Parallel Session Proceedings »
3.2.3 Transdisciplinary Made Possible: When Gifted Education Meets Culturally Responsive STEAM Education
According to the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) (2008), “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are critical to our economy, our national security, and our global leadership in innovation and research” (p. 3). However, “[O]ur present system of STEM initiatives is failing. This is especially true for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds” (p.6). There is a need to recognize and develop promising students in all the STEM fields and to provide them with significant opportunities.
Arts-integration into STEM has become increasingly prominent in working towards enhancing STEM education for all students through culturally-responsive pedagogy. Analogous to differentiated instruction, integrating the arts into STEM, as called for in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM), provides students non-traditional opportunities to access and participate in STEM, especially in the traditional formal classroom. The arts increases opportunities for learning through hands-on experiences (Philpot, 2013; Pruitt, Ingram, & Weiss, 2014) and communication through a variety of media (Zalaznick, 2015). Engaging with scientific ideas in the context of art has also been shown to deepen conceptual understanding (Gurnon, Voss-Andreae, & Stanley, 2013). The integration of arts into STEM education is powerful as it “allows the primary teacher . . . to develop rigorous, engaging activities that will address the giftedness and multipotentialities of his/her students” (Chandler & Dullaghan, 2014, p. 12). To unmask underrepresented students’ potential in STEAM, culturally responsive education considers students’ cultural and linguistic differences as assets rather than barriers to the learning process.
In this session, participants will learn about a professional learning project to help general education teachers integrate culturally responsive STEAM education into gifted education curricula and instructions. The project is guided by the Teacher Preparation Standards in Gifted and Talented Education (NAGC & Council for Exceptional Children, 2013). To facilitate teachers’ learning, the project uses various active learning strategies, including lectures, lesson plan study, and teaching demonstration. As project outcome will be the development of curriculum units based on the areas of their expertise while encouraging teachers to focus on transdisciplinary teaching and learning. Classroom observations are conducted by university instructors to capture practices of culturally responsive education. Teachers and university instructors use critical reflective practices to develop ongoing professional learning projects and curriculum units.