STEM and SEL: The overlooked connection worth leveraging

When we discuss STEM education, conversations typically revolve around academic rigor, technical skills, and career preparation. Similarly, when social-emotional learning (SEL) comes up, we often frame it in terms of empathy, self-awareness, and relationship building. This separation creates a false dichotomy that misses a powerful truth: properly designed STEM learning experiences naturally develop crucial social-emotional competencies.

As school leaders navigate increasing pressure to address both academic excellence and student well-being, it's time to recognize that these goals aren't competing priorities—they're complementary ones. The hands-on, collaborative, and problem-solving nature of quality STEM education provides a natural foundation for developing the very SEL skills students need to thrive.

The research connection: Executive function and beyond

In her groundbreaking book "Hands On, Minds On: How Executive Function, Motor, and Spatial Skills Foster School Readiness," researcher Claire Cameron examines how early learning experiences directly impact the development of executive function skills—the cognitive processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. What's particularly striking about Cameron's work is how she demonstrates that the foundation for future learning is established through interconnected skills that span both cognitive and social-emotional domains.

Cameron's research shows that executive function is composed of three key components: inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. These elements don't operate in isolation—they develop alongside motor skills and spatial reasoning through hands-on experiences. This integrated perspective helps explain why students engaged in well-designed STEM activities often show improvements not just in content knowledge, but in their ability to:

• Persist through challenges (self-management)
• Collaborate effectively with peers (relationship skills)
• Communicate complex ideas (social awareness)
• Make responsible decisions when faced with constraints (responsible decision-making)
• Recognize their own strengths and growth areas (self-awareness)

These five areas align perfectly with CASEL's widely-adopted SEL framework, yet they emerge naturally through the STEM learning process when carefully facilitated.

What this means for school leaders

As a school administrator, recognizing this connection gives you a powerful lens through which to view and evaluate STEM programming. Instead of treating STEM and SEL as separate initiatives competing for limited time and resources, you can identify opportunities where they mutually reinforce each other.

Here are practical steps to leverage this overlooked connection:

1. Reframe How You Evaluate STEM Activities

When observing STEM classrooms or reviewing curriculum, look beyond content mastery to identify elements that support SEL development:

• Productive struggle: Does the activity require students to persist through challenges and learn from failures? (Cameron's research shows this directly builds self-regulation and executive function.)
• Authentic collaboration: Are students genuinely interdependent in their work, requiring them to communicate, negotiate, and synthesize ideas?
• Student agency: Do students have meaningful choices within constraints, building decision-making skills?
• Reflection protocols: Are students regularly prompted to think about not just what they learned, but how they approached problems and worked with others?

A STEM lesson that incorporates these elements is simultaneously developing SEL competencies, even if they aren't explicitly labeled as such.

2. Support Teachers in Making Connections Explicit

While STEM naturally supports SEL development, the impact is magnified when these connections are made explicit for students. Provide teachers with professional learning that helps them:

• Use language that highlights SEL skills during STEM activities ("I notice how you persisted even when your first design didn't work")
• Create reflection protocols that prompt students to identify both technical and SEL growth
• Design rubrics that assess collaboration and communication alongside content knowledge

This explicit connection helps students transfer these skills to other contexts outside the STEM classroom.

3. Create Time for Structured Collaboration

Cameron's work emphasizes that executive function and social skills develop through structured interaction with peers and the environment. As a school leader, you can support this by:

• Ensuring master schedules provide adequate time for extended STEM investigations
• Protecting time for students to debrief and reflect on their collaborative processes
• Creating physical spaces conducive to hands-on, collaborative work

These structural supports signal that you value both the technical and social-emotional aspects of learning.

4. Align Professional Development Across STEM and SEL Initiatives

Rather than treating STEM and SEL professional development as separate tracks, look for opportunities to integrate them:

• Have STEM and counseling staff co-lead professional learning
• Review STEM curricula through an SEL lens
• Use STEM activities as vehicles for teaching SEL strategies in staff development

This integrated approach models for teachers how these domains complement rather than compete with each other.

Measuring Impact Beyond Test Scores

As school leaders know well, what gets measured gets attention. To truly leverage the STEM-SEL connection, consider expanding how you measure success:

• Survey students about their persistence and attitudes toward challenge
• Collect qualitative data on how students approach collaboration
• Track behavioral indicators like classroom engagement and attendance in STEM classes
• Look for transfer of skills to other contexts

This broader view of impact helps make the case for continued investment in integrated STEM-SEL approaches.

The Path Forward

The skills students need for future success don't fit neatly into academic and social-emotional categories. By recognizing how quality STEM education naturally develops executive function, collaboration, and self-management, school leaders can create more coherent and effective learning experiences.

As Claire Cameron's research shows, hands-on learning builds the foundation for all cognitive skills in young learners. When we design STEM experiences that engage students' minds and hands in collaborative problem-solving, we're not just preparing them for technical careers—we're helping them develop the social-emotional competencies they'll need to thrive in any path they choose.

The next time you walk into a STEM classroom and see students deeply engaged in solving a challenging problem together, remember you're witnessing more than academic learning—you're seeing social-emotional growth in action. And as a school leader, that's a powerful connection worth leveraging.

Jason McKenna is V.P. of Global Educational Strategy for VEX Robotics and author of “What STEM Can Do for Your Classroom: Improving Student Problem Solving, Collaboration, and Engagement, Grade K-6.” His work specializes in curriculum development, global educational strategy, and engaging with educators and policymakers worldwide. For more of his insights, subscribe to his newsletter.