 The Collaborative newsletters have been featuring conversations among its Research Thought Leaders, who are nationally and internationally recognized experts in their respective fields of arts, sciences, creativity, and neuroscience. These conversations provide robust insights into the importance of creative (a novel idea) and innovative (applying the novel idea to solve a problem) thinking. This article builds on those insights to offer a look at how creative and innovative thinking could be used in K-12 classrooms. In the following articles, we will look at how curriculum could change to provide these important skills, what administrators need to know about them, and why we should care about STEAM, which fosters these skills. We invited the Collaborative’s Innovation Fellows to offer their perspectives. The Fellows are top K-12 arts, STEM, and classroom teachers and administrators from across the U.S. who help lead the Collaborative’s K-12 STEAM efforts. Charles Hayes, formerly a 5th grade science teacher, is advisor for middle school science in Memphis-Shelby County schools. Anne Ludes, a graduate of the Collaborative’s STEAM Teacher/Administrator Professional Development program, is Director of the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Ashley Lupfer is K-8 Visual Arts Educator at Brooke Charter Schools in Boston, MA. Kimberly Olson is Visual Arts Educator at Centre School in Hampton, New Hampshire. Julie Olson, formerly a high school science teacher, is now Natural Science Instructor at Southeast Technical College in Sioux Falls, SD. Kathleen Sweet, former elementary school Art Educator, is now Student Improvement Coordinator and Computer Science Teacher (grades 2-5) for Starmont Community School District, IA. Below are questions and valuable insights from these educators and administrators. 1. How could/do you use creative thinking in STEAM in your classroom, school, or work environment? Charles Hayes One of my responsibilities as the middle school science advisor in my district is to develop curriculum that allows instructors to encourage creativity and innovation in the pupils. As a result, I rely on guidance presented in A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (2012), which suggests that the best to way to teach science is to construct lessons around science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. “The science and engineering practices mentioned in this work and the Collaborative’s Effective Practices Higher-Level Thinking Skills have a lot of commonalities.” My intentionality in lesson planning for our teachers, based on lessons that best support and highlight these skills, ensures that they have the resources, plans, and support they need to engage our children in meaningful hands-on experimental and project-based activities that shift away from rote memory assignments and toward activities that allow them to be creative, develop soft skills, and improve their scientific literacy. A lot of our lessons require students to create new ways of looking at existing phenomena. We challenge them to come up with different approaches to explaining the phenomena and new ways to test ideas and also to generate new ideas and thought-provoking questions based on their findings. We use statements such as “What if…, I wonder what would happen if…, Is there a different way…”. Anne Ludes Our teachers constantly redesign their units to make sure the content is fresh and relevant to our students. This means analyzing data and incorporating feedback so the students get as much out of their work as possible. Nearly everything we do is project- or inquiry-based. “This allows our teachers to start their lesson planning with "What if I do this instead?" as the way they prepare for an upcoming unit.” Everyone collaborates with each other, so teachers bounce ideas off everyone else—me as the director, the school counselor, other teachers, and the students - to work out the details. And this philosophy is at the heart of our school culture: Think creatively, reinvent yourself, take risks, and stretch yourself to grow as much as you can! Our Humanities teacher delivers a lesson on Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (a brilliant play that I highly recommend if you haven't read it already!) and integrates the concepts of entropy, fractals, and chaos theory into her instruction (co-taught by a me, a former math teacher and now director of the program). The students' reflections and final projects are all unique and creative representations of their understanding of these concepts. Some projects take the form of a poem, a musical composition, a computer program, or even a board game. Julie Olson In the sciences, there are so many abstract ideas (e.g. the atom) that students need to be able to visualize in their heads. Space, color, and arrangement all help to "arrange" the parts of these not really seen entities. I give students a variety of materials when doing projects - the more the better. Sometimes/oftentimes they are initially overloaded, but then categorize, visualize, and start to put some of these things together in their heads before actually testing and building. “My Physics students do the Art and Light project with the addition of describing the physics of their projects (e.g. reflection, wavelength, color) as well as the biology of vision. They have to make their projects in this unit aesthetically pleasing and engaging.” They also create marble runs at the end of the semester with requirements taken from the various units (e.g. waves, potential and kinetic energy). Environmental Science discusses the aesthetics of good conservation. The students have many open-ended experiments that require them to visualize, assemble, and communicate their findings in graphs, charts, and diagrams. Anatomy and Physiology classes are tasked with creating an assist device for someone that cannot grasp a pen, pencil, marker, or paintbrush so they can use it in art class. The device must be comfortable, look good, and appeal to a young pre-teen. Kimberly Olson Creative thinking is the very basis of my entire elementary curriculum. “Students respond to open-ended lesson problems to apply the design thinking process which so closely mirrors the science inquiry process.” Students apply lesson objectives as “I Can” statements derived from the standards to formulate their own individual responses. Some responses may lead to collaboration, innovation, and extended learning. Social emotional learning is supported throughout and contributes to perseverance, autonomy, and grit. Student artists are observers, observing and asking questions. They also visually analyze, define, and clarify a problem, shift between perspectives based on discipline connections, and make connections to their own interests in order to generate ideas to develop solutions. Along the way they communicate in a variety of ways, collaborate, persist, and assist as necessary to an end based on a rich and inspired journey. Kathleen Sweet You can use creative thinking in every subject, classroom, or work environment. “This type of thinking promotes engagement and keeps things moving forward, not becoming stagnant.” An example: Co-teaching with the art, science, and language arts teachers. Using bacteria to paint original art and using writing to communicate and explain your thoughts and ideas. You would be learning about science, art, and writing and developing all those skills simultaneously. 2. How could/do you use innovative thinking in STEAM in your classroom, school, or work environment? Charles Hayes “Our district recognizes the value of Project-Based Learning (PBL) in developing our kids’ inventive abilities.” We are planning several science competitions in which students will consider local, regional, and national issues and research related to these issues. Students will develop innovative and novel approaches to addressing these issues based on information and thinking skills developed in our classrooms. Ashley Lupfer “Providing students time in the classroom to create and innovate is essential.” Time to understand a problem, to experiment with new tools and materials, and to work with their peers to develop original ideas. When students are learning within a culture of creativity, they have time to become more invested in the learning, are more comfortable expressing their ideas, and are more open to taking risks. In my classroom, activities often provide a balance of choice and structure. Anne Ludes “Our program is all about innovative thinking!” For example, our students' first project in their computer science class is to use HTML and CSS to develop their own websites from scratch! They have to think about color (RGB), formatting, design, images, organization and layout, as well as content. And their final products are BEAUTIFUL and informative. But it doesn't stop there! In their STEM class, our students put their engineering design skills to good work when they develop and build an assistive device to help a client in need. The students have to work collaboratively to address a person's disability while thinking about utility, cost of materials, and the person's individual needs. Students use so many of their higher-level thinking skills, including defining a problem, generating and evaluating ideas, synthesizing, developing a solution, and persisting. And all the while they also are becoming more aware of the lives of others. Julie Olson More open-ended experiments and engineering projects. Student choice is necessary. Kimberly Olson Students approach all problem-solving aspects of lessons secure in the knowledge that “there are no mistakes in Art.” They work to imagine and develop their own personal responses to lesson problems and often, serendipitously, their work transcends creativity to elements of innovation. This occurs through collaborative work at the elementary level as well. Creating a safe, student-reflective curriculum, classroom community, and learning environment establishes the climate students need to feel able to take risks, revise, share, and elaborate or extend ideas and learning. “Basing learning on student interest and identity establishes the right conditions for creativity to move closer toward innovative thinking and doing.” Kathleen Sweet “I believe that giving open-ended directions or parameters with enough direction to start with an idea but end up with a new one helps to promote innovative thinking.” An example: To pair up two or more people and give them a piece of paper, 12 inches of tape, and scissors. Then ask them to make something using these materials. The outcomes would be infinite, even though every group received the same materials and directions. Thanks to our esteemed Innovation Fellows for sharing their insights and especially for their creative and innovative efforts that inspire us all.
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what is steam to you? In education, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) is a rapidly growing strategy in many learning settings. In can be found in K-12 classrooms, in museums and other out-of-school-time venues, in higher education, and even in educational toy product development. In practice, STEAM takes many different forms. It accomplishes different goals, depending on its usage. The Innovation Collaborative’s STEAM goals are to provide a strong research base for STEAM effective practices in K-12 and out-of-school-time experiences, lessons, and strategies. The Collaborative also is focused on effective collaboration across disciplines and learning settings. In this role, the Collaborative is interested in how others perceive STEAM.
Join us in this quest to understand STEAM more deeply by sharing YOUR ideas of what STEAM is. Answer any or all of the above questions. You can respond briefly or in depth, but please limit your response to 300 words or less. To get a start on your answers to the above questions, review the Collaborative’s position on STEAM at http://www.innovationcollaborative.org/steam-position.html Click on this link or use the QR code to respond.  perceptions of steam As we look at perceptions of STEAM in this newsletter issue, it is helpful to look at some of the work that already has been done to understand the many lenses through which STEAM is perceived. Important work in this area has been done by the Arts Education Partnership (AEP). A national network of organizations that helps advance arts education, AEP focuses on research, policy, and practice. Below are some STEAM policy briefs that AEP has produced. Preparing Students for Learning, Work and Life. P-5 STEAM Education and Equity. Research and Policy Implications of STEAM Education for Young Students. Who’s Who in STEAM Education and State Governance.
 By David Pyle, Collaborative Advisory Council member* "I'm very concerned that the visual thinking mind - the art mind — is being screened out of school,” said Dr. Temple Grandin during a rapid-fire widely broadcast interview hosted as a partnership between the Colorado State University Arts Management program and the International Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA). On February 23, I had the pleasure and privilege of hosting this special Zoom-based conversation with Dr. Grandin as she discussed the principles in her new book, Visual Thinking; The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions. In her book — and during the Zoom-based program - she repeatedly emphasized the critical importance of learning in the arts — not just for their standalone value — but also for their impact in cultivating skills for which our larger communities and economy have a direct and dramatic need. "We're seeing a gigantic shortage in the skilled trades — and those are where we need the art mind," she said. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and the author of New York Times bestsellers Animals in Translation, Animals Make us Human, The Autistic Brain and Thinking in Pictures, which became an HBO movie starring Claire Danes. "When I was a child, art was my absolutely favorite class. Art and mechanics go together," noted Dr. Grandin. "(But now) we've got too many kids who have never done any art. Who have never used any tool. We are losing skills! We've lost the clever fixers!" She also cites sewing as a powerful skill-building tool. "I sewed costumes for the school play. I was not interested in being IN the school play. I wanted to make costumes FOR the school play." In her book, Visual Thinking, Dr. Grandin adds, "We screen out designers, inventors, and artists. We need future generations who can build and repair infrastructure, overhaul energy and agriculture, create tools to combat climate change and pandemics, develop robotics and AI. We need people with the imagination to invent our next-generation solutions." (Visual Thinking, p. 55) As further evidence of the need for arts experiences, she noted that "Nobel prize winners are 50% more likely to have an arts and craft hobby compared to other scientists." (Robert Root Bernstein et.al. 2008) As the session approached its close, I asked her, "You've made such a strong and compelling case for hands-on arts education, how can we move past preaching to the choir? How can we advocate for arts education to the larger community?" She quickly answered, "I think we have to do it one school district at a time. And then we need to write about it." *David Pyle is an artist and Instructor in the Colorado State University Arts Management program in addition to being Creative Director of Pyle Creative Studio. He is known for his 35-year career in the art products business. There he most recently was Senior Vice President/Group Publisher for F+W Media, managing The Artist’s Magazine, American Artist, Watercolor Artist, Interweave Knits, Love of Quilting, and more. He is author of What Every Artist Needs to Know About Paints and Colors.  Free Summer Virtual STEAM Professional Development for Public School K-12 Teachers |
 Hubert Dyasi, PhD |  Rob Horowitz, EdD |
The Collaborative’s Research Thought Leaders help provide the strong research foundation upon which the Collaborative’s work rests. Each Thought Leader is nationally and internationally recognized in their own field and brings an extensive depth of experience and expertise. They also are adept at working across disciplines.
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders and also examined ways to apply their important ideas in STEAM learning. This new series showcases conversations between various Thought Leaders around an important and relevant topic. The spring and fall, 2022 newsletters featured a conversation about creativity and innovation between Neuroscience Thought Leader Sandi Chapman, PhD, and Creativity Thought Leader Bonnie Cramond, PhD. Sandi Chapman is Founder and Chief Director of the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth. Bonnie Cramond is Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology and Gifted and Creative Education at the University of Georgia.
This article builds on those conversations between Chapman and Cramond. It is an interchange with important observations about creativity from the Collaborative’s Science Thought Leader Hubert Dyasi, PhD, and Arts Thought Leader Rob Horowitz, EdD, both of whom are leaders in their own fields. Hubert Dyasi is Professor of Science Education, the City College, City University of New York (CUNY) – retired. He is known for the teaching and learning of science in pre-college education in the US and in Africa (see newsletter for information about him and his recounting of how curiosity led to science centers across Africa). Rob Horowitz is Executive Director, ArtsResearch, and Associate Director, Center for Arts Education Research, Teachers College, at Columbia University. He is well-known for his arts education research that demonstrates the important relationships between in-school arts learning and cognitive, social, and personal competencies (see newsletter article for resources and information about him). In this interchange of ideas, you will see important commonalities between science and the arts in relation to the use of creative thinking.
Hubert Dyasi:
One of the major aspects of all science is the creation of science-based mental models that successfully explain and predict events in nature. Yet science lessons in schools seldom provide multiple rich opportunities for students to engage in meaningful development and critique of mental models. That is unfortunate.
I believe the impulse to create mental models is an integral part of human development and the desire to understand the world. In other words, all humans, including children, cannot help but create mental models in efforts to explain and understand their worlds. If we consistently use that impulse as a motivating factor in teaching and learning, we will have a firm foundation for cultivating understanding and creativity in students’ learning regardless of the school subject. The challenge in science education, specifically, is how to make students’ creation of mental models a staple of science learning for all students.
Rob Horowitz:
As Hubert and I often have found in our conversations, there is more commonality between the work of scientists and artists than differences. Developing mental models – and testing and revising them – is inherent to the artistic process, although the medium might be aural, sensual, visual, or kinesthetic, rather than linguistic and logical. These are processes inherent to our humanity, and not just the domain of those who are defined by the presence or absence of “talent". Children – and adults, for that matter – make meaning and understanding of their world through engaging the senses, seeking patterns, adding to previous knowledge through adjusting their mental models, and then seeking to express their understanding, ideas, and feelings. Their ensuing representation is “art”, for want of a better word.
Hubert Dyasi:
Building upon students’ impulse to create mental models also implies utilizing it to cultivate their creative capacity to raise questions that interest them, refine them in a manner that makes them scientifically investigable, and to design ways to answer them; for example, creativity about what data to collect, how to collect them, how to organize and interpret them, and about how to communicate them clearly and interestingly. If students grapple with their own thoughts and ideas to perform these tasks, they engage in creative activity. From banks of data analyses they have done, they learn to see patterns from which they create testable mental models — models they can use to explain and to predict events in specific aspects of their worlds. In other words, they learn to develop mental models based on data that meet standards of evidence in science.
Rob Horowitz:
I am still seeking to find differences between the artistic and scientific modeling processes — perhaps Hubert’s notion of testable mental models that can predict events can lead me to an answer. I will have to adjust my own mental model of artistic creation to consider this.
Hubert Dyasi:
By their very nature, mental models created from data based on science practices have “successes” and “failures.” As students encounter more events and generate more data, they might find discrepancies in their models; the discrepancies invite them to design ways to revise and refine the models. The resulting mental models are creative to the extent they are new to the students, and/or combine objects and ideas in ways that are new to them; it doesn’t matter that grownups might already know them.
Rob Horowitz:
The mental models are revised as the learner stays open to new information. That “resistance to closure” and task persistence is an asset as children develop and revise their models. One difference with the performing arts is the temporal quality, where revisions are made quickly, in real time, as rhythm and phrasing, dance steps, improvisations, or actor’s delivery are adjusted in real time in response to their community of fellow performers (and audience). Perhaps this is a key difference between the arts and sciences: the need to adjust the communication and artistic representation in response to others. Although I suspect Hubert will summon a parallel process in scientific exploration, such as the need to establish safe and nurturing classroom environments – or laboratories – that support open exploration and representation.
Hubert Dyasi:
It is important to note once again that embedded within creating mental models are other elements of creativity, e.g., self-created ways to represent and to communicate the models, and design of model-testing situations and devices. In these activities, students also gain a useful insight into science that it is a self-correcting system of studying phenomena of the world. None of these levels of creativity, however, can occur in classrooms without satisfying preconditions such as a psychologically safe classroom environments where students are comfortable expressing their ideas and creativity, and supportive curricula and assessments.
A special thank you to Hubert and Rob for these enlightening insights that help us see that the boundaries between the sciences and the arts are transcended in many important ways.
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders and also examined ways to apply their important ideas in STEAM learning. This new series showcases conversations between various Thought Leaders around an important and relevant topic. The spring and fall, 2022 newsletters featured a conversation about creativity and innovation between Neuroscience Thought Leader Sandi Chapman, PhD, and Creativity Thought Leader Bonnie Cramond, PhD. Sandi Chapman is Founder and Chief Director of the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth. Bonnie Cramond is Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology and Gifted and Creative Education at the University of Georgia.
This article builds on those conversations between Chapman and Cramond. It is an interchange with important observations about creativity from the Collaborative’s Science Thought Leader Hubert Dyasi, PhD, and Arts Thought Leader Rob Horowitz, EdD, both of whom are leaders in their own fields. Hubert Dyasi is Professor of Science Education, the City College, City University of New York (CUNY) – retired. He is known for the teaching and learning of science in pre-college education in the US and in Africa (see newsletter for information about him and his recounting of how curiosity led to science centers across Africa). Rob Horowitz is Executive Director, ArtsResearch, and Associate Director, Center for Arts Education Research, Teachers College, at Columbia University. He is well-known for his arts education research that demonstrates the important relationships between in-school arts learning and cognitive, social, and personal competencies (see newsletter article for resources and information about him). In this interchange of ideas, you will see important commonalities between science and the arts in relation to the use of creative thinking.
Hubert Dyasi:
One of the major aspects of all science is the creation of science-based mental models that successfully explain and predict events in nature. Yet science lessons in schools seldom provide multiple rich opportunities for students to engage in meaningful development and critique of mental models. That is unfortunate.
I believe the impulse to create mental models is an integral part of human development and the desire to understand the world. In other words, all humans, including children, cannot help but create mental models in efforts to explain and understand their worlds. If we consistently use that impulse as a motivating factor in teaching and learning, we will have a firm foundation for cultivating understanding and creativity in students’ learning regardless of the school subject. The challenge in science education, specifically, is how to make students’ creation of mental models a staple of science learning for all students.
Rob Horowitz:
As Hubert and I often have found in our conversations, there is more commonality between the work of scientists and artists than differences. Developing mental models – and testing and revising them – is inherent to the artistic process, although the medium might be aural, sensual, visual, or kinesthetic, rather than linguistic and logical. These are processes inherent to our humanity, and not just the domain of those who are defined by the presence or absence of “talent". Children – and adults, for that matter – make meaning and understanding of their world through engaging the senses, seeking patterns, adding to previous knowledge through adjusting their mental models, and then seeking to express their understanding, ideas, and feelings. Their ensuing representation is “art”, for want of a better word.
Hubert Dyasi:
Building upon students’ impulse to create mental models also implies utilizing it to cultivate their creative capacity to raise questions that interest them, refine them in a manner that makes them scientifically investigable, and to design ways to answer them; for example, creativity about what data to collect, how to collect them, how to organize and interpret them, and about how to communicate them clearly and interestingly. If students grapple with their own thoughts and ideas to perform these tasks, they engage in creative activity. From banks of data analyses they have done, they learn to see patterns from which they create testable mental models — models they can use to explain and to predict events in specific aspects of their worlds. In other words, they learn to develop mental models based on data that meet standards of evidence in science.
Rob Horowitz:
I am still seeking to find differences between the artistic and scientific modeling processes — perhaps Hubert’s notion of testable mental models that can predict events can lead me to an answer. I will have to adjust my own mental model of artistic creation to consider this.
Hubert Dyasi:
By their very nature, mental models created from data based on science practices have “successes” and “failures.” As students encounter more events and generate more data, they might find discrepancies in their models; the discrepancies invite them to design ways to revise and refine the models. The resulting mental models are creative to the extent they are new to the students, and/or combine objects and ideas in ways that are new to them; it doesn’t matter that grownups might already know them.
Rob Horowitz:
The mental models are revised as the learner stays open to new information. That “resistance to closure” and task persistence is an asset as children develop and revise their models. One difference with the performing arts is the temporal quality, where revisions are made quickly, in real time, as rhythm and phrasing, dance steps, improvisations, or actor’s delivery are adjusted in real time in response to their community of fellow performers (and audience). Perhaps this is a key difference between the arts and sciences: the need to adjust the communication and artistic representation in response to others. Although I suspect Hubert will summon a parallel process in scientific exploration, such as the need to establish safe and nurturing classroom environments – or laboratories – that support open exploration and representation.
Hubert Dyasi:
It is important to note once again that embedded within creating mental models are other elements of creativity, e.g., self-created ways to represent and to communicate the models, and design of model-testing situations and devices. In these activities, students also gain a useful insight into science that it is a self-correcting system of studying phenomena of the world. None of these levels of creativity, however, can occur in classrooms without satisfying preconditions such as a psychologically safe classroom environments where students are comfortable expressing their ideas and creativity, and supportive curricula and assessments.
A special thank you to Hubert and Rob for these enlightening insights that help us see that the boundaries between the sciences and the arts are transcended in many important ways.
| Melissa Collins | Charles Hayes | Anne Ludes | Carla Neely |
The Innovation Collaborative is proud to announce new Innovation Fellows who have been invited by the Board of Directors to join the Collaborative’s work in K-12.
Innovation Fellows are top K-12 administrators and arts, STEM, and classroom teachers from across the US who are influential STEAM advocates. They are the planning team who help lead the Collaborative’s K-12 Effective Practices project that focuses on classroom practices and teacher professional development.
The Collaborative’s initial Fellows were identified in the first round of national K-12 STEAM research. Additional fellows are invited to join this group, based on their impressive abilities to move the K-12 STEAM field forward through teaching and administration.
These new Fellows are impressive in their own right.
Innovation Fellows are top K-12 administrators and arts, STEM, and classroom teachers from across the US who are influential STEAM advocates. They are the planning team who help lead the Collaborative’s K-12 Effective Practices project that focuses on classroom practices and teacher professional development.
The Collaborative’s initial Fellows were identified in the first round of national K-12 STEAM research. Additional fellows are invited to join this group, based on their impressive abilities to move the K-12 STEAM field forward through teaching and administration.
These new Fellows are impressive in their own right.
- Melissa Collins has been an active member of the Collaborative’s Advisory Council since 2020. She teaches second grade at John P. Freeman Optional School, an underserved school in Memphis, TN. There, she emphasizes curiosity in science and is a teacher leadership expert. Melissa has won numerous awards, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math Teaching, the National Science Teaching Association's (NSTA) Sylvia Shugrue Award for elementary teachers, and in 2020 was named to the National Teacher Hall of Fame.
- Charles Hayes has been the fifth grade science lead at a Title 1 School in Memphis TN for nine years. This year he is serving as instruction advisor for middle school science in the Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He has won a number of awards, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math Teaching and the National Science Teaching Association’s (NSTA) Shell Science Teacher Award. Charles embraces STEAM and the Collaborative’s work.
- Anne Ludes is a spring, 2021, graduate of the Collaborative's STEAM Professional Development (PD) and became a leader in planning our subsequent STEAM PDs. She was Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education at Framingham Public Schools, MA, and is now Director of the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA. She is passionate about the Collaborative's approach to STEAM. She said, "This work has been absolutely game-changing for me... As an administrator, this project has been instrumental in helping me develop the language and depth of understanding necessary to support teachers with curriculum development, lesson planning, and instructional practices.”
- Carla Neely has been teaching fifth and sixth grade science at an African American all-girls school, Warner Girls Leadership Academy, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was one of 15 teachers across the US selected as 2022-23 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellows. As an Einstein Fellow, she is working as a STEM Legislative Fellow in a Nevada Senator's office in DC, developing ways to make STEM more equitable for girls of color, which is her specialty. Before her selection as an Einstein Fellow, she taught STEAM in her science classroom and developed a STEAM lab. She also conducted research regarding equity for girls in STEM.
How do research and perspectives on imaginative thinking in STEM education and practice relate to STEM learning in museums? That was an important question asked by the Museum of Science (MOS), Boston, in a project funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program.
To address this question, the MOS team, led by Becki Kipling, Principal Investigator, and Christine Reich and Sarah May, Co-Principal Investigators, brought together researchers, practitioners, educators, and others for a series of convenings. There were rich conversations about imagination between Informal Science Education (ISE) professionals and between ISE professionals and those from other domains. The Collaborative was included in these convenings. Many important insights were gained.
Enriching this work are a recently released literature review, a survey of ISE professionals, and a number of other products related to this topic. These can help identify and stimulate future areas of research.
See these rich Museum of Science, Boston resources to learn more about the convening’s proceedings, a framework for defining imagination in STEM, and a number of other important resources. You can find project descriptions from 25 unique projects that use imagination in a variety of ways in the Project Index. You can find the YouTube playlist at Unpacking the STEM Imagination Convening YouTube Playlist.
See also the Research Thought Leader article in this newsletter where the Collaborative’s Science Thought Leader, Hubert Dyasi, PhD, and its Arts Thought Leader, Rob Horowitz, EdD, discuss how creative thinking (which includes imagination) bridges the science and the arts.
To address this question, the MOS team, led by Becki Kipling, Principal Investigator, and Christine Reich and Sarah May, Co-Principal Investigators, brought together researchers, practitioners, educators, and others for a series of convenings. There were rich conversations about imagination between Informal Science Education (ISE) professionals and between ISE professionals and those from other domains. The Collaborative was included in these convenings. Many important insights were gained.
Enriching this work are a recently released literature review, a survey of ISE professionals, and a number of other products related to this topic. These can help identify and stimulate future areas of research.
See these rich Museum of Science, Boston resources to learn more about the convening’s proceedings, a framework for defining imagination in STEM, and a number of other important resources. You can find project descriptions from 25 unique projects that use imagination in a variety of ways in the Project Index. You can find the YouTube playlist at Unpacking the STEM Imagination Convening YouTube Playlist.
See also the Research Thought Leader article in this newsletter where the Collaborative’s Science Thought Leader, Hubert Dyasi, PhD, and its Arts Thought Leader, Rob Horowitz, EdD, discuss how creative thinking (which includes imagination) bridges the science and the arts.
The Collaborative recently participated as a Community Partner in the highly successful BrainHealth Week sponsored by the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth.
Held February 20-24, BrainHealth Week was a free of charge five-day interactive event where people of all ages were shown how to build habits that promote a healthier brain and improve the trajectory of their lives. This included both in-person and virtual experiences with expert speakers, engaging activities, and access to brain health habits that can become part of one’s daily routine.
The Center for BrainHealth’s Chief Director, Sandi Chapman, PhD, is the Collaborative’s Neuroscience Research Thought Leader who, along with three other Thought Leaders, help lead the Collaborative’s work conceptually. Through Sandi, the Collaborative’s work centers on vital research-based thinking skills that the Collaborative shares with students and teachers across the US.
According to the Center for BrainHealth, “cognitive neuroscience suggests that the trend of worsening brain outcomes, such as decline, disease, mental health disorders, despair, loneliness, and brain fog can be reversed. Healthier brain habits can change this. Intelligence, memory, cognitive function, and even mental health can be impacted by how we protect and train our brains. In a groundbreaking study of 187 adults of all ages, 80% saw an improvement in their BrainHealth index scores (a scientifically validated measure the of the brain’s holistic health and fitness). Participants who engaged the most with proactive brain health strategies experienced the largest gains.”
The cognitive neuroscience conducted at the Center for BrainHealth and other leading research institutes around the world clearly demonstrates that our brain’s health and performance can be affected by daily, proactive practices. When talking about Brain Health Week, Sandi said, “At the Center for BrainHealth, we are uniquely devoted to discovering and applying the latest scientific findings about the brain’s ability to change based on how we use it.” She added, “What good is science if people don’t know how to use it to make their lives better”?
You can find out more about how you can maximize your brain’s capacities at BrainHealth.
Held February 20-24, BrainHealth Week was a free of charge five-day interactive event where people of all ages were shown how to build habits that promote a healthier brain and improve the trajectory of their lives. This included both in-person and virtual experiences with expert speakers, engaging activities, and access to brain health habits that can become part of one’s daily routine.
The Center for BrainHealth’s Chief Director, Sandi Chapman, PhD, is the Collaborative’s Neuroscience Research Thought Leader who, along with three other Thought Leaders, help lead the Collaborative’s work conceptually. Through Sandi, the Collaborative’s work centers on vital research-based thinking skills that the Collaborative shares with students and teachers across the US.
According to the Center for BrainHealth, “cognitive neuroscience suggests that the trend of worsening brain outcomes, such as decline, disease, mental health disorders, despair, loneliness, and brain fog can be reversed. Healthier brain habits can change this. Intelligence, memory, cognitive function, and even mental health can be impacted by how we protect and train our brains. In a groundbreaking study of 187 adults of all ages, 80% saw an improvement in their BrainHealth index scores (a scientifically validated measure the of the brain’s holistic health and fitness). Participants who engaged the most with proactive brain health strategies experienced the largest gains.”
The cognitive neuroscience conducted at the Center for BrainHealth and other leading research institutes around the world clearly demonstrates that our brain’s health and performance can be affected by daily, proactive practices. When talking about Brain Health Week, Sandi said, “At the Center for BrainHealth, we are uniquely devoted to discovering and applying the latest scientific findings about the brain’s ability to change based on how we use it.” She added, “What good is science if people don’t know how to use it to make their lives better”?
You can find out more about how you can maximize your brain’s capacities at BrainHealth.
Crayola Creativity Week
Crayola recently held its highly successful Creativity Week. It engaged 3.5 million children and 195,000 teachers in 77 countries.
In talking about Creativity Week, Crayola Director of Education, Cheri Sterman, said, “At Crayola Education we strive to give children, educators, and parents resources and inspiration to help them create and learn, opening their imaginations so they can pursue their dreams. Within Crayola Creativity Week, we collaborated with many organizations and creative spokespersons to inspire kids around the world, including NASA, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins Publishers, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, KIDZ BOP, GoNoodle, Khan Academy Kids, National Art Education Association, American Association of School Librarians, World Reader, Code.org, and the YMCA. Getting the word out about the power of creativity to help kids learn was a major objective of the celebration. Crayola is thrilled that the public tuned in to this message, with 615 million media impressions!”
Celebrity presenters included astronaut Ricky Arnold, who started his career as a middle school science educator and told kids how he needed creative thinking to be both a teacher and an astronaut, and Today Show meteorologist Dylan Dreyer, who talked about how creativity has been the guiding force in all her career decisions.
Visit the Creativity Week website for a wealth of teacher and parent resources. These include videos, read alongs, Thinking Sheets, creative challenges, and more.
Crayola recently held its highly successful Creativity Week. It engaged 3.5 million children and 195,000 teachers in 77 countries.
In talking about Creativity Week, Crayola Director of Education, Cheri Sterman, said, “At Crayola Education we strive to give children, educators, and parents resources and inspiration to help them create and learn, opening their imaginations so they can pursue their dreams. Within Crayola Creativity Week, we collaborated with many organizations and creative spokespersons to inspire kids around the world, including NASA, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins Publishers, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, KIDZ BOP, GoNoodle, Khan Academy Kids, National Art Education Association, American Association of School Librarians, World Reader, Code.org, and the YMCA. Getting the word out about the power of creativity to help kids learn was a major objective of the celebration. Crayola is thrilled that the public tuned in to this message, with 615 million media impressions!”
Celebrity presenters included astronaut Ricky Arnold, who started his career as a middle school science educator and told kids how he needed creative thinking to be both a teacher and an astronaut, and Today Show meteorologist Dylan Dreyer, who talked about how creativity has been the guiding force in all her career decisions.
Visit the Creativity Week website for a wealth of teacher and parent resources. These include videos, read alongs, Thinking Sheets, creative challenges, and more.
STEAM Imagination
By Merrie Koester, PhD, Collaborative Advisory Council Member
Pre-pandemic, I received a surprising email from education researcher, philosopher, and editor Dr. David Flinders: Dear Dr. Koester, You have been invited to submit a commentary for Routledge Encyclopedia of Education. I would be grateful if your commentary were entitled "Science Curriculum." To say I was stunned by the invitation would be an understatement. First of all, the challenge to write an encyclopedia entry of any kind implied I had the authority to do so. Does anyone? I also recalled believing as a child that the World Book Encyclopedia was a Great Repository of Truth. And then I reflected on the problem of names and the energy of language. To name something is to stake a claim of knowing its signification. This is a responsibility the Innovation Collaborative has not taken lightly as we’ve labored over what we “mean” when we say STEAM, creativity, innovation, transdisciplinary, etc.
Next, I thought about how this this human endeavor we call Science is not about getting things right, but rather about getting them less wrong, using the best evidence available to one at the time. Similarly, the Innovation Collaborative’s work—the research and the practices—don’t just tell what STEAM is, they SHOW how STEAM thinks and performs!
Next, I thought about how this this human endeavor we call Science is not about getting things right, but rather about getting them less wrong, using the best evidence available to one at the time. Similarly, the Innovation Collaborative’s work—the research and the practices—don’t just tell what STEAM is, they SHOW how STEAM thinks and performs!
As background, I was invited to present a paper at the 2016 American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference for a session called Eisner in Mind: Fresh Perspectives on Inquiry and Education. During my talk, entitled “Imagination and the Arts as Antidotes for STEM Education Malaise and Alienation”, I recalled scientist James Trefil’s writing about “The Great Turn Off” to school science, a disheartening event that occurs sometime around middle school and which Trefil attributed to a near total lack of creativity in traditional science teaching. I didn’t need to convince this room of creatives at AERA that something needed to be done! Like Trefil, I lament the dire consequences of a science illiterate nation.
Making science accessible and meaningfully engaging to all students is an ill-structured problem at best, one beset with issues of power, culture, and privilege, and the ever-present requirement that students meet performance benchmarks on content knowledge standards. When a science class is named a STEAM studio, students get to see that the very act of doing science requires a curious, creative mind and heart. Through noticing, listening, attending, and personal story-making – leaning in – science learning begins to matter.
And so I accepted the challenge from Routledge, but respectfully asked (and was approved) to change the entry’s title to “Progressive Science Education Curriculum.” I also asked if my colleague, Dr. Meta Van Sickle, might join me as a thought partner. Between us, Meta and I have devoted over sixty years to the research and practice of “Science Curriculum” as a “creative making practice”, decades before anyone named STEAM as educational practice. In 2018, Meta and her colleague, Dr. Judith Batzler, working with IGI, edited Cases on STEAM Education in Practice, to which I also contributed.
Gradually, the work for Routledge progressed, in just the same messy, organic way that all creative making requires. During the pandemic, the publishers themselves got creative with the platform, deciding to launch the project under a new name, Routledge Resources Online — Education, in order to better describe the scope of the product and to pivot to an increasingly virtual, post-pandemic world of readers. And now, I’m happy to share that at long last, Progressive Science Education Curriculum has been published! Being part of this incredible collective called the Innovation Collaborative has fueled my hope that we may have finally arrived at a time when we can design and put into practice truly educative and progressive models that provide joyful time and space for creative making and thinking. The Collaborative outreach/research is providing strong evidence to support the claim that STEAM learning experiences, those that are inclusive, empowering, emergent, and creative — not just numbers-based, procedure-driven, and geared toward mastery of knowledge that will be on a test — matter! Just STEAMagine where we’ll go from here!
Merrie Koester, Ph.D.
Science Literacy, Communication, and STEAM Curriculum Specialist
University of SC Center for Science Education
Founder, Director, Kids Teaching Flood Resilience
By Merrie Koester, PhD, Collaborative Advisory Council Member
Pre-pandemic, I received a surprising email from education researcher, philosopher, and editor Dr. David Flinders: Dear Dr. Koester, You have been invited to submit a commentary for Routledge Encyclopedia of Education. I would be grateful if your commentary were entitled "Science Curriculum." To say I was stunned by the invitation would be an understatement. First of all, the challenge to write an encyclopedia entry of any kind implied I had the authority to do so. Does anyone? I also recalled believing as a child that the World Book Encyclopedia was a Great Repository of Truth. And then I reflected on the problem of names and the energy of language. To name something is to stake a claim of knowing its signification. This is a responsibility the Innovation Collaborative has not taken lightly as we’ve labored over what we “mean” when we say STEAM, creativity, innovation, transdisciplinary, etc.
Next, I thought about how this this human endeavor we call Science is not about getting things right, but rather about getting them less wrong, using the best evidence available to one at the time. Similarly, the Innovation Collaborative’s work—the research and the practices—don’t just tell what STEAM is, they SHOW how STEAM thinks and performs!
Next, I thought about how this this human endeavor we call Science is not about getting things right, but rather about getting them less wrong, using the best evidence available to one at the time. Similarly, the Innovation Collaborative’s work—the research and the practices—don’t just tell what STEAM is, they SHOW how STEAM thinks and performs!
As background, I was invited to present a paper at the 2016 American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference for a session called Eisner in Mind: Fresh Perspectives on Inquiry and Education. During my talk, entitled “Imagination and the Arts as Antidotes for STEM Education Malaise and Alienation”, I recalled scientist James Trefil’s writing about “The Great Turn Off” to school science, a disheartening event that occurs sometime around middle school and which Trefil attributed to a near total lack of creativity in traditional science teaching. I didn’t need to convince this room of creatives at AERA that something needed to be done! Like Trefil, I lament the dire consequences of a science illiterate nation.
Making science accessible and meaningfully engaging to all students is an ill-structured problem at best, one beset with issues of power, culture, and privilege, and the ever-present requirement that students meet performance benchmarks on content knowledge standards. When a science class is named a STEAM studio, students get to see that the very act of doing science requires a curious, creative mind and heart. Through noticing, listening, attending, and personal story-making – leaning in – science learning begins to matter.
And so I accepted the challenge from Routledge, but respectfully asked (and was approved) to change the entry’s title to “Progressive Science Education Curriculum.” I also asked if my colleague, Dr. Meta Van Sickle, might join me as a thought partner. Between us, Meta and I have devoted over sixty years to the research and practice of “Science Curriculum” as a “creative making practice”, decades before anyone named STEAM as educational practice. In 2018, Meta and her colleague, Dr. Judith Batzler, working with IGI, edited Cases on STEAM Education in Practice, to which I also contributed.
Gradually, the work for Routledge progressed, in just the same messy, organic way that all creative making requires. During the pandemic, the publishers themselves got creative with the platform, deciding to launch the project under a new name, Routledge Resources Online — Education, in order to better describe the scope of the product and to pivot to an increasingly virtual, post-pandemic world of readers. And now, I’m happy to share that at long last, Progressive Science Education Curriculum has been published! Being part of this incredible collective called the Innovation Collaborative has fueled my hope that we may have finally arrived at a time when we can design and put into practice truly educative and progressive models that provide joyful time and space for creative making and thinking. The Collaborative outreach/research is providing strong evidence to support the claim that STEAM learning experiences, those that are inclusive, empowering, emergent, and creative — not just numbers-based, procedure-driven, and geared toward mastery of knowledge that will be on a test — matter! Just STEAMagine where we’ll go from here!
Merrie Koester, Ph.D.
Science Literacy, Communication, and STEAM Curriculum Specialist
University of SC Center for Science Education
Founder, Director, Kids Teaching Flood Resilience
Best STEM Books for 2022
In fall 2022, representatives from the National Science Teaching Association’s Children’s Book Council and from other disciplinary groups met for the sixth time to select exemplary children’s literature in STEM.
Since 2014 this joint committee has sought out literature that represents the best of STEM through:
It’s important to note that the criteria above do not require science content—even if it is integrated across disciplines. The best STEM books might represent the practices of science and engineering by:
Some of these books might not cover STEM content at all. They might simply define STEM habits of mind. For example, a biography might be STEM if it shows creative thought, progressive improvement, and even struggle and failure. But just telling a sequential story of achievement in a biography would not make it a STEM book. A winner would have to provoke a sense of innovation in the reader in any genre.
All the winners are interdisciplinary in some way: Content, process, and field of endeavor. The list below attempts to classify them, but, of course, the greatest STEM achievements defy classification.
Biographies
Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer
Traci Sorell
Building Zaha: The Story of Architect Zaha Hadid
Victoria Tentler-Krylov
A Life Electric: The Story of Nikola Tesla
Azadeh Westergaard
Benoit Mandelbrot: Reshaping the World
Robert Black
Secrets of the Sea: The Story of Jeanne Power, Revolutionary Marine Scientist
Evan Griffith
Thank You, Dr. Salk!: The Scientist Who Beat Polio and Healed the World
Dean Robbins
The Stuff Between the Stars: How Vera Rubin Discovered Most of the Universe
Sandra Nickel
Wonder Women of Science: Twelve Geniuses Who Are Currently Rocking Science, Technology, and the World
Tiera Fletcher and Ginger Rue
Inventions
Awards also were given to books about inventions and the process that multiple inventors went through.
Bicycle: Eureka! The Biography of an Idea
Lori Haskins Houran
Light Bulb: Eureka! The Biography of an Idea
Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
A Shot in the Arm: Big Ideas that Changed the World #3
Don Brown
From Here to There: Inventions That Changed the Way the World Moves
Vivian Kirkfield
Glasses: Eureka! The Biography of an Idea
Lori Haskins Houran
Engineering
Engineering is prominent in the list, with familiar projects conducted in innovative ways.
Uma Wimple Charts Her House
Reif Larsen
Maxine Greatest Garden Ever
Ruth Spiro
Someone Builds the Dream
Lisa Wheeler
Mimic Makers: Biomimicry Inventors Inspired by Nature
Kristen Nordstrom
Mathematics
And mathematics is not a tool but a science in itself.
Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi!
Art Coulson
Molly and the Mathematical Mysteries: Ten Interactive Adventures in Mathematical Wonderland
Eugenia Cheng
Luna's Yum Yum Dim Sum
Natasha Yim
Computer Science
Coding becomes science, too.
Artificial Intelligence
Dinah Williams
Coding as STEM
Coding is both language and science in more award-winning books.
What Is Nintendo?
Gina Shaw
Code Breaker, Spy Hunter: How Elizebeth Friedman Changed the Course of Two World Wars
Laurie Wallmark
The World Around
Societal and environmental problems become the theme for more award-winning books.
Amara and the Bats
Emma Reynolds
A Shot in the Arm: Big Ideas that Changed the World #3
Don Brown
Scene of The Crime: Tracking Down Criminals with Forensic Science
Hp Newquist
Bones Unearthed (Creepy and True #3)
Kerrie Logan Hollihan
Cougar Crossing: How Hollywood's Celebrity Cougar Helped Build a Bridge for City Wildlife
Meeg Pincus
Upstream, Downstream: Exploring Watershed Connections
Rowena Rae
Lady Bird Johnson, That's Who!: The Story of a Cleaner and Greener America
Tracy Nelson Maurer
Race to the Bottom of the Earth: Surviving Antarctica
Rebecca E. F. Barone
The Great Stink: How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London’s Poop Pollution Problem
Colleen Paeff
Scene of The Crime: Tracking Down Criminals with Forensic Science
Hp Newquist
Selling STEM
Invention extends to entrepreneurship.
Eat Bugs! #1: Project Startup Heather Alexander
Innovative books lead to innovative, integrated curricula. For more information on each award-winning book, go to Best STEM Books K–12 2022 | NSTA
In fall 2022, representatives from the National Science Teaching Association’s Children’s Book Council and from other disciplinary groups met for the sixth time to select exemplary children’s literature in STEM.
Since 2014 this joint committee has sought out literature that represents the best of STEM through:
- Modeling real-world innovation
- Embracing real-world design, invention, and innovation
- Connecting with authentic experiences
- Showing assimilation of new ideas
- Illustrating teamwork, diverse skills, creativity, and cooperation
- Inviting divergent thinking and doing
- Integrating interdisciplinary and creative approaches
- Exploring multiple solutions to problems
- Addressing connections between STEM disciplines
- Exploring Engineering Habits of Mind
- Systems thinking
- Creativity
- Optimization
- Collaboration
It’s important to note that the criteria above do not require science content—even if it is integrated across disciplines. The best STEM books might represent the practices of science and engineering by:
- Asking questions, solving problems, designing, and redesigning
- Integrating STEM disciplines
- Showing the progressive changes that characterize invention and/or engineering
- Demonstrating designing or redesigning, improving, building, or repairing a product or idea
- Showing the process of working through trial and error
- Progressively developing better engineering solutions
- Analyzing efforts and making necessary modifications along the way
- Illustrating that failure might happen and is acceptable — provided reflection and learning occur, including:
- Communication
- Ethical consideration
Some of these books might not cover STEM content at all. They might simply define STEM habits of mind. For example, a biography might be STEM if it shows creative thought, progressive improvement, and even struggle and failure. But just telling a sequential story of achievement in a biography would not make it a STEM book. A winner would have to provoke a sense of innovation in the reader in any genre.
All the winners are interdisciplinary in some way: Content, process, and field of endeavor. The list below attempts to classify them, but, of course, the greatest STEM achievements defy classification.
Biographies
Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer
Traci Sorell
Building Zaha: The Story of Architect Zaha Hadid
Victoria Tentler-Krylov
A Life Electric: The Story of Nikola Tesla
Azadeh Westergaard
Benoit Mandelbrot: Reshaping the World
Robert Black
Secrets of the Sea: The Story of Jeanne Power, Revolutionary Marine Scientist
Evan Griffith
Thank You, Dr. Salk!: The Scientist Who Beat Polio and Healed the World
Dean Robbins
The Stuff Between the Stars: How Vera Rubin Discovered Most of the Universe
Sandra Nickel
Wonder Women of Science: Twelve Geniuses Who Are Currently Rocking Science, Technology, and the World
Tiera Fletcher and Ginger Rue
Inventions
Awards also were given to books about inventions and the process that multiple inventors went through.
Bicycle: Eureka! The Biography of an Idea
Lori Haskins Houran
Light Bulb: Eureka! The Biography of an Idea
Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
A Shot in the Arm: Big Ideas that Changed the World #3
Don Brown
From Here to There: Inventions That Changed the Way the World Moves
Vivian Kirkfield
Glasses: Eureka! The Biography of an Idea
Lori Haskins Houran
Engineering
Engineering is prominent in the list, with familiar projects conducted in innovative ways.
Uma Wimple Charts Her House
Reif Larsen
Maxine Greatest Garden Ever
Ruth Spiro
Someone Builds the Dream
Lisa Wheeler
Mimic Makers: Biomimicry Inventors Inspired by Nature
Kristen Nordstrom
Mathematics
And mathematics is not a tool but a science in itself.
Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi!
Art Coulson
Molly and the Mathematical Mysteries: Ten Interactive Adventures in Mathematical Wonderland
Eugenia Cheng
Luna's Yum Yum Dim Sum
Natasha Yim
Computer Science
Coding becomes science, too.
Artificial Intelligence
Dinah Williams
Coding as STEM
Coding is both language and science in more award-winning books.
What Is Nintendo?
Gina Shaw
Code Breaker, Spy Hunter: How Elizebeth Friedman Changed the Course of Two World Wars
Laurie Wallmark
The World Around
Societal and environmental problems become the theme for more award-winning books.
Amara and the Bats
Emma Reynolds
A Shot in the Arm: Big Ideas that Changed the World #3
Don Brown
Scene of The Crime: Tracking Down Criminals with Forensic Science
Hp Newquist
Bones Unearthed (Creepy and True #3)
Kerrie Logan Hollihan
Cougar Crossing: How Hollywood's Celebrity Cougar Helped Build a Bridge for City Wildlife
Meeg Pincus
Upstream, Downstream: Exploring Watershed Connections
Rowena Rae
Lady Bird Johnson, That's Who!: The Story of a Cleaner and Greener America
Tracy Nelson Maurer
Race to the Bottom of the Earth: Surviving Antarctica
Rebecca E. F. Barone
The Great Stink: How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London’s Poop Pollution Problem
Colleen Paeff
Scene of The Crime: Tracking Down Criminals with Forensic Science
Hp Newquist
Selling STEM
Invention extends to entrepreneurship.
Eat Bugs! #1: Project Startup Heather Alexander
Innovative books lead to innovative, integrated curricula. For more information on each award-winning book, go to Best STEM Books K–12 2022 | NSTA
Online STEM Resources
Resilient Educator is an online resource that accumulates STEAM ideas and resources for teachers. It includes current grant opportunities, research, conferences, and lesson plans. “Curricula opportunities range from taking planned STEM lessons and adding in an arts component or perspective, to developing STEAM plans that fully integrate arts education from the very start.”
STEAM Teaching Resources for Educators | Resilient Educator
Resilient Educator is an online resource that accumulates STEAM ideas and resources for teachers. It includes current grant opportunities, research, conferences, and lesson plans. “Curricula opportunities range from taking planned STEM lessons and adding in an arts component or perspective, to developing STEAM plans that fully integrate arts education from the very start.”
STEAM Teaching Resources for Educators | Resilient Educator
Celebrating Black History Month
Black History includes a great STEM star: Actalent is again celebrating Black History and STEAM with the 37th annual Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) STEM Conference Celebrating Engineering Excellence - BEYA 2023 (actalentservices.com)
Black History includes a great STEM star: Actalent is again celebrating Black History and STEAM with the 37th annual Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) STEM Conference Celebrating Engineering Excellence - BEYA 2023 (actalentservices.com)
NSTA Conference Features STEAM Sessions
The National Science Teaching Association meets in Atlanta beginning March 23. The program is available online, with many sessions addressing disciplinary integration such as STEAM. To find out more, visit the conference website: https://www.nsta.org/atlanta23
The National Science Teaching Association meets in Atlanta beginning March 23. The program is available online, with many sessions addressing disciplinary integration such as STEAM. To find out more, visit the conference website: https://www.nsta.org/atlanta23
Neuroscience, Creativity, and Innovation: A Collaborative Thought Leader Conversation – Part 2
11/8/2022
 Sandi Chapman, PhD |  Bonnie Cramond, PhD |
The Collaborative’s Research Thought Leaders help provide the strong research foundation upon which the Collaborative’s work rests. Each Thought Leader is nationally and internationally recognized in their own field and brings an extensive depth of experience and expertise. They also are adept at working across disciplines.
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders and also examined ways to apply their important ideas in STEAM learning. This new series showcases conversations between various Thought Leaders around an important and relevant topic.
This third article in this series is Part 2 of the inspiring conversation between a leader in neuroscience, Sandi Chapman, PhD, and a leader in creativity, Bonnie Cramond, PhD. Part 1 of this conversation was published in the Collaborative’s spring, 2022 newsletter. In it, Sandi and Bonnie discussed why it is important for today’s students to develop creative (a novel idea) and innovative (applying the novel idea to solve a problem) thinking skills. In Part 2 of the conversation with Collaborative Executive Director Lucinda Presley, they discuss how to promote these thinking skills, especially though the intersections of the arts and sciences.
Sandi Chapman, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist, is Founder and Chief Director of the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth. She also is the Dee Wyly Distinguished University Professor in the UT Dallas School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. She is a well-known pioneer in the field of brain health, developing brain health fitness measurements and protocols that benefit students and adults alike in the US and worldwide. (See newsletter article about her.) Bonnie Cramond, PhD, is Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology and Gifted and Creative Education at the University of Georgia (UGA) and former Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at UGA. She is known for her research in the assessment and development of creativity, especially among at-risk students, and for her highly respected work in the creativity field. (See newsletter article about her.)
Are there any specific tasks you can recommend for teachers or people in general to do to promote creative and innovative thinking?
Bonnie
Empathy can be taught. To address that, I think that the Future Problem Solving Program is great. It teaches kids the steps to solve a problem. They do research, they work together in teams, and they have to learn to cooperate. Part of the process is having the students think about how others will react to the problem and their solution, which develops empathy, compassion, and especially appreciating others’ strengths.
Teachers can learn to do Future Problem Solving in any subject area. I worked with teachers in Korea who wanted to infuse creativity into science. I taught them how to use the Future Problem Solving process with their science curriculum. I couldn’t just say, “be creative”. They needed something concrete and structured. They embraced this and it really helped them. While the Future Problem Solving program is competitive, you don’t have to do the competitive program and instead can just infuse the process into your curriculum. For example, my daughter, who was in Future Problem Solving throughout her school years, used this process to teach her college students about dystopian literature. Also, there are other good programs teachers can use that give them a structure and that they can use these to teach their standards. Some examples are: The Invention Convention, Invent Now, Odyssey of the Mind, Destination Imagination, and. Dean Kamen’s FIRST Global Programs.
Sandi
One of the things that we stress for teachers is that siloed academic areas are not preparing students for the future. We have to train them how to think, integrate, and converge ideas across different areas. One way to do this is through data visualization.
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders and also examined ways to apply their important ideas in STEAM learning. This new series showcases conversations between various Thought Leaders around an important and relevant topic.
This third article in this series is Part 2 of the inspiring conversation between a leader in neuroscience, Sandi Chapman, PhD, and a leader in creativity, Bonnie Cramond, PhD. Part 1 of this conversation was published in the Collaborative’s spring, 2022 newsletter. In it, Sandi and Bonnie discussed why it is important for today’s students to develop creative (a novel idea) and innovative (applying the novel idea to solve a problem) thinking skills. In Part 2 of the conversation with Collaborative Executive Director Lucinda Presley, they discuss how to promote these thinking skills, especially though the intersections of the arts and sciences.
Sandi Chapman, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist, is Founder and Chief Director of the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth. She also is the Dee Wyly Distinguished University Professor in the UT Dallas School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. She is a well-known pioneer in the field of brain health, developing brain health fitness measurements and protocols that benefit students and adults alike in the US and worldwide. (See newsletter article about her.) Bonnie Cramond, PhD, is Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology and Gifted and Creative Education at the University of Georgia (UGA) and former Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at UGA. She is known for her research in the assessment and development of creativity, especially among at-risk students, and for her highly respected work in the creativity field. (See newsletter article about her.)
Are there any specific tasks you can recommend for teachers or people in general to do to promote creative and innovative thinking?
Bonnie
Empathy can be taught. To address that, I think that the Future Problem Solving Program is great. It teaches kids the steps to solve a problem. They do research, they work together in teams, and they have to learn to cooperate. Part of the process is having the students think about how others will react to the problem and their solution, which develops empathy, compassion, and especially appreciating others’ strengths.
Teachers can learn to do Future Problem Solving in any subject area. I worked with teachers in Korea who wanted to infuse creativity into science. I taught them how to use the Future Problem Solving process with their science curriculum. I couldn’t just say, “be creative”. They needed something concrete and structured. They embraced this and it really helped them. While the Future Problem Solving program is competitive, you don’t have to do the competitive program and instead can just infuse the process into your curriculum. For example, my daughter, who was in Future Problem Solving throughout her school years, used this process to teach her college students about dystopian literature. Also, there are other good programs teachers can use that give them a structure and that they can use these to teach their standards. Some examples are: The Invention Convention, Invent Now, Odyssey of the Mind, Destination Imagination, and. Dean Kamen’s FIRST Global Programs.
Sandi
One of the things that we stress for teachers is that siloed academic areas are not preparing students for the future. We have to train them how to think, integrate, and converge ideas across different areas. One way to do this is through data visualization.
“Data visualization is one the most important skills that students can learn."
Data visualization is where we add simple sketching, which isn’t just art, it also helps people when they are learning something. Sketching is about extracting the big idea concepts, getting down as many quick, bold ideas as you can. In our sketching, we use zoom in [get the facts] and zoom out [get the broad concepts]. We then zoom deep and wide, which is how many different ways can that apply in life. It is sketching as many ideas as you can from a math problem, or a science problem, or an English or history lesson. This triggers innovative, possibility, and creative thinking in a very dramatic and fun way.
We are moving into a data visualization age where people want to see their progress. If I can visualize information, I can learn it faster and it’s going to have more meaning to me to change the world. I’m working with Bruce Mau, who is one of the great design thinkers of all time. He says sketching is the magic sauce to innovative thinking and creative problem solving.
We need to teach teachers to let the kids have fun with the sketching, whether it’s individually or in teams, and come up with as many ideas as they can from the lesson, such as new interpretations or new applications. In sketching, students don’t have to worry about “is it good art?”. I think that in art we often expect the students to draw a certain way with precision, but sketching is about exploring ideas and possibility thinking as rapidly as possible and not with precision. It helps the students build stronger gestalt level thinking that can link the many different pieces of facts that may be meaningful to them.
Bonnie
I think, going along with that, is this idea of webbing [coming up with lots of ideas around a certain topic and then creating a web that links related ideas]. Students often take linear notes and that isn’t connecting ideas the way webbing is.
We are moving into a data visualization age where people want to see their progress. If I can visualize information, I can learn it faster and it’s going to have more meaning to me to change the world. I’m working with Bruce Mau, who is one of the great design thinkers of all time. He says sketching is the magic sauce to innovative thinking and creative problem solving.
We need to teach teachers to let the kids have fun with the sketching, whether it’s individually or in teams, and come up with as many ideas as they can from the lesson, such as new interpretations or new applications. In sketching, students don’t have to worry about “is it good art?”. I think that in art we often expect the students to draw a certain way with precision, but sketching is about exploring ideas and possibility thinking as rapidly as possible and not with precision. It helps the students build stronger gestalt level thinking that can link the many different pieces of facts that may be meaningful to them.
Bonnie
I think, going along with that, is this idea of webbing [coming up with lots of ideas around a certain topic and then creating a web that links related ideas]. Students often take linear notes and that isn’t connecting ideas the way webbing is.
“It’s good to get the students to brainstorm where they can web the ideas and make new connections.”
Also going along with what Sandi said, when I was a classroom teacher, I used to let my students do cartooning, especially in science. This is sketching, but, for example, it’s doing a cartoon of a science experiment and seeing what happens in the process. My son was a visual learner, but 98% of learning in schools is verbal. We reach more students when we teach them various ways to think and express their ideas instead of only verbally and in written form.
Sandi
I agree.
How do the intersections (syntheses) of the arts and sciences promote creative and innovative thinking?
Sandi
Rote learning is the most fragile form of knowledge but it’s the most common form of knowledge that we teach. In the human brain, the frontal lobes start to develop in elementary school through middle school and through high school by connecting these facts to form inner constructs of synthesis. Synthesis isn’t that we need to agree on a single big concept. Instead, synthesis should also engage innovation and possibility thinking to derive as many broad concepts as possible.
We’ve shown that the frontal networks are undergoing rapid change around middle school to young adulthood. We’ve shown these networks can be strengthened by having students not just attend and remember a single fact but very quickly pull a set of facts together to form bigger ideas and then create ways these big ideas impact their personal lives. That’s what builds an agile thinker who can also stay on task – take the information in, then zoom out (draft big ideas), then connect the dots in different ways to think of how to apply it to a more general context. This enhances the brain’s health and speed of connectivity.
Because of technology, our brains are exposed to 20,000 more pieces of information than they were 7-8 years ago. Our brain isn’t built to deal with so much information in a meaningful way – so it paralyzes learning and thinking about the information in a meaningful way. When faced with too much data, we don’t synthesize; we don’t make decisions, and that’s why our frontal lobes are developing slower than in almost any other generation.
Teaching people to find the key information they need to know, how to synthesize that, and what’s relevant to use in a meaningful way builds the frontal lobes. It builds you as an innovative reasoner, a strategic thinker. When we train young adults, the smartest people aren’t those who know the most facts; the smartest are those who, out of the 100 things they are exposed to, can find the 2 most important. How can we help students today vet facts to see what is true and what they need to question and seek more information about? That’s the process that some of the Collaborative rubrics are teaching: how to sort through information and to see if it applies.
Bonnie
What the Collaborative does with synthesis is excellent. It promotes the fact that we should be doing transdisciplinary teaching, where disciplinary boundaries are erased. Humans have created these boundaried categories of knowledge (science, social studies, art, etc.) that haven’t changed in hundreds of years Those categories can be crossed. We don’t have to live in these silos of knowledge.
In Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography of Steven Jobs, he made the case that Jobs’ products were so successful because Jobs married technology and design. Jobs had a background in design and used that to make his products distinctive and appealing. The combination of art and technology was synergistic.
That’s the focus of the Collaborative, which is an excellent focus, because our brains originally don’t think in those silos. We learn to do that because that’s the way we are taught but that’s not the way the world is organized.
"“The more that we can help students see that everything is interconnected, the better it is."
If you look at some of the greatest thinkers of all time, such as Leonardo DaVinci, they are the ones who did combine disciplines. They didn’t separate art and science. What the Collaborative emphasizes that is so important is that information is important but the thinking skills which can cross over are the most important.
“People who are able to make those crossovers are going to be the most successful, innovative people.”
Sandi
Especially in this future we are living in. I know that Susan Hockfield, who was president of MIT, is writing about convergence like you were talking about, Bonnie. It’s not knowledge in a single field any more that’s going to allow us to discover.
Especially in this future we are living in. I know that Susan Hockfield, who was president of MIT, is writing about convergence like you were talking about, Bonnie. It’s not knowledge in a single field any more that’s going to allow us to discover.
“We need to work across disciplines."
For example, there are so many aspects that feed into brain health, not just cognitive neuroscience, knowledge of how the brain works. It’s having knowledge of data visualization, of how medicine and sleep affect brain health, of how the brain learns, of how we connect with people, of how we have purpose in what we are doing, and of how depression and anxiety affect the brain. So, teaching people to integrate ideas across core content areas is the best way we are going to make progress in solving the complex issues of the day.
Bonnie
I think that’s a very important point and I think what you have touched upon is the mental health and emotional well-being that creativity supports.
I keep reading about with drugs, alcohol abuse, and suicides, how much more stressed the kids are today than in the past. I’ve always thought if we could help kids learn to express their feelings creatively, they would have fewer needs to act out. For example, one of my daughter’s friends in high school committed suicide and my daughter did lots of creative things that allowed her to express her feelings in a positive way such as writing poems, making a website about her friend, writing anecdotes with friends of how they remembered this friend, and planting a garden in memory of this friend. We don’t think enough about how creative outlets can help with emotional health. I wrote a paper for a creativity organization about how I turned to creative outlets when I lost my husband and my son. I paint, I cook, I write poetry, and I garden as ways to deal with the grief.
Sandi
To your point, Bonnie, when we look at brain health, there are 3 factors that contribute to this emotional well-being. They are emotional stability, clarity of thinking, which is possibility and innovative thinking, and connectedness to people and purpose. We found in our training of adults that these tactical brain strategies reduce depression by almost 60% and stress by 40%. We don’t approach well-being from a mental health perspective, but more as capacity building. We teach people to be innovative, possibility thinkers, empowering them to become more of what they can be instead of defining themselves as someone who is, for example, depressed and unable to find joy. We now have 16,000 people enrolled in the BrainHealth Project from ages 18 to 100 and we are in every state and 23 countries. The whole focus is to help people embrace the potential of the human mind instead of labeling them.
Is there anything specific about the synthesis of the arts and sciences that promotes the creative and innovative thinking?
Sandi
That’s where sketching comes in. If you sketch, it makes you synthesize because you are looking at how many things you can see from this. Sketching makes you synthesize, getting into the abstract and conceptual. It gets rid of the weeds. It moves you out of procrastination where you are bogged down in the details. It also could be done using painting, clay, or food. Art allows you to move forward to capture synthesis about big ideas.
Synthesis isn’t about what is the best theme of this or the single interpretation. It’s always pushing innovative thinking that every single thing you do has many possibilities. It’s moving away from “there is a single best answer or single best artform”. By combining art and science and exploration, we are able to elevate clarity of thought and capitalize on what the brain does best – innovate new ways to do things. The art of visualization is becoming a field in itself to convey complex ideas in simple, understandable ways.
Bonnie
I think it’s also motivation. They talk about how not enough women and minorities go into science and math. A lot of times it’s because these courses can seem so dry. I think that by synthesizing creative activities into the sciences, it makes them more motivating for those who are reluctant to engage. The art/science synthesis can get more people involved than would have been.
Bonnie
I think that’s a very important point and I think what you have touched upon is the mental health and emotional well-being that creativity supports.
I keep reading about with drugs, alcohol abuse, and suicides, how much more stressed the kids are today than in the past. I’ve always thought if we could help kids learn to express their feelings creatively, they would have fewer needs to act out. For example, one of my daughter’s friends in high school committed suicide and my daughter did lots of creative things that allowed her to express her feelings in a positive way such as writing poems, making a website about her friend, writing anecdotes with friends of how they remembered this friend, and planting a garden in memory of this friend. We don’t think enough about how creative outlets can help with emotional health. I wrote a paper for a creativity organization about how I turned to creative outlets when I lost my husband and my son. I paint, I cook, I write poetry, and I garden as ways to deal with the grief.
Sandi
To your point, Bonnie, when we look at brain health, there are 3 factors that contribute to this emotional well-being. They are emotional stability, clarity of thinking, which is possibility and innovative thinking, and connectedness to people and purpose. We found in our training of adults that these tactical brain strategies reduce depression by almost 60% and stress by 40%. We don’t approach well-being from a mental health perspective, but more as capacity building. We teach people to be innovative, possibility thinkers, empowering them to become more of what they can be instead of defining themselves as someone who is, for example, depressed and unable to find joy. We now have 16,000 people enrolled in the BrainHealth Project from ages 18 to 100 and we are in every state and 23 countries. The whole focus is to help people embrace the potential of the human mind instead of labeling them.
Is there anything specific about the synthesis of the arts and sciences that promotes the creative and innovative thinking?
Sandi
That’s where sketching comes in. If you sketch, it makes you synthesize because you are looking at how many things you can see from this. Sketching makes you synthesize, getting into the abstract and conceptual. It gets rid of the weeds. It moves you out of procrastination where you are bogged down in the details. It also could be done using painting, clay, or food. Art allows you to move forward to capture synthesis about big ideas.
Synthesis isn’t about what is the best theme of this or the single interpretation. It’s always pushing innovative thinking that every single thing you do has many possibilities. It’s moving away from “there is a single best answer or single best artform”. By combining art and science and exploration, we are able to elevate clarity of thought and capitalize on what the brain does best – innovate new ways to do things. The art of visualization is becoming a field in itself to convey complex ideas in simple, understandable ways.
Bonnie
I think it’s also motivation. They talk about how not enough women and minorities go into science and math. A lot of times it’s because these courses can seem so dry. I think that by synthesizing creative activities into the sciences, it makes them more motivating for those who are reluctant to engage. The art/science synthesis can get more people involved than would have been.
Thanks to both for an amazing and provocative conversation! You've certainly given our readers a lot to think about
| Media and Technology Helping Girls Learn to Innovate Latinitas, an Austin, Texas-based institution, is inspiring young women of color to become future leaders. They are doing this through several programs that immerse these girls in media and technology. Playing a pivotal role in this institution is Collaborative Advisory Council member Gabriella (Gabi) Kane. Gabi was recently named the Latinitas Director of Development and Engagement. In that role, she provides essential administrative, logistical, and creative support to grow and sustain Latinitas programs and partnerships. She builds strong partnerships and diverse fundraising streams and also is responsible for maintaining a community of volunteers, interns, and other key committee members that help advance the mission of Latinitas. She said, “Latinitas has a vision to support the next generation of courageous leaders. When girls find new confidence in themselves during our programs and can see themselves pursuing careers they hadn't considered before, we know we are fulfilling that vision." |   |
Learning Engineering: Supporting Education
Contributor: Michael Jay, Collaborative Board Member
While the Innovation Collaborative is thoughtfully developing transdisciplinary curriculum and activities, the discipline of learning engineering is emerging to address the larger question of how we design, develop, research, and iterate learning experiences. Learning engineering also can contribute to transdisciplinary learning.
The learning engineering initiative making great strides is ICICLE (Industry Connections Industry Consortium on Learning Engineering). A part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), ICICLE is in its fifth year.
Learning Engineering, as defined by ICICLE, “is a process and practice that applies the learning sciences using human-centered engineering design methodologies and data-informed decision-making to support learners and their development.”
This work can be applied in K-12, out-of-school, and higher education environments. Learning engineering is especially applicable to curriculum development and data collection. It brings together what is known about how people learn with data, informed by engineering processes. This, in turn, generates quality learning experiences that benefit from successive improvement.
ICICLE had its annual meeting this year at MIT where a book, The Learning Engineering Toolkit (2022 Routledge), written by many of ICICLE’s active members and edited by Jim Goodell and Janet Kolodner, was released.
Though the group has a monthly community call, the real work is done in the Special Interest Group (SIG) and Market Interest Group (MIG) meetings. The SIGs and MIGs include a Higher Education MIG, a Corporate MIG, a Tools and Instrumentation SIG, a Curriculum and Competencies SIG, and many more. It is in these smaller groups where the real work of the initiative is accomplished and most relationships are built.
ICICLE is open to participation by IEEE members and non-members alike. You can find out more at the ICICLE website (https://sagroups.ieee.org/icicle/) where you also can sign up to participate and /or to receive information about the work and meetings of Consortium (http://eepurl.com/diEG21).
Innovation Collaborative board member, Michael Jay, is serving his third year as ICICLE chair.
Contributor: Michael Jay, Collaborative Board Member
While the Innovation Collaborative is thoughtfully developing transdisciplinary curriculum and activities, the discipline of learning engineering is emerging to address the larger question of how we design, develop, research, and iterate learning experiences. Learning engineering also can contribute to transdisciplinary learning.
The learning engineering initiative making great strides is ICICLE (Industry Connections Industry Consortium on Learning Engineering). A part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), ICICLE is in its fifth year.
Learning Engineering, as defined by ICICLE, “is a process and practice that applies the learning sciences using human-centered engineering design methodologies and data-informed decision-making to support learners and their development.”
This work can be applied in K-12, out-of-school, and higher education environments. Learning engineering is especially applicable to curriculum development and data collection. It brings together what is known about how people learn with data, informed by engineering processes. This, in turn, generates quality learning experiences that benefit from successive improvement.
ICICLE had its annual meeting this year at MIT where a book, The Learning Engineering Toolkit (2022 Routledge), written by many of ICICLE’s active members and edited by Jim Goodell and Janet Kolodner, was released.
Though the group has a monthly community call, the real work is done in the Special Interest Group (SIG) and Market Interest Group (MIG) meetings. The SIGs and MIGs include a Higher Education MIG, a Corporate MIG, a Tools and Instrumentation SIG, a Curriculum and Competencies SIG, and many more. It is in these smaller groups where the real work of the initiative is accomplished and most relationships are built.
ICICLE is open to participation by IEEE members and non-members alike. You can find out more at the ICICLE website (https://sagroups.ieee.org/icicle/) where you also can sign up to participate and /or to receive information about the work and meetings of Consortium (http://eepurl.com/diEG21).
Innovation Collaborative board member, Michael Jay, is serving his third year as ICICLE chair.
Just STEAMagine!
Contributor: Merrie Koester, Collaborative Advisory Council member
It is important to foster in students who feel alienated in science and engineering environments the rich creative and imaginative natures of these fields.
A paper I presented at a past annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association addresses this. Entitled “Imagination and the Arts as Antidotes for STEM Education Malaise and Alienation"’, my talk was part of a session entitled Eisner in Mind: Fresh Perspectives on Inquiry and Education.
What I knew first-hand from decades of teaching science to students who also struggle to read: When achieving science literacy depends primarily on reading and listening fluency, there can be break-downs in the processes of communication and meaning making that lead to student shut-downs and alienation.
By contrast, leading arts education scholar Elliot Eisner called for more enlightened curriculum practices that use resources from the arts and literature to help children understand what isn’t revealed in any text. He actively called for university professors and researchers to go into classrooms to discern those ‘qualities’ which characterized artistic forms of teaching and multiple ways of knowing and being human and then to re-present their data in ways that authentically and evocatively captured the complexity of classroom interactions. Additionally, scholar Eve Tuck described a ‘desire-based’ framework for STEM education that does not position youth from non-dominant communities as in need of repair, but rather foregrounds these same youth as resources of social transformation. Models for meaningful, culturally responsive ‘STEM-Rich Making’ in afterschool settings also are emerging, as well as scholars’ increasing calls for developing a ‘maker attitude’ in the school science classroom.
All these strategies can help move previously alienated students toward an appreciation of and an affinity for the naturally creative and imaginative nature of science and engineering practices
Contributor: Merrie Koester, Collaborative Advisory Council member
It is important to foster in students who feel alienated in science and engineering environments the rich creative and imaginative natures of these fields.
A paper I presented at a past annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association addresses this. Entitled “Imagination and the Arts as Antidotes for STEM Education Malaise and Alienation"’, my talk was part of a session entitled Eisner in Mind: Fresh Perspectives on Inquiry and Education.
What I knew first-hand from decades of teaching science to students who also struggle to read: When achieving science literacy depends primarily on reading and listening fluency, there can be break-downs in the processes of communication and meaning making that lead to student shut-downs and alienation.
By contrast, leading arts education scholar Elliot Eisner called for more enlightened curriculum practices that use resources from the arts and literature to help children understand what isn’t revealed in any text. He actively called for university professors and researchers to go into classrooms to discern those ‘qualities’ which characterized artistic forms of teaching and multiple ways of knowing and being human and then to re-present their data in ways that authentically and evocatively captured the complexity of classroom interactions. Additionally, scholar Eve Tuck described a ‘desire-based’ framework for STEM education that does not position youth from non-dominant communities as in need of repair, but rather foregrounds these same youth as resources of social transformation. Models for meaningful, culturally responsive ‘STEM-Rich Making’ in afterschool settings also are emerging, as well as scholars’ increasing calls for developing a ‘maker attitude’ in the school science classroom.
All these strategies can help move previously alienated students toward an appreciation of and an affinity for the naturally creative and imaginative nature of science and engineering practices
By James Lee from Chester, NH, USA - 2010 08 13 star trail, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30064009
See Cool Images of Space and Earth Phenomena
Want to see amazing images of star trails, airglow, and an Earth-bound thunderstorm’s lightning flashes – from outer space?
Taken by NASA astronaut and astrophotographer Donald Pettit during a previous mission to the International Space Station, these images integrate the scientific phenomena with inspiring visual imagery.
Want to see amazing images of star trails, airglow, and an Earth-bound thunderstorm’s lightning flashes – from outer space?
Taken by NASA astronaut and astrophotographer Donald Pettit during a previous mission to the International Space Station, these images integrate the scientific phenomena with inspiring visual imagery.
Visual Art Communicates Scientific Research
The Artist + Researcher Exhibition in downtown Phoenix explains complex scientific research through an art exhibition. This project pairs university science researchers who develop concepts that are often difficult for the layman to grasp with artists. The artist uses visual art to explain these scientific concepts and to make them much more approachable, understandable, and relatable. The researchers are from Arizona’s three public universities.
The Artist + Researcher Exhibition in downtown Phoenix explains complex scientific research through an art exhibition. This project pairs university science researchers who develop concepts that are often difficult for the layman to grasp with artists. The artist uses visual art to explain these scientific concepts and to make them much more approachable, understandable, and relatable. The researchers are from Arizona’s three public universities.
STEAM Dissertation
A recent doctoral dissertation in educational leadership examined STEAM from the perspective of what defines a STEAM school – its instructional, organizational, and cultural practices.
Developed by David Holt, EdD, at California State Polytechnic University, the dissertation developed guidelines for school leaders to use in developing effective STEAM programs. The findings include the importance of art education, teacher professional development, project-based learning, development of the school community, and removing barriers.
For more information, contact David Holt at drholt@cpp.edu.
A recent doctoral dissertation in educational leadership examined STEAM from the perspective of what defines a STEAM school – its instructional, organizational, and cultural practices.
Developed by David Holt, EdD, at California State Polytechnic University, the dissertation developed guidelines for school leaders to use in developing effective STEAM programs. The findings include the importance of art education, teacher professional development, project-based learning, development of the school community, and removing barriers.
For more information, contact David Holt at drholt@cpp.edu.
Here are the highlights of some notable articles in STEM Integration.
No Boundaries
Ani Liu blurs the boundaries between art and science. The research-based artist has found dynamic ways to confront conversations about female empowerment, motherhood, and labor in her artwork. Liu “thinks of her body as a tool — and the subject — of artmaking. In her work, the 36-year-old research-based artist visualizes the emotional experiences she underwent at every stage in her life.” This description by Xintian Wang in The Huffington Post is not only a great example of integration but a potential motivator for young people who refuse to accept boundaries in their work or their imagination. How Ani Liu Is Brilliantly Disguising Her Art As Science | HuffPost Entertainment
Unpacking STEM
Cassie Bess describes her experiences in looking at human impacts on the environment for young children in "Unpacking the STEM Disciplines". Students leap over disciplinary boundaries in their efforts to reduce the impact of plastic water bottles. This multi-week inquiry supported students’ desire to create a positive change in their community. Follow her step-by-step experience that appears at Unpacking the STEM Disciplines | NSTA
Engaging the Unengaged
Reflecting on the problem of recruiting engineering students, Cary Sneider and Mihir Ravel summarize research on how to engage students in engineering in the journal Connected Science Learning (August, 2022). Their conclusions support the value of introducing an engineering problem early, continuing it over time, and engaging in relevant problems. These strategies were all components of successful studies. They present guidelines for successful design challenges at https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-july-august-2022/engaging-value-engineering
Never Too Young for Photography
Kids Gardening presents a number of age-appropriate interdisciplinary activities in https://kidsgardening.org/resources/lesson-plan-photographing-shapes-and-patterns-in-nature/?mc_cid=b33302ff06&mc_eid=60d7e55c7e%C2%A0. It’s a great time for looking at leaves in the fall. This core activity lends itself to extensions like creating a photo field guide and writing about images. Directions and suggestions are included.
From the Garden to the Racetrack
The roar of a NASCAR track becomes the backdrop for this interdisciplinary unit from NSTA. Students observe a NASCAR engine and notice it only makes sounds when it is running, which raises this question: How does an engine make sounds? Observations and inductive reasoning are all part of the process in this series of activities. How Do Things Make Sound? | NSTA
How to Build Bridges
The National Science Foundation has explored how to bridge the gap between formal and informal science learning environments. The core group of the research project was the ILETES Collaborative, a group of nine teachers who taught middle or high school science in New York City public schools who also had engaged in ISE (Informal Science Education) either as a part of their preservice or in-service teacher training or both. Participants reflected on how the cultures of each learning environment differed, and addressed the question: “Why can’t we put the (same methods of) informal experiences inside the classroom?”. Among the implications were:
The implications of the study include ways to make connections, center identities, and leverage learner strengths. Teacher-Learning, Meaning-Making, and Integrating ISE Practices in Diverse Urban Classrooms | NSTA
STEM from the Start
JASON Learning’s Early Childhood STEM program has been recognized with the Trailblazer: Early Learning (PreK-6) award by a consortium of STEM associations. The Trailblazer: Early Learning category recognizes providers who offer products and services that push the boundaries of technology for teaching and learning. This 65-lesson series incorporates not only the traditional STEM disciplines but also reading, art, music, and technology. The lessons are embedded in a storyline framework and each includes use of award-winning literature. The judges describe it as “a robust resource that has intentionally been designed to ignite the curiosity of children” and note “the platform has a vast array of lessons that incorporate all areas of STEM.” https://jason.org/jason-learning-wins-two-best-of-stem-2022-awards/
No Boundaries
Ani Liu blurs the boundaries between art and science. The research-based artist has found dynamic ways to confront conversations about female empowerment, motherhood, and labor in her artwork. Liu “thinks of her body as a tool — and the subject — of artmaking. In her work, the 36-year-old research-based artist visualizes the emotional experiences she underwent at every stage in her life.” This description by Xintian Wang in The Huffington Post is not only a great example of integration but a potential motivator for young people who refuse to accept boundaries in their work or their imagination. How Ani Liu Is Brilliantly Disguising Her Art As Science | HuffPost Entertainment
Unpacking STEM
Cassie Bess describes her experiences in looking at human impacts on the environment for young children in "Unpacking the STEM Disciplines". Students leap over disciplinary boundaries in their efforts to reduce the impact of plastic water bottles. This multi-week inquiry supported students’ desire to create a positive change in their community. Follow her step-by-step experience that appears at Unpacking the STEM Disciplines | NSTA
Engaging the Unengaged
Reflecting on the problem of recruiting engineering students, Cary Sneider and Mihir Ravel summarize research on how to engage students in engineering in the journal Connected Science Learning (August, 2022). Their conclusions support the value of introducing an engineering problem early, continuing it over time, and engaging in relevant problems. These strategies were all components of successful studies. They present guidelines for successful design challenges at https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-july-august-2022/engaging-value-engineering
Never Too Young for Photography
Kids Gardening presents a number of age-appropriate interdisciplinary activities in https://kidsgardening.org/resources/lesson-plan-photographing-shapes-and-patterns-in-nature/?mc_cid=b33302ff06&mc_eid=60d7e55c7e%C2%A0. It’s a great time for looking at leaves in the fall. This core activity lends itself to extensions like creating a photo field guide and writing about images. Directions and suggestions are included.
From the Garden to the Racetrack
The roar of a NASCAR track becomes the backdrop for this interdisciplinary unit from NSTA. Students observe a NASCAR engine and notice it only makes sounds when it is running, which raises this question: How does an engine make sounds? Observations and inductive reasoning are all part of the process in this series of activities. How Do Things Make Sound? | NSTA
How to Build Bridges
The National Science Foundation has explored how to bridge the gap between formal and informal science learning environments. The core group of the research project was the ILETES Collaborative, a group of nine teachers who taught middle or high school science in New York City public schools who also had engaged in ISE (Informal Science Education) either as a part of their preservice or in-service teacher training or both. Participants reflected on how the cultures of each learning environment differed, and addressed the question: “Why can’t we put the (same methods of) informal experiences inside the classroom?”. Among the implications were:
- How to think expansively about field experiences
- How to engage in real-world science
- How to evolve as a teacher-learner.
The implications of the study include ways to make connections, center identities, and leverage learner strengths. Teacher-Learning, Meaning-Making, and Integrating ISE Practices in Diverse Urban Classrooms | NSTA
STEM from the Start
JASON Learning’s Early Childhood STEM program has been recognized with the Trailblazer: Early Learning (PreK-6) award by a consortium of STEM associations. The Trailblazer: Early Learning category recognizes providers who offer products and services that push the boundaries of technology for teaching and learning. This 65-lesson series incorporates not only the traditional STEM disciplines but also reading, art, music, and technology. The lessons are embedded in a storyline framework and each includes use of award-winning literature. The judges describe it as “a robust resource that has intentionally been designed to ignite the curiosity of children” and note “the platform has a vast array of lessons that incorporate all areas of STEM.” https://jason.org/jason-learning-wins-two-best-of-stem-2022-awards/
Neuroscience, Creativity, and Innovation: A Collaborative Thought Leader Conversation – Part 1
5/16/2022
The Collaborative’s Research Thought Leaders help provide the strong research foundation upon which the Collaborative’s work rests. Each Thought Leader is nationally and internationally recognized in their own field and brings an extensive depth of experience and expertise. They also are adept at working across disciplines.
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders and also examined ways to apply their important ideas in STEAM learning. This new series showcases conversations between various Thought Leaders around an important and relevant topic. The first article in this series featured arts expert Rob Horowitz, PhD, and science education expert Hubert Dyasi, PhD, discussing the intersections of the arts and sciences. The second and third articles in this series feature conversations between leaders in the neuroscience and creativity worlds. In Part 1, cognitive neuroscientist Sandi Chapman, PhD, and creativity expert Bonnie Cramond, PhD, discuss the importance of students’ use of creative and innovative thinking. In Part 2, they will talk about practical applications of these thinking skills.
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders and also examined ways to apply their important ideas in STEAM learning. This new series showcases conversations between various Thought Leaders around an important and relevant topic. The first article in this series featured arts expert Rob Horowitz, PhD, and science education expert Hubert Dyasi, PhD, discussing the intersections of the arts and sciences. The second and third articles in this series feature conversations between leaders in the neuroscience and creativity worlds. In Part 1, cognitive neuroscientist Sandi Chapman, PhD, and creativity expert Bonnie Cramond, PhD, discuss the importance of students’ use of creative and innovative thinking. In Part 2, they will talk about practical applications of these thinking skills.
Sandi Chapman, PhD, is Founder and Chief Director of the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth. She also is the Dee Wyly Distinguished University Professor in the UT Dallas School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. She is a well-known pioneer in the field of brain health, developing brain health fitness measurements and protocols that benefit students and adults alike in the US and worldwide. (See newsletter article about her.)
Bonnie Cramond, PhD, is Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology and Gifted and Creative Education at the University of Georgia (UGA) and former Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at UGA. She is known for her research in the assessment and development of creativity, especially among at-risk students, and for her highly respected work in the creativity field. (See newsletter article about her.)
In this conversation with Collaborative Executive Director Lucinda Presley, Sandi and Bonnie engaged in an inspiring discussion about the importance of creative and innovative thinking.
Why is it important for today’s students to develop creative and innovative thinking skills?
Bonnie: As Hubert Dysasi, the Collaborative’s science Thought Leader, pointed out in the Thought Leader interview in the last newsletter, creativity has always been important, but hasn’t been recognized as such. However, our problems are becoming more complex and are coming at us faster. Also, knowledge is accumulating, and people are interacting more, so that calls on us to be more innovative and creative.
For students, we should be teaching creative and innovative thinking with what the students are learning in school. For example, in science, I think students should be dealing with problems that have no answers and then be thinking of solutions. This thinking is not just something that should be taught outside of school.
Why is it important for today’s students to develop creative and innovative thinking skills?
Bonnie: As Hubert Dysasi, the Collaborative’s science Thought Leader, pointed out in the Thought Leader interview in the last newsletter, creativity has always been important, but hasn’t been recognized as such. However, our problems are becoming more complex and are coming at us faster. Also, knowledge is accumulating, and people are interacting more, so that calls on us to be more innovative and creative.
For students, we should be teaching creative and innovative thinking with what the students are learning in school. For example, in science, I think students should be dealing with problems that have no answers and then be thinking of solutions. This thinking is not just something that should be taught outside of school.
“Creative thinking definitely should be infused in what students are learning in school if we want them to think like this as they grow older.”
Sandi: Our brains are uniquely and elegantly wired to be creative. Creative thinking is the brain’s turbo fuel that energizes how we create new ways to solve, learn, connect, and orchestrate our daily lives, starting young and remaining until late life. Creative thinking is remarkably apparent in young children but all too often learning in school shifts to rote learning and memory of facts.
Throughout our life, from elementary to middle to high school to young adult, our brain is wired to seek newness and to be innovative. It loves to solve problems. The World Economic Forum has said that some of the most important skills for thriving in the future, in whatever walk of life, are to be a flexible, innovative, possibility thinker, and to be able to solve problems that don’t yet exist. As Bonnie said, our world is changing so rapidly we don’t know what facts we need to know because they are being turned over so quickly.
We are moving out of the information age where knowledge and how much you know makes you smart and successful. Now, we can look up facts so quickly, kids often do not see the importance of memorizing so many facts and then ‘dumping’ them after testing. I am not saying that facts aren’t important to learn, it just may be more vital and a better use of our brain’s energy to learn to connect different ideas in new ways. And the added bonus is that such innovative problem-solving builds stronger neural connections. Certainly, our brain can be a massive fact storage machine, but it is designed to achieve so much more.
Throughout our life, from elementary to middle to high school to young adult, our brain is wired to seek newness and to be innovative. It loves to solve problems. The World Economic Forum has said that some of the most important skills for thriving in the future, in whatever walk of life, are to be a flexible, innovative, possibility thinker, and to be able to solve problems that don’t yet exist. As Bonnie said, our world is changing so rapidly we don’t know what facts we need to know because they are being turned over so quickly.
We are moving out of the information age where knowledge and how much you know makes you smart and successful. Now, we can look up facts so quickly, kids often do not see the importance of memorizing so many facts and then ‘dumping’ them after testing. I am not saying that facts aren’t important to learn, it just may be more vital and a better use of our brain’s energy to learn to connect different ideas in new ways. And the added bonus is that such innovative problem-solving builds stronger neural connections. Certainly, our brain can be a massive fact storage machine, but it is designed to achieve so much more.
“We are moving into a brain economy where innovation is mandatory.”
To thrive wherever we are, we’ve got to train and stretch our brain skills to embrace innovation through “possibility thinking”. The more we engage the brain in this way, the more a child of any age will show excitement about new learning.
“Innovation and creative thinking are the key brain skills needed for students in schools and for emerging adults to prepare for our rapidly changing future.”
Bonnie: I can see this need for creative and innovative thinking in the different ways that generations think. For example, millennials don’t mail things or print hard copies, but our generation does need to print them out. It’s a whole different way of looking at the world. And the toddler living in my house will see the world even more differently. Things are changing and we can’t become static. Creativity is about moving forward and being flexible. In the business world, they talk about this as being nimble, meaning being able to change and adapt to changing circumstances. We need to be nimble in all fields to keep up with this dynamic world.
Sandi: Creativity and innovation are continually seeking ways to improve some task, relationship, or habit. Finding 3 to 5 things every single day you can improve in some way helps the brain’s frontal networks strengthen. The frontal networks develop throughout the teenage years into early adulthood and are responsible for our higher order thinking, decision-making, and problem solving. Oftentimes it is just a small tweak, not a completely new output or task. It’s constantly looking for ways to improve life habits, meaningful relationships, or your big idea thinking. Innovation can be used in so many different aspects of building brain capacity. In our SMART program for middle schoolers, whom the majority are underserved and living in poverty, we train them a lot of the creative and innovative thinking skills from the rubrics that the Collaborative developed. What our research revealed is that students improve their learning when they innovate and create new knowledge across science, history, math, and English. These gains in learning fuel confidence and ignite individual belief in what their brain can achieve. The benefit of students learning to use their brain better to create new knowledge then cascades down to help students ‘learn the facts’ better. As a result, they do better on statewide standardized tests.
Innovation helps your brain see what it needs to know and then agilely see the application of these facts in a broader, real-life context. By giving students strategies that teach youth how to learn, not what to learn; we were able to close the gap of these middle school students, who were at least a year or more behind. In sum, by teaching innovative thinking, students improved their scores across all content areas.
Sandi: Creativity and innovation are continually seeking ways to improve some task, relationship, or habit. Finding 3 to 5 things every single day you can improve in some way helps the brain’s frontal networks strengthen. The frontal networks develop throughout the teenage years into early adulthood and are responsible for our higher order thinking, decision-making, and problem solving. Oftentimes it is just a small tweak, not a completely new output or task. It’s constantly looking for ways to improve life habits, meaningful relationships, or your big idea thinking. Innovation can be used in so many different aspects of building brain capacity. In our SMART program for middle schoolers, whom the majority are underserved and living in poverty, we train them a lot of the creative and innovative thinking skills from the rubrics that the Collaborative developed. What our research revealed is that students improve their learning when they innovate and create new knowledge across science, history, math, and English. These gains in learning fuel confidence and ignite individual belief in what their brain can achieve. The benefit of students learning to use their brain better to create new knowledge then cascades down to help students ‘learn the facts’ better. As a result, they do better on statewide standardized tests.
Innovation helps your brain see what it needs to know and then agilely see the application of these facts in a broader, real-life context. By giving students strategies that teach youth how to learn, not what to learn; we were able to close the gap of these middle school students, who were at least a year or more behind. In sum, by teaching innovative thinking, students improved their scores across all content areas.
“Innovation isn’t unique to any certain area; it’s everything. Innovation and creativity are what our brain is wired to do.”
Bonnie: When you talk about that, I think of the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow’s quote where he said a first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting. For example, when I talk to groups, I’ll ask if anyone is not intelligent and no one will say that aren’t intelligent. But people say all the time “I’m not creative” because they can’t paint or write poetry. But, when you talk to them, you find out they are really creative teachers or really creative parents. But people don’t credit, as you were saying, Sandi, the everyday things where they use their creativity.
“It’s important to understand that people can use creativity in everything they do and the creativity enriches their lives.”
Sandi: I agree with you, Bonnie, where we think creativity is only art.
“But creativity is everything.
It’s our human relationships, our purpose in life, our journey in life, and our ability to find emotional balance when everything is so depressing around us. I say we are moving into a brain economy because our brain doesn’t need to know rote facts. We can look them up on our app. But the brain can use innovation thinking to figure out a road map when we aren’t given one to succeed today. That’s why formal education is hurting our students in some way when they don’t embrace the power of the human mind. Bonnie, I love Maslow’s example of the soup.
Bonnie: I think I was my most creative when I came home from work and had to think of something nutritious to feed my kids or to make life more interesting. For example, when I fed my kids leftovers, I called it buffet night with little bits of this and that. My kids thought it was a wonderful treat and never thought they were having leftovers.
Bonnie: I think I was my most creative when I came home from work and had to think of something nutritious to feed my kids or to make life more interesting. For example, when I fed my kids leftovers, I called it buffet night with little bits of this and that. My kids thought it was a wonderful treat and never thought they were having leftovers.
“Creativity is creating a fun challenge or a game out of everyday things.”
Sandi: Bonnie, another part of innovation that we need today more than ever - and that we train individuals no matter what age they are - is the innovation of relating to people, especially people with whom we disagree or have differences. For example, instead of an adult solving an elementary school student’s problem with someone they disagree with, the more effective approach is the adult asking the student to engage in possibility thinking and generate as many innovative ways as possible they can find common ground.
We are showing that compassion is one of the most complex cognitive tasks that people tackle in their day-to-day life – young and old. I tell people to forget Sudoku and instead do acts of compassion toward yourself, people you love, and also people you don’t really get along with. It uses your innovative talents to solve problems and it helps our kids to be constantly in problem solving mode to see how they can relate to someone in an innovative way.
We are showing that compassion is one of the most complex cognitive tasks that people tackle in their day-to-day life – young and old. I tell people to forget Sudoku and instead do acts of compassion toward yourself, people you love, and also people you don’t really get along with. It uses your innovative talents to solve problems and it helps our kids to be constantly in problem solving mode to see how they can relate to someone in an innovative way.
“Compassion not only helps kids develop better social skills, but it also changes their brain’s chemistry.”
When you are nice to someone, you change your neuropharmacy, your brain’s neurochemicals. You get a push of dopamine and the person you’ve just been nice to when you were really mad at them also gets the dopamine push - the feel good brain chemical.
Coming in Fall, 2022 Newsletter
See Part 2 of this conversation to learn practical applications of these important concepts.
Coming in Fall, 2022 Newsletter
See Part 2 of this conversation to learn practical applications of these important concepts.
Collaborative Launches STEAM Teacher and Administrator Professional Development Nationally
5/16/2022
The Innovation Collaborative is now offering its research-based STEAM professional development (PD) to teachers, administrators, and schools across the U.S. in in-person, online, and hybrid formats.
This professional development is based on the Collaborative’s five years of National Endowment for the Arts-supported research into the most effective practices that promote K-12 STEAM teacher and administrator success. The research was done in collaboration with master and classroom teachers, along with administrators throughout the country. K-12 educators from science, technology, engineering, the arts, math, English Language Arts, and social studies participated.
One hundred percent of the reporting participants said this STEAM PD helped them understand STEAM more deeply. They also stated that the PD resulted in effective changes in their practice. Comments included: “… one of the best (and most useful) professional development opportunities I have taken part in for quite some time” and “it had real stuff you can take ….and use right away”. It also was noted by participants that because of this training, there was an increase in their students’ abilities to think across disciplines for greater creativity and content understanding.
The professional development options are:
In-person: 1 day or 2 days, including virtual support
Online: A choice between 15 hours (basic) or 30 hours’ (comprehensive) training
Hybrid: Integrating in-person and online learning.
These trainings are customizable to meet the needs of specific schools and districts.
For more information, contact Lucinda Presley, Collaborative Executive Director, at lpresley@innovationcollaborative.org.
This professional development is based on the Collaborative’s five years of National Endowment for the Arts-supported research into the most effective practices that promote K-12 STEAM teacher and administrator success. The research was done in collaboration with master and classroom teachers, along with administrators throughout the country. K-12 educators from science, technology, engineering, the arts, math, English Language Arts, and social studies participated.
One hundred percent of the reporting participants said this STEAM PD helped them understand STEAM more deeply. They also stated that the PD resulted in effective changes in their practice. Comments included: “… one of the best (and most useful) professional development opportunities I have taken part in for quite some time” and “it had real stuff you can take ….and use right away”. It also was noted by participants that because of this training, there was an increase in their students’ abilities to think across disciplines for greater creativity and content understanding.
The professional development options are:
In-person: 1 day or 2 days, including virtual support
Online: A choice between 15 hours (basic) or 30 hours’ (comprehensive) training
Hybrid: Integrating in-person and online learning.
These trainings are customizable to meet the needs of specific schools and districts.
For more information, contact Lucinda Presley, Collaborative Executive Director, at lpresley@innovationcollaborative.org.
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Jasmine Sadler, MBA, influential member of the Collaborative’s Advisory Council and its Diversity and Out-of-School-Time Committees, has published a very helpful manual for beginning professionals. Though addressing STEM careers, the book is applicable to early-stage professionals in any careers.
It offers helpful advice on identity, interpersonal relationships, time management, planning for the future, work-life balance, and much more. It guides young adults through the complexities of beginning a promising career.
Ms. Sadler also is CEO of the STEAM Collaborative, which develops leaders to promote success for underrepresented groups. She integrates her degree in aerospace engineering with her training as a ballerina to enhance the education of diverse students though integrating STEM and the arts. Winner of numerous awards, Ms. Sadler was recently selected as an IF/THEN Ambassador by the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The IF/THEN Ambassadors are females who have made a significant contribution to STEM. Her statue, along with those of other IF/THEN Ambassadors, was on view this spring in Washington DC. They were on view at the Smithsonian Castle and participating Smithsonian galleries across the National Mall. Ms. Sadler has an MBA and is currently pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership.
To find out more about the book, go to: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991052153
It offers helpful advice on identity, interpersonal relationships, time management, planning for the future, work-life balance, and much more. It guides young adults through the complexities of beginning a promising career.
Ms. Sadler also is CEO of the STEAM Collaborative, which develops leaders to promote success for underrepresented groups. She integrates her degree in aerospace engineering with her training as a ballerina to enhance the education of diverse students though integrating STEM and the arts. Winner of numerous awards, Ms. Sadler was recently selected as an IF/THEN Ambassador by the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The IF/THEN Ambassadors are females who have made a significant contribution to STEM. Her statue, along with those of other IF/THEN Ambassadors, was on view this spring in Washington DC. They were on view at the Smithsonian Castle and participating Smithsonian galleries across the National Mall. Ms. Sadler has an MBA and is currently pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership.
To find out more about the book, go to: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991052153
Tinkering for Early Childhood
Tinkering is great for early childhood settings, but there is a great need for resources providing information on how to offer these important experiences.
A great resource is now here! Tinkering Together: Exploring Findings and Futures in Early Childhood Tinkering is a National Science Foundation-funded online multimedia site that explores, “tinkering, making and STEAM in early childhood”. It is led by tinkering experts at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco and features important early learning practitioners such as childcare providers and representatives of programs in libraries and museums. On this website you can see informative videos, podcasts, and reflections from these experts, along with tinkering practices in a variety of settings in addition to resources to develop your own early childhood experiences.
To find out more, go to https://tinkeringtogether.org/
Why is STEAM Important in Today’s Education?
As today’s students prepare for a workforce and future problems that can’t be imagined today, innovation is key. That is where STEAM comes in. It can teach students not only the mandated disciplinary content but also how to question, experiment, solve problems, and create.
Learn more by following this link: https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/steam-education-in-schools/
As today’s students prepare for a workforce and future problems that can’t be imagined today, innovation is key. That is where STEAM comes in. It can teach students not only the mandated disciplinary content but also how to question, experiment, solve problems, and create.
Learn more by following this link: https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/steam-education-in-schools/
Increasing STEM Diversity Through Dance
The STEM from Dance (SFD) initiative reports that Black and Latina women occupy only 4% of the STEM workforce. This initiative uses dance to empower and encourage low-income minority girls to pursue STEM careers. It operates in 14 states and 3 countries. It has received numerous awards, including being recognized worldwide by Zoom as a Zoom EdInnovation Award Winner. The SFD founder, Yamilèe Toussaint Beach, like the Collaborative’s Jasmine Sadler (see Collaborative Member Authors Useful Book for Early-stage Professionals in this newsletter) was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador as a STEM female role model. She has training in mechanical engineering in addition to dance.
Find out more at https://www.stemfromdance.org/
The STEM from Dance (SFD) initiative reports that Black and Latina women occupy only 4% of the STEM workforce. This initiative uses dance to empower and encourage low-income minority girls to pursue STEM careers. It operates in 14 states and 3 countries. It has received numerous awards, including being recognized worldwide by Zoom as a Zoom EdInnovation Award Winner. The SFD founder, Yamilèe Toussaint Beach, like the Collaborative’s Jasmine Sadler (see Collaborative Member Authors Useful Book for Early-stage Professionals in this newsletter) was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador as a STEM female role model. She has training in mechanical engineering in addition to dance.
Find out more at https://www.stemfromdance.org/
Addressing Overcrowding in STEM/STEAM labs and Makerspaces
STEM/STEAM labs and Makerspaces have specific requirements to ensure student safety. However, according to research, these labs are experiencing overcrowding with larger class sizes. This overcrowding affects occupancy loads that take into account lab size, types of hazards, and number of exits. The overcrowding also is affected by teacher-student ratios. This can lead to accidents.
Learn more about this by following this link: https://www.nsta.org/blog/lab-safety-overcrowded-stemsteam-labs-and-makerspaces
STEM/STEAM labs and Makerspaces have specific requirements to ensure student safety. However, according to research, these labs are experiencing overcrowding with larger class sizes. This overcrowding affects occupancy loads that take into account lab size, types of hazards, and number of exits. The overcrowding also is affected by teacher-student ratios. This can lead to accidents.
Learn more about this by following this link: https://www.nsta.org/blog/lab-safety-overcrowded-stemsteam-labs-and-makerspaces
Transform Learning with Digitized Museum Collections
With COVID restrictions, many educators have had to re-imagine what learning looks like. This includes developing effective online learning tools to engage and educate students. One impressive tool is digitized museum collections. These fascinating collections make available to students and teachers a wide variety of opportunities for exploration. While this article points out how science museum resources can be used, these strategies also can be adapted to other museums, such as art and history museums. Integrating these can provide engaging STEAM experiences.
Learn more at https://www.nsta.org/connected-science-learning/connected-science-learning-march-april-2022/rethinking-online-science
In the March/April, 2022, issue of National Science Teaching Association’s (NSTA) journal for middle school teachers, Science Scope, authors Laura Blue and Sarah Redick provide a framework for teaching science through the lens of social justice. This was inspired by a resource called Facing History (see below). Standards for the program were derived from the work of an organization known as Learning for Justice. This activity provided an entry point for teachers to incorporate a sociotransformative approach to teaching in the context of life science.
The curriculum incorporates four key elements of the social justice approach:
Resources:
Facing History identity map activity
Learning for Justice
Socially Transformative Teaching
The curriculum incorporates four key elements of the social justice approach:
- Identity: The curriculum begins by exploring the multifaceted nature of what makes each of us unique. Using any medium they choose (such as a piece of paper and colored pencils, Google draw, or a concept webbing tool called Bubbl.us), students describe themselves.
- Diversity: Students research how people greet one another around the world and then create a greeting of their own which is safe and culturally sensitive.
- Action: Students explore bias, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, and privilege in the context of epidemiology. Using the “See, Think, Wonder” strategy, students are asked to critically evaluate pandemic-related data exploring the number of confirmed cases of COVID per 100,000 residents.
- Justice: Students explore the potential inequities of online learning in interviews with family and peers.
Resources:
Facing History identity map activity
Learning for Justice
Socially Transformative Teaching
| Upcoming Conferences Despite concerns about remaining COVID outbreaks, several exciting in-person meetings have been scheduled for 2022. |  |
.National Science Teaching Association (NSTA).
The National Science Teaching Association will host educators in Houston March 31-April 2, 2022. Conference strands include:
Developing Scientific Literacy in the Classroom, Strategies for Creating Inclusive Science Classrooms, Using Science Inquiry to Facilitate Learning for Multilingual Learners, Promoting Effective Assessments in the STEM Classroom, and Developing Accountability Systems for Expanding STEM Participation. Go to Houston National Conference on Science Education | NSTA to learn more.
The National Science Teaching Association will host educators in Houston March 31-April 2, 2022. Conference strands include:
Developing Scientific Literacy in the Classroom, Strategies for Creating Inclusive Science Classrooms, Using Science Inquiry to Facilitate Learning for Multilingual Learners, Promoting Effective Assessments in the STEM Classroom, and Developing Accountability Systems for Expanding STEM Participation. Go to Houston National Conference on Science Education | NSTA to learn more.
22 Education Conferences You Won’t Want to Miss
Go to 22 Education Conferences You Won't Want To Miss In 2022 (weareteachers.com) for a description of 21 other conferences, in addition to the NSTA conference listed above, designed for collaboration and inspiration.
Go to 22 Education Conferences You Won't Want To Miss In 2022 (weareteachers.com) for a description of 21 other conferences, in addition to the NSTA conference listed above, designed for collaboration and inspiration.
International STEM in Education Conference
There is still time to apply to present in Waikiki, Hawaii, June 8-10, 2022 at the International STEM in Education conference. The conference intends to stimulate our nation’s future economic prosperity through encouraging and inspiring more of our brightest academics in the study of STEM/STEAM and Education fields. Overview | HUIC (huichawaii.org)
There is still time to apply to present in Waikiki, Hawaii, June 8-10, 2022 at the International STEM in Education conference. The conference intends to stimulate our nation’s future economic prosperity through encouraging and inspiring more of our brightest academics in the study of STEM/STEAM and Education fields. Overview | HUIC (huichawaii.org)
Other Conferences
- Arts Education Partnership (AEP) September 13-15
- Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) September 13-15
- Educational Theatre Association (EdTA) September 28 – Oct. 2
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC) March 26
- International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA) March 9-12
- National Art Education Association (NAEA) March 3-5
- National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) November 17-20
- National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) October 29-31
“Necessity is the mother of invention”, as they say. And the resurgence of COVID variants, especially as they affect younger children, has encouraged educators to greater cooperation and forced the re-examination of ways to connect. Here are just a few of the initiatives in recent journals and conferences.
 | Promoting STEM Pathways What will the workforce of tomorrow look like? How will today’s learners prepare? While the answers are unclear, Sarah Redick and Amanda McCormick Smith suggest that students can begin their investigations through a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Fair. |
Their description of the event is in the January/February issue of National Science Teaching Association’s Science Scope. It includes valuable tips for preparing presenters before the event, debriefing students afterward, and establishing structures that will allow the effort to continue over time.
Recognizing that the future will require a variety of integrated skills, they remind planners: “Although STEM-specific subject knowledge is the focus of the day, many other content areas can find connections to the skills and habits of mind required for the workforce of tomorrow.”
Recognizing that the future will require a variety of integrated skills, they remind planners: “Although STEM-specific subject knowledge is the focus of the day, many other content areas can find connections to the skills and habits of mind required for the workforce of tomorrow.”
| The Importance of STEM Integration in the Pandemic Response Constructing a response to the current pandemic involves integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) skills. Authors Katherine Baker, Emily Faulconer, Oliver Grundmann, Sarah Haines, Tyra Hall-Pogar, Lisa Kenyon, Susan Meabh Kelly, Peter Lindeman, Brian Schmaefsky, Candace Timpte, and David Wojnowski describe the elements of that response in an editorial in the March/April 2021 issue of The Journal of College Science Teaching. |  |
“The extraordinary work…to alleviate the SARS-CoV2 pandemic would not have been possible without collaboration between academia, industry, government laboratories, and regulatory agencies that speak the common language researchers around the world know—science.” The authors provide many more examples of collaboration beyond the pandemic: “Life-saving and life-prolonging medicines, communication technologies, modes of transportation, energy-efficient building materials, or early severe weather warning systems are just a few examples of STEM inventions with a global impact.” While the article is primarily directed toward those who design curricula, it also can provide a framework as students look for examples of multidisciplinary efforts in other areas.
 | This past September, the Museum of Science, Boston, hosted an nine-day online convening of STEM researchers, practitioners, and professionals to examine the use of imagination in STEM. Funded by the National Science Foundation, “Unpacking the STEM Imagination” focused on imagination in STEM at the intersections of research and practice in informal (out-of-school-time) learning settings. |
Participants were deeply immersed in this topic through panel discussions with experts and workshops led by facilitators. Topics included “Raising the STEM Imagination”; “Unearthing the STEM Imagination”; “Imagination and STEM Futures”; “Positioning Imagination in STEM Practice and STEM Education”; ‘Cultivating Contexts for Imaginative Thinking in STEM”; “Creating Conditions for Imaginative Engagement with STEM; and “Framing a More Imaginative Future for ISE (Informal Science Education) Research and Practice”.
Many valuable resources from the convening are now available on informalscience.org. Follow this link to access the convening’s proceedings, including panel and workshop details, resources, and much more.
Of particular interest are:
Many valuable resources from the convening are now available on informalscience.org. Follow this link to access the convening’s proceedings, including panel and workshop details, resources, and much more.
Of particular interest are:
- A poster overview of the entire project
- An exercise to define imagination in STEM
- Videos of a variety of perspectives on imagination in STEM.
 | The Collaborative is building on successes and lessons learned from three previous cohorts of K-12 STEAM teacher professional development (PD) funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. It is now conducting a three-year teacher professional development (PD) project for Rowlett Middle Academy in Bradenton, Florida. |
At this school, the arts, in addition to leadership and communication skills, are integrated into curriculum. The Collaborative’s training embraces the school’s goals and includes teachers from the arts, science, math, English Language Arts, and social studies. The Collaborative helps these teachers effectively integrate their curriculum using science and arts intersections. This is made possible through the teachers’ participation in the Collaborative’s research-based online STEAM PD and through mentoring as the teachers develop, implement, and assess their STEAM-based curriculum.
At the school, the course is facilitated by Rebekka Stasny, Rowlett Science Department Head. She is a member of the Collaborative’s STEAM Effective Practices Teacher Advisory Panel and is a 2020 graduate of the Collaborative's STEAM PD. Like Ms. Stasny, selected teachers currently being trained will become mentors for cohorts who follow them.
This training is an example of the STEAM PD that the Collaborative is offering to schools and school districts.
At the school, the course is facilitated by Rebekka Stasny, Rowlett Science Department Head. She is a member of the Collaborative’s STEAM Effective Practices Teacher Advisory Panel and is a 2020 graduate of the Collaborative's STEAM PD. Like Ms. Stasny, selected teachers currently being trained will become mentors for cohorts who follow them.
This training is an example of the STEAM PD that the Collaborative is offering to schools and school districts.