Designing STEAM Learning Environments (2024)

STEAM by Design, Design and Technology Education International Journal 21.1

We live in a designed world. STEAM by Design presents a transdisciplinary approach to learning that challenges young minds with the task of making a better world. Learning today, like life, is dynamic, connected and engaging. STEAM (Science, Technology, Environment, Engineering, Art, and Math) teaching and learning integrates information in place-based projects accessing everyday technology of virtual field trips, digital interactives, apps, and contemporary art, science and design practices. STEAM by Design develops designing minds. Designing minds work across STEAM fields developing social, cultural, technological, environmental and economical responses to existing and future conditions. Design adds Art and the environment to the STEM equation to contribute site specific, culturally connected, contributions to creative economies. Documented case studies at the elementary, middle and high school level demonstrate the ease of delivering STEAM by Design opportunities and reveal the inherent creativity of students if encouraged. Design cultivates new knowledge, skills and values derived from becoming aware, developing understanding, and testing ideas through making. Designing place-based projects, K- 16 students acquire STEAM aptitude and better understand the use of STEM fields in solving contemporary problems. Access to everyday technologies cultivate ways to create, communicate and collaborate. STEAM by Design is supported by the ELearning Designopedia, NEXT.cc, aligned with newly released NEXT Generation Science Standards, North American Association for Environmental Education Standards and Art and Design Standards. STEAM by Design positions designing as world pedagogy that connects students as citizen activists in the communities in which they live and learn.

Designing Multi-Sensory Environments: A Powerful Tool for STEAM Learning

STEAM, 2020

Editorial: New and emerging technologies for STEAM teaching and learning

Frontiers in Education

Designing STEAM Education: Fostering Relationality through Design‐Led Disruption

International Journal of Art & Design Education, 2019

WeMake: A Framework for Letting Students Create Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Environments for Their Own STEAM Learning

Internet Science, 2017

A pedagogical model for STEAM education

Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, 2022

Certain researchers have expressed concerns about inequitable discipline representations in an integrated STEM/STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) unit that may limit what students gain in terms of depth of knowledge and understanding. To address this concern, the authors investigate the stages of integrated teaching units to explore the ways in which STEAM programs can provide students with a deeper learning experience in mathematics. This paper addresses the following question: what learning stages promote a deeper understanding and more meaningful learning experience of mathematics in the context of STEAM education? The authors carried out a qualitative case study and collected the following data: interviews, lesson observations, and analyses of curriculum documents. The authors took a sample of four different STEAM programs in Ontario, Canada: two at nonprofit organizations and two at in-school research sites. The findings contribute to a curriculum and instructional model which ensures that mathematics curriculum expectations are more explicit and targeted, in both the learning expectations and assessment criteria, and essential to the STEAM learning tasks. The findings have implications for planning and teaching STEAM programs. The authors derived four stages of the STEAM Maker unit or lesson from the analysis of data collected from the four sites, which the authors present in this paper. These four stages offer a model for a more robust integrated curriculum focusing on a deeper understanding of mathematics curriculum content.

The STEAM Team – engaging students through interactive and immersive learning

Futurum Careers, 2021

21st-century skills and their relationship to STEAM learning environments: a review Habilidades del siglo XXI y entornos de aprendizaje STEAM: una revisión

RED. Revista de Educación a Distancia, 2021

The development of the so-called 21st century skills is currently mentioned as one of the key objectives that education systems must achieve throughout the world, so that citizens as a whole can adapt adequately to the labor market and in general, to the future society. The purpose of this review is, given the explosive and growing interest in this topic, to identify the various definitions of the skills of the 21st century and then to recognize the relationships that can be found between these skills and STEAM learning environments, which recently have been proposed as suitable scenarios for developing them. The study was developed as a systematic literature review based on abstracting and in-depth reading of 153 scientific articles published in journals indexed in Scopus and Scielo. The results of the study suggest that, in order to guide the development of 21st century skills, it is convenient to consider when designing STEAM learning environments, issues such as the change in the assessment towards a more formative experience, the inclusion of collaborative and social environments, the use of researchbased learning strategies and gamification and games, among others.

Editorial: Special Issue “Promoting STEAM in Education”

LUMAT: International Journal on Math, Science and Technology Education

Lately STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art/aesthetics/architecture/all, mathematics) education has become a common notion. Yet, the theoretical and practical perspectives on STEAM, from its nature to classroom applications and its implementation in teacher education have unexamined potential. This special issue grew out of the International LUMAT Research Symposium “Promoting STEAM in Education” that took place at the University of Helsinki, Finland in June of 2020. With the challenges of organizing an online symposium in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, its online nature had significant advantages. The symposium drew international scholars inviting a multitude of prospective on STEAM education, while uncovering the challenges faced by educators. The issue aims at examining these challenges through a collection of papers. In this editorial, we introduce some key notions, discourses, and challenges of STEAM education, as a relatively novel concept and briefly discuss the ...

Learning together: A collaborative autoethnographic exploration of STEAM-inspired learning

Background: There is a growing interest in STEAM (STEM 1 the Arts) education as a means to enhance the creativity of STEM students and broaden interest in STEM fields. Many art educators, however, object to the instrumental justification for study in the arts as a way to improve student performance in other areas. Purpose: Drawing on the first two authors’ engagement in an interdisciplinary design studio, this study develops an expanded view of how STEAM might enrich engineering education in ways that more closely align with the pedagogical commitments of the arts. Design/Method: This article is written as a collaborative autoethnography between the first two authors, educators in environmental engineering and art education, respectively. The study is grounded in the educational philosophy of arts advocate Maxine Greene, who views learning as an active, collaborative search for meaning, “wide-awakeness,” and social change. Results: Our dialogue reveals the potential for STEAM to provide students and educators with opportunities to explore personally relevant connections between materials, design, society, and the natural environment and to critically engage with implicit and explicit facets of disciplinary identity. Conclusions: This view of STEAM simultaneously complements and challenges current conceptions of this emerging educational movement that, almost without exception, are underpinned by calls for competitive economic growth and technological development. We hope future research will build on our perspectives to continue a conversation about STEAM that considers the diverse contributions of, and mutual benefits to, all parties involved.