting high-quality afterschool systems and settings; and an outline of the elements of developmentally rich contexts that foster learning and healthy development.

The Right Question Institute (RQI) is a nonprofit educational organization that provides strategies to build people’s skills to ask better questions, participate in decisions that affect them, advocate for themselves, and partner with service providers. Resources for educators include lesson planning guides, instructional videos, webinars and podcasts, and activities for different subject areas and grade bands. Free registration is required.

The 1619 Project, inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine, challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans forcibly arrived in Virginia as our nation’s foundational date. To support educators in using this resource, the Pulitzer Center has created reading guides, activities, and other resources that will assist with the implementation of The 1619 Project in schools and other places of learning.

A recent study found that arts integration in fifth-grade science classrooms led to students’ long-term retention of science concepts. The approach was at least as successful as conventional science teaching. It was particularly helpful for students with the lowest reading scores. The study findings are published in Trends in Neuroscience and Education, and public media station KQED has a story on how art can help center a student’s learning experience. For strategies on integrating the arts into your STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) program, check out this archived webinar from Click2Science.

Whether we like it or not, learning often entails mistakes. This article from YouCubed, an organization dedicated to helping all students succeed in math through growth mindsets and innovative teaching, explains how mistakes cause our brains to spark and grow. The article also describes how “mistakes friendly” classrooms can encourage students to increase their effort and perseverance, which also enhances learning.

The Smithsonian Science Education Center has several interactive online games that help students reinforce science concepts. The games are tagged by grade level and aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. They also provide opportunities for students to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are important to science education.