Moving Toward Transdisciplinary Instruction: A Longitudinal Examination of STEAM Teaching Practices

Abstract

For years, the STEAM movement has been touted by businesses, universities, and even governments as a way to move beyond focusing on single disciplines such as science but instead toward multiple modes of problem-solving and viewpoints (Connor AM, Karmokar S, Whittington C. International Journal of Engineering Pedagog 5(2):37–47, 2015). However, STEAM education in the K-12 setting is still relatively new, which has led to a limited conceptual understanding of how to conceptualize, design, or enact STEAM education (Kim & Park, The effect of STEAM education on elementary school student’s creativity improvement. In Kim T, Stoica A, Fang W, Vasilakos T, Villalba J, Arnett K,… Kang B (eds), Computer applications for security, control and system engineering. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, pp 115–121. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35264-5_16, 2012). This limited understanding often leads teachers to use existing STEM models and attempt to “add-on” experiences with the arts or humanities (Henriksen D, DeSchryver M, Mishra P, Deep-Play Research Group, TechTrends 59:5, 2015). In response, the authors have spent the last 3 years conducting a longitudinal study exploring how STEAM teaching practices are enacted in a variety of settings in the southeast of the United States in order to understand teachers’ implementation strategies (Herro D, Quigley C, Prof Dev Educ, 1–23, 2016a, On the Horizon 24:190–204, 2016b; Quigley C, Herro D, J Sci Educ Technol 25:410–426, 2016; Quigley, Herro, & Jamil. 2017). Based on a qualitative study examining classroom observations, teachers’ reflective journals during STEAM implementation, and focus-group teacher interviews, this chapter will highlight vignettes of these classrooms including elementary and secondary school examples as well as discipline-focused STEAM examples. The goal of this chapter is to inform teacher educators and provide support to teachers who are attempting to implement this transdisciplinary approach to learning.