5 Learnings from Our Work Building and Engaging STEAM Audiences Alongside the Innovation Collaborative

By: Bridget Woodbury

Over the course of 2022, I had the pleasure of working closely with the Innovation Collaborative to help build their audience of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics Education (STEAM) supporters this year, which included conducting a focus group of educators — and their supporters — to learn more about the STEAM educational landscape and their unique interests and needs as those cultivating creative learning. 

We, at Creative Generation, were particularly interested in this project, because of our work interrogating the deep connections between artistic, cultural, and creative learning and other academic subjects and domains of human development. We wondered, what could we do to help the Collaborative meet its objectives, and also, what could the field learn from their work engaging audiences interested in these intersections.

Here are ten things we learned from that conversation:

Classroom instructors in both STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education) and the arts KNOW the value of STEAM education.

Educators we spoke to said the intentional combination of the arts with STEM education help combat learning loss, illustrate abstract concepts through play and storytelling, students enjoy learning, enhance creativity and enable shifts in thinking, and reframe learning away from old ideas of right brain vs. left brain.

This presents an opportunity for STEAM education supporters to collect and share stories of the positive impacts that STEAM education and arts integration have on learners!  

While an emphasis on test scores keeps educators from using more STEAM + arts-integration lessons, there are other limitations, too.

While participants did share that schools are making ‘data-driven decisions,’ another side-effect of the emphasis on testing is that time is at a premium. Teachers are experiencing pressure to move quickly through instruction, with some classroom educators describing that they’re required to test on certain days and begin new units on certain days. This leaves little room for activities and creative instructional time. 

In addition to these competing priorities, there are competing priorities in planning time, as well. There isn’t as much time for teachers to collaborate with one another. In part because of that lack of time, educators (and their allies on the call) feel authentic curriculum alignment between core subjects and ‘specials’ is hard to develop. While that authentic alignment is possible — one instructor shared the example of examining color blindness from both the biological perspective and one of color theory — arts integration is reduced to a superficial role. As one respondent put it, “Just because you can color something doesn’t make it STEAM.”

This presents an opportunity for STEAM education supporters to identify barriers to more arts integration and provide advocacy tools that support the inclusion of STEAM education — with data!

Educators that prioritize STEAM learning are resourceful and there are so many cool places to find STEAM inspiration…

…but existing resources are hard to find.

Participants frequently find themselves cobbling together content they find to support in-classroom instructional time. Many educators described crafting lessons from many sources. While they are “constantly googling” they also find that they have to do a lot of construction, merging lessons with arts activities. One respondent shared, “if I have hands-on ideas, I can turn them into what I need.” Another said, “nothing [I find] is a perfect fit, but I can get it close,” even if the lessons don’t have the arts intrinsically connected throughout.

This presents an opportunity for STEAM education supporters to collect and publish example lesson plans.

…but existing resources require teachers to crosswalk curricula.

Other sites that folks use include BetterLesson for PD and coaching; NASA, Texas Instruments, Amplify Science, and Science Buddies lessons, which are easily modified to include an arts component; organizations that don’t self-identify as STEAM, but are inherently artistic, like National Geographic; and standards like Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) which examines “cross-cutting concepts like patterns”, Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards, state English Language Arts standards, which educators find help keep them tuned into the “big picture.”

This presents an opportunity for STEAM education supporters to produce or amplify resources which do the crosswalk, and/or advocate these organizations include the arts, intentionally, in their resources.

…but existing resources may be too specific in a context that isn’t their own.

They also cited some regional or subject-specific resources that might offer the opportunity

to collaborate further, like A+ Schools in North Carolina; Conference for Advancement of Science Teachers in Texas; the Arts Education Journal; Regional STEM Learning Ecosystems, which have quarterly meetings for collaboration; and Young Audiences Arts for Learning state and local  Organizations.

This presents an opportunity for STEAM education supporters to create convening opportunities for educators across discplines.

The best resources are other educators.

The majority of participants described having “go-to people” that they work with directly, while others use websites like Teachers Pays Teachers to collaborate indirectly or seek out educator-influencers on Facebook and Instagram that are sharing their lesson plans. In terms of social media, teachers have specific hashtags they follow, in addition to following specific educators that share lesson plans from followers.

Unsurprisingly, STEAM supporters and educators expressed over and over that they were seeking more ways to convene and collaborate. Some areas of interest for collaboration include:

  • sharing effective lessons or workshop ideas;

  • sourcing case-making resources, both inclusive of and outside of standardized testing, for school-, district-, and state-level decision-makers;

  • community-building, a sounding board, and mentorship.

This presents an opportunity for STEAM education supporters to help educators network virtually.  

Different people are using different social media platforms for different things!

In our conversations, we sought to explore how this audience was engaging across the multitude of platforms to get connected to many of the things listed above. I’ve determined that educators are often using:

  • Facebook and Instagram to connect with each other and find classroom ideas, 

  • LinkedIn is used primarily by folks focused on the national landscape, in particular for casemaking resources and advocacy tools. 

  • LinkedIn and Twitter are often used by academic and arts administration professionals to share publications and research.

This presents an opportunity for STEAM education supporters to really target the resources they have to the right audiences.

What about you?

As we continue the conversation about collaborations between fields, sectors, and generations (watch this space for more on that), we want to hear from you! Does STEAM play a role in your work? How are you connecting with collaborators and getting new ideas?