Learning From Place

This chapter investigates how teacher candidates' experiences in STEAM field studies with community partners can inform work in teacher education within an integrated practicum based on curriculum of place. The overall goal of the inquiry is to better understand and articulate the particular ways in which people value place-based knowledge. Through relationships with Indigenous communities, the team of educators has a deeply held conviction that sustained deliberations on the connections between Indigenous knowledge systems and place-based thinking can provide significant opportunities for reframing education. Learning from place emphasizes a relationship with the land, something deeply respected in Indigenous communities and something absent from much of place-based education. The research explores this tension as we come to a deeper and shared understanding of co-responsibility within Treaty 7 relationships. The project seeks to close this gap by considering varying perspectives of place as it informs STEAM teacher education pedagogy.

Becoming STEAM

This chapter shares a brief history of the STEM to STEAM movement, shares two case descriptions drawn from the perspectives of leaders in two school districts in which schools adopted a STEAM focus, describes challenges and opportunities associated with implementation of a STEAM initiative, and proposes five features to consider when implementing models to becoming a STEAM-focused school or school district. The five features drawn from analysis of the two cases are intentional efforts by school districts to gain buy-in; adequate time for teacher learning and planning through authentic and relevant professional development; community connections, real-world and problem-based or project-based; mutual decision-making and support between teachers and administrators; and budget planning and allocation.

Black Girls STEAMing Through Dance

Black Girls STEAMing through Dance (BGSD) leverages a transdisciplinary partnership among four Black women professors in urban education, dance, industrial/product design, and computing to engage Black girls in a STEAM-infused program to inspire STEAM literacies, STEAM identities, and positive self-concept. BGSD is in its third year of existence and operates across several contexts, including an after-school program for 7- to 12-year-old Black girls, a co-curricular mini course program for 5th and 6th grade girls, and a professional development course for teachers. This chapter highlights how the program was developed and how the use of dance to integrate STEAM is a promising platform to encourage engaged STEAM participation amongst underrepresented Black girls.

Designing STEAM Learning Environments

This chapter highlights some of the technological changes in society that have led to an increased need to consider instructional and design challenges in implementing STEAM education. Specifically, the chapter discusses how challenges related to designing learning environments in STEAM education can be mediated through application of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. Consideration is given towards designing for flexible and useable STEAM learning spaces by thinking about and planning for learner variability as a key component towards designing inclusive, humanistic educational experiences. In addition, STEAM learning spaces are discussed in terms of catalyzing learner creativity, providing for individualizing instruction, and empowering 21st century learners to develop collaborative, problem-solving tools, and soft skills.

Using Arts Education in STEM With the Science and Engineering Practice of Developing and Using Models

Since 2013 more than three-quarters of the United States has adopted science education standards based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Science education is often integrated with multiple disciplines including technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and in more recent movements integrated with the arts (STEAM). This chapter examined preservice teachers' preconceptions about the practice of developing and using models in science education and practical integration of the arts through this central practice. The results of the study indicated preservice elementary preconception survey scores were higher when describing the practice as a social endeavor than any other aspect of the practice. Using social endeavors as a lever in elementary teacher education can help preservice teachers utilize this critical practice in more expansive ways (investigatory, sensemaking, critiquing). Examining the way the arts manifest in the practice of developing and using models within the NGSS serves as a first step to finding meaningful ways for integration.

The Transdisciplinary Nature of STEAM Education

The purpose of this chapter is to describe and explain multiple methods of integrating STEAM into the curriculum for pre-service teachers. The chapter includes both stand-alone modular methods of integration and continuous integration methods that attempt to merge STEAM concepts throughout the curriculum. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed, along with the challenges teachers faces as they attempt to integrate STEAM. Recommendations are made along with suggestions for the future direction of STEAM integration as the field becomes more transdisciplinary.

Making Success

Increasingly, the maker movement has been pointed to as a means of bringing more innovation and creativity into education. As an educational program, making has pressed educators to question entrenched beliefs and assumptions about the structure of activities, lessons, and classes, pushing them to embrace a more student and experience driven learning environment. “Making Success” was a two-year research project to investigate and describe the integration of making into one school district's middle and high school. The starting point of the research was to learn and describe the critical characteristics and capacities that allowed TRSD to integrate making so deeply into its secondary schools. A key lesson of the project was that many interconnected ideas and people played important roles in the initiative to bring about success.

Science Cartoons (SciToons)

The 21st century offers many technological advancements resulting from cutting-edge research being conducted by scientists and engineers at higher education institutions, industries, and national labs. As exciting scientific research is being conducted, the need to address the challenges of inspiring and engaging new learners in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields continues to grow. The authors present the Science Cartoons (SciToons) program as a model for making science more accessible through the integration of the arts with STEM (STEAM). The SciToons model is based on a Multimedia Learning Theoretical Framework (MLTF), which facilitates co-creation of knowledge and takes into account the contributions of STEM and non-STEM experts. The SciToons model combines this knowledge and expertise with art, animation, high-quality multimedia, and storytelling in the development of science videos that are engaging to a broad audience.

Artistic Biotechnology

Biotechnology, the use of organisms or parts of organisms as tools to support and innovate human wants or needs, plays an extensive role in our daily lives. However, biotechnology is minimally addressed in K-12 educational environments. An issue with the lack of biotechnology in curricula is that we, as end-users, are becoming increasingly defined and dependent on biotechnological innovations. We should be able to think critically and form educated decisions about our medical care, the food we eat, and the biotechnological products we do or do not use. The end-user's acceptance of biotechnological solutions to solve a human want or need also may hinge on the ability of the problem-solver to be artistically creative. This chapter introduces artistic biotechnology and provides three exemplars of K-12 classroom lessons anchored in the Design Thinking Model (DTM) with purposeful art integration. The DTM guides instructors and students through solving ill-defined problems for end-users with artistic biotechnological solutions.

Tools to Mediate Learning and Self-Assessment in a STEAM Unit of Work

In some high school learning environments, hundreds of students engage in collaborative, term-long, project-based learning STEM or STEAM units of work. In this chapter, the authors report on an ongoing design-based research project in which researchers and teachers collaborate to design, teach, and assess STEAM units of work. They draw on research on project-based learning and interdisciplinary collaboration to inform the analysis drawing on Jonassen's typology of problem solving. The purpose of this chapter is to present two tools that functioned as boundary objects mediating learning and self-assessment: (1) a ‘STEAM slider' used by students in groups to reach consensus on the use of the tools, knowledge, and processes employed in their project and (2) a criteria sheet developed to mediate students' and teachers' engagement in self- and teacher-assessment. The authors use these results to make recommendations for the next iteration of the project.