Dr. Stephanie M. Jones
Stephanie M. Jones is the Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Child Development and Education and Director of the EASEL Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research, anchored in prevention science, focuses on the effects of poverty and exposure to violence on social, emotional, and behavioral development from early childhood through early adolescence. Over the past fifteen years, her work has centered on evaluation research addressing the impact of preschool- and elementary-level social-emotional learning interventions on behavioral and academic outcomes and classroom practices, as well as new curriculum development, implementation, and testing. Jones is also co-Director (with Nonie Lesaux) of the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative and Co-PI of the Early Learning Study at Harvard (ELS@H). She serves on numerous national advisory boards and expert consultant groups related to social-emotional development, early childhood education, and child and family anti-poverty policies, including recently as a member of the Council of Distinguished Scientists for the Aspen National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. Her research is published in academic and educational journals as well as in trade publications, and she regularly presents her work to national academic and practitioner audiences. Jones holds a BA from Barnard College and a PhD from Yale University.
Two websites:
The Science and Practice of Social and Emotional Learning in Early Childhood
Workshop 1:
In this workshop, Jones will review the science of social and emotional learning. She will focus on the essential skills of the early childhood period, their developmental progression, and the evidence documenting links between them and future outcomes. Jones will describe the critical role that social-emotional skills and related interventions play in children’s mental health, behavioral, and academic success and new translational work designed to build connections between the major conceptual and practice-focused frameworks for the field.
Workshop 2:
In this workshop, Jones will review the core elements of successful practice in the social and emotional domain focusing on strategies and practices for adults, young children, and classrooms. Jones will distill and describes research on the nature, content, and efficacy of social and emotional learning strategies and programs and will provide specific strategies to promote young children’s self-regulation and executive function, social skills, and emotional competencies, and to address the trauma and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Across the two workshops participants will expand their understanding of children’s social and emotional development, as well as get acquainted with the terms, definitions, and approaches in this field. In addition, participants will be able to summarize a number of tensions in this area and discuss the opportunities they present for future research and practice.
