Professional Documents
Culture Documents
To cite this article: Danielle Herro & Cassie Quigley (2017) Exploring teachers’ perceptions
of STEAM teaching through professional development: implications for teacher educators,
Professional Development in Education, 43:3, 416-438, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2016.1205507
This research involves a multi-year study examining the perspectives and class-
room practices of 21 middle school mathematics and science teachers, in the
southeastern United States, participating in professional development (PD)
exploring science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM)
literacies. This study sought to understand teachers’ perceptions and practices
before and after a PD in which STEAM integration was explored through
project-based learning involving the political, social, economical, environmental
and historical context of a local river. Participants used digital media as a means
of communicating and collaborating with peers and mentors, collecting and
analyzing data, and creating and sharing projects. Results suggest teachers
increased their understanding of STEAM to teach content and perceived the
STEAM PD as an effective initial step to change practice, citing the impor-
tance of collaboration and technology integrated directly into the learning pro-
cess. Implications from this study offer other teacher educators valuable
considerations towards developing successful STEAM PD to effect successful
STEAM teaching.
Keywords: STEAM professional development; STEAM teaching; project-based
learning; teacher education
Introduction
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is currently recognized
and widely used as a meta-discipline that bridges discrete disciplines such as
science, technology, engineering and mathematics using applications or processes
from each to create knowledge as whole (Morrison 2010). Economic, political, edu-
cational and world leaders and organizations have called for STEM-focused teaching
in order to increase academic rigor and prepare students for the workplace (Tytler
et al. 2008, National Research Council (US) 2011). However, researchers acknowl-
edge it is difficult to assess actual STEM learning when implemented in schools
(Honey et al. 2014). When referring to STEM, they suggest, ‘Existing assessments
tend to focus on knowledge in a single discipline. Furthermore, they typically focus
on content knowledge alone and give little attention to the practices in the
disciplines and applications of knowledge’ (2014, p. 6). Schachter (2011, p. 28)
points to ‘President Obama’s State of the Union address in which the president
placed STEM high on the list of the nation’s educational priorities.’ The goal,
although worthwhile, in inculcating STEM literacies in classrooms is not to create
more scientists, engineers or mathematicians (Vasquez et al. 2013), but instead to
develop capable students who can function in a highly technological world. STEM
literacies draw on each of the disciplines in an entwined manner (often referred to as
‘interdisciplinary’ or ‘multidisciplinary’) to identify, understand, connect and express
STEM concepts in a systematic way to solve problems; meaning that STEM typi-
cally focuses on separate content areas through inquiry while attempting to draw
relationships between the disciplines.
Increasing STEM learning has not been easy. Despite increasing STEM priori-
ties, advocates of STEM have struggled to conceptualize STEM instruction, which
is probably because the various stakeholders, including government officials, K–12
teachers, students, parents and businesses, have a variety of understandings of
STEM based on their own experiences (Breiner et al. 2012).
In a recent article published by Education Week, Robelen (2011) suggests that
combining the arts to ‘move STEM to STEAM’ can produce powerful and
authentic learning opportunities. STEAM, where the ‘A’ represents arts and
humanities, is conceptualized as a transdisciplinary learning process. Transdisci-
plinary teaching assists students in exploring content areas by foregrounding a
problem or issue using multiple inquiry processes, which naturally connect the
disciplines through the problem to be solved. Like STEM learning, STEAM
assumes technology is used to facilitate part of the problem-solving process, but
the primary difference between STEM and STEAM is this transdisciplinary
approach in which authentic problems are explored and students can better under-
stand how all things relate to each other. Jolly (2014) points to the tug-of-war
between STEM and STEAM proponents trying to detangle the differences. She
suggests that both have merit, but that STEM often relies primarily on mathemat-
ics and science to direct learning activities, while STEAM emphasizes design,
media and performing arts, creative thinking or even playful problem-solving
when exploring and designing solutions.
Interestingly, despite the lack of conceptual or empirical work on STEAM-based
teaching practices (Yakman 2008), STEAM-focused schools exist in a variety of
locations. Some early adopters include the Da Vinci Schools in California, Drew
Charter School in Georgia, Pulaski Middle School in Virginia, schools nationwide in
Seoul, Korea and several schools in Europe – with even more school districts adopt-
ing STEAM practices each year (Delaney 2014). However, the lack of empirical evi-
dence remains as to the efficacy of this approach for developing capable students
who are well equipped to solve problems and meet the career challenges of the mod-
ern workforce. The purpose of this article is to explore teachers’ perspectives
towards STEAM teaching practices before and after participating in professional
development (PD). We wanted to know: what are the teachers’ current perceptions
of STEAM practices; how can STEAM PD assist teachers in understanding and
valuing the role of project-based learning (PBL) and technology in STEAM units;
and in what ways do their perceptions change after participating in PD? Answering
these questions is a first step to assist in the design of future STEAM PD, guiding
effective teacher education programs, and ultimately help practitioners implement
successful STEAM practices.
418 D. Herro and C. Quigley
Transdisciplinary teaching
As stated previously, although there is little conceptualization of STEAM, research-
ers note that one difference between STEM and STEAM is that STEAM incorpo-
rates transdisciplinarity (Rinne et al. 2011, Bequette and Bequette 2012, Guyotte
et al. 2015).
Professional Development in Education 419
example of context integration, the teacher designed a lesson that involved the
context of science to situate the mathematics content in a real-world context.
Conversely, content integration focuses on the blending of the content fields into
a single curriculum in order to highlight main ideas from multiple content areas. For
example, an eighth-grade science teacher might create a unit on understanding the
financial impact of solar-powered lights in a city park. Content knowledge is
required in the area of electricity, heat transfer and efficiency but fully understanding
the financial impact requires mathematical knowledge in terms of calculating the
cost of solar-powered lights versus lights that use natural resources. In this example
of content integration, understanding the content of both mathematics and science is
required to solve this problem. Being able to integrate context and content requires a
high level of subject matter content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge,
which Cochran et al. (1993), among others, cited as a critical, yet difficult piece to
develop during transdisciplinary teaching. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is
that teachers are unable to develop the skills needed to successfully integrate content
and context, and one area falls short, which typically is the content knowledge (Lee
and Nason 2013).
What is not known is how to effectively support transdisciplinary teaching with
pedagogical techniques that enrich content and meet curricula requirements. That
said, advocates state that STEAM creates a more realistic transdisciplinary learning
experience than STEM because the arts create a space for creativity, which provides
a platform for better integration of the disciplines (Rinne et al. 2011, Miller and
Knezek 2013). Students who experienced transdisciplinary teaching not only
strengthened their learning within the disciplines, but between disciplines through
the opportunity to explore and make connections between art, music, mathematics,
science and more (Henrkisen et al. 2015). Moreover, studies into transdisciplinary
curricula found that students who experienced this type of learning were more inter-
ested in pursuing careers to support the fields of mathematics and science. One rea-
son is that students, who might not otherwise be interested in science and
mathematics, were drawn to the disciplines through this transdisciplinary approach
(Vanasupa 2012). STEAM intends to develop students’ critical thinking skills and
ability to solve complex problems by merging various subjects and applying them to
real life. The purpose of this transdisciplinary education is to appeal to students’
understanding, interests, motivation and potentials in science and technology, as well
as to increase their creativity (Henriksen 2014).
However, most teachers have used little STEAM education in their classes, due
to insufficient PD on how to implement this transdisciplinary approach into their
specific content areas (Geum and Bae 2012). Several studies conducted on the per-
ceptions of elementary and secondary teachers demonstrated that teachers have posi-
tive attitudes about STEAM education, and agree that this teaching practice would
be a shift from their traditional teacher-centered practices (e.g. lecture, notes) towards
student-centered learning (Shin and Han 2011, Han et al. 2012, Son et al. 2012).
The teachers mostly understood the core concepts and the necessity of STEAM, but
were still not clear about how to approach STEAM teaching. According to Son et al.
(2012), teachers’ awareness of STEAM education increased once they had the oppor-
tunity to make connections to their content curricula in order to understand how to
apply it to their actual teaching. This early research points to the need of clearly
defining and modeling a STEAM approach for teachers, and providing them with
opportunities to experience this approach from the perspective of students.
Professional Development in Education 421
Project-based learning
One transdisciplinary teaching approach that has demonstrated learning, increased
collaborative skills, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are all goals
of STEAM, is PBL. Project-based learning has been utilized and studied for decades
as a sound pedagogical technique that can bridge multiple disciplines (Barron 1998,
Thomas 2000, Krajcik 2015). Therefore, in order to frame our conceptions of
STEAM, we utilized PBL as a pedagogical strategy to integrate the content areas of
science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. When PBL is compared with
traditional (lecture or other non-PBL instruction) teaching, students performed better
on assessments of their content knowledge with the PBL instruction (Penuel and
Means 2000). Effective integration of PBL has demonstrated higher-levels of student
engagement, critical thinking, problem-solving and a higher level of collaboration
between students (Brush and Saye 2008, ChanLin 2008).
The specific PBL framework we utilized was Thomas’s (2000) five criteria to
define PBL: ‘Projects are central, not peripheral to the curriculum’; ‘projects are
focused on questions or problems that “drive” students to encounter (and struggle
with) the central concepts and principles of the discipline’; ‘projects involve students
in a constructive investigation’; ‘projects are student-driven to some significant
degree’; and ‘projects are realistic, not school-like’ (2000, pp. 3–4).
Despite its positive benefits, many teachers find it difficult to enact. For example,
Marx et al. (1997) documented that the challenges of successful implementation of
PBL included the following: projects were time-consuming; classrooms felt disor-
derly; teachers could not control the flow of information; it was difficult to balance
giving students independence and providing them with supports; it was difficult to
incorporate technology as a cognitive tool; and authentic assessments were hard to
design. What is not known about PBL is how it might align with STEAM teaching
to promote multiple inquiry-based approaches. Similar to transdisciplinary teaching,
we were careful to explore the challenges of PBL to ensure that the teachers were
prepared to overcome these common struggles prior to implementation.
In summary, although the literature on STEAM education practices is limited,
early findings indicate the potential for increasing participation and engagement in
STEM fields as well as ways to create capable students who can function in a highly
technological world. Moreover, through a transdisciplinary approach to PBL, stu-
dents use multiple pathways and lines of inquiry to solve complex, real-world prob-
lems, while increasing their understanding of content knowledge.
Methodology
This research explored how placing middle school teachers in the role of students’
learning through PBL and technology-enhanced PD might cause them to rethink
their teaching practices. First, we created a STEAM professional learning
422 D. Herro and C. Quigley
opportunity aligned with current standards and based on general, requisite district
requirements for content. Teacher perceptions of STEAM were examined before,
during and after the PD. The ongoing research is part of a larger study aimed at
shifting teaching practices. The third sequence of the PD courses, not yet completed
at the time of this publication, will further detail participants’ classroom implementa-
tions of STEAM practices with continued year-long supports (e.g. forming cohorts
with peers, and instructor and peer observations).
This descriptive case study (Stake 1995) employs qualitative research. Case
study is appropriate because it relies on multiple sources of evidence, and benefits
from the prior development of theoretical propositions. Stake (1995, p. xi) states that
‘Case study is the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming
to understand its activity within important circumstances.’ The teachers within the
context of the PD define the case; therefore the research is framed around the year-
long PD, focusing first on teachers during the summer sessions and their perspec-
tives and perceived influence of the PD on their future STEAM teaching. Methods
are aligned to Stake’s notion of an integrative system in that our case was interested
in the interactions within the PD, which formed participants’ perspectives towards
STEAM teaching.
Research questions
Our research questions were as follows:
STEAM school prompted the PD course sequence, only three teachers from the new
school were involved, with an additional 18 drawn from seven other schools. This
minor involvement from the STEAM middle school was purposeful because the
gradual phase in of teachers and grade levels (school year 2014/15 only had sixth-
grade students, with Grades Seven and Eight to follow in subsequent years) was
planned for the new school, it enabled other district teachers opportunities to partici-
pate and future cohorts of the STEAM PD model were anticipated.
The initial 50-hour PD, which constituted the courses ‘Project-based Learning’
and ‘Digital Media and Learning,’ focused on offering teachers background in stu-
dent interests and practices outside of school (creating with media, hands-on learn-
ing, interests in local or neighborhood issues) and then connecting those interests to
engaging STEAM practices. Using a model aligned with emerging STEAM prac-
tices described in the literature, teachers were asked to identify, understand, connect
and express STEAM concepts in a systematic way to solve problems (Vasquez et al.
2013). Throughout the course, participants formed teams and selected problems to
solve, based on their personal and professional interests, to understand the sustain-
ability of a local river flowing through a thriving downtown. Community mentors,
who served as content area experts, solicited by the instructors from local govern-
ment agencies, such as the Parks and Recreation Director and sustainable living, soil
conservation and wastewater treatment experts, provided background and evidence
regarding the economic, political, social, environmental and historical considerations
of the site. Internet research offered additional evidence to support their hypotheses
and digital media facilitated and demonstrated much of the learning. In order to have
teachers consider STEAM learning, data collection was conducted at the site,
experts guided their work and digital media enabled them to collaboratively solve
problems and express and concepts. In the following we further detail the process to
elucidate understanding:
Teachers formed teams (math, science and technology teachers) to address the follow-
ing tasks and provide potential solutions, ‘Government officials are interested in using
the waterway at [Local river name] to harvest renewable energy. Local residents are
upset about this decision and concerned about the environmental, health, political,
social and economic impact. The park is highly visible and heavily used in the city’s
vibrant downtown. Therefore, residents are asking expert scientists to take on some
important tasks: (1) To identify, document, and research both problems and alternatives
to using this waterway to harness energy and, (2) To collect and analyze data regarding
the proposed alternative to using the waterway to harness energy.’ (See Appendix 1 for
explanation of alignment with STEAM)
After initial research, the teams and community experts traveled to a local river
and surrounding sites to collect data. Teachers collected data including water quality
and flow samples, video recordings, notes and images. During the PD, technology
was introduced in mini-lessons in a ‘just-in-time’ (Hew and Brush 2007) format to
communicate, complete work or for future consideration. Google Apps were used
extensively for surveys, document sharing, mapping locations and further collaborat-
ing (via Google Hangout) with experts. Social bookmarks (Diigo, available at
https://www.diigo.com/) facilitated teacher-to-student and peer sharing of Internet
sites. WordPress blogs (https://wordpress.org/), iMovie (Apple, Inc.) and podcasting
demonstrated learning and allowed teachers to creatively mix media projects show-
casing their research and proposed solutions to identified problems regarding sus-
taining the economic or environmental health of the river. Prior to this, teachers met
424 D. Herro and C. Quigley
(Continued)
Professional Development in Education 425
Table 1. (Continued).
Day Session Activities Technology
• Google Earth – locate environmental
science in a variety of locales
• Community Quest – began thinking about
community-based questions for local
investigations (brown fields; food desserts)
• Final work time
5 Afternoon • Presentation of ‘in progress work,’
blog/media/peer evaluation
• Discussion of follow-up course (reflective
practice)
• Schedule for observations (October/
February/April) and post-survey
for an orientation day to familiarize themselves with the instructors, syllabus, Goo-
gle Apps, reading assignments and a general discussion regarding STEAM. Two
weeks later they began the week-long intensive PD. Table 1 presents details of the
day-to-day activities and technologies introduced throughout the PD.
Participants
The participants included 21 science and mathematics teachers (five males and 16
females) from seven middle schools in the same school district; the district ranks
within the largest 110th nationally. This PD enhanced an existing district-wide
STEAM initiative, and thus some participants had prior STEAM training or knowl-
edge. The STEAM district coordinator recruited the participants, and they were
required to obtain approval from their principal to attend the PD. Table 2 presents
information regarding the number of years the participants had taught. Table 3 pre-
sents information regarding their certification related to STEAM.
Data sources
Measures include pre-test and post-test open-ended surveys (see Appendix 2) from
21 teachers, observations conducted during the PD, daily written reflections on new
technology introduced, recorded focus group interviews and teacher-created artifacts.
The pre-survey was administered in an effort to better understand teachers’ prior
beliefs and experiences regarding STEAM and PBL, use of technology and expecta-
tions for this PD. Post-surveys and focus group interviews focused on increased
understanding of STEAM, its impact towards changing practice (e.g. future plans to
integrate STEAM) and perceptions of value of the PD. On the final day, a total of
10 questions were posed to a focus group (recorded and later transcribed) including:
Artifacts included projects created during the intensive week-long class, and unit
plans from six different groups representing all 21 participants, completed two
weeks after the PD; unit plan topics included investigating issues related to invasive
species, doctors diagnosing a disease, planning a school garden, raising money to
support a field trip, adaptation of native species after a catastrophe and the effects of
infectious diseases on populations.
Data analysis
A thematic analysis focused on the overarching question regarding teachers’ prior
perceptions, shifting perceptions and future plans to integrate STEAM practices (e.g.
PBL, technology integration and transdisciplinary teaching) after participating in the
PD. A multi-step thematic analysis is a process often used when comparing multiple
data sources sequentially, wherein one data source will inform the next type of data
source used (Miles et al. 2013). The first step in the thematic analysis was to code
the pre-survey data. Data codes included teachers’ understanding of collaboration,
STEAM teaching and technology integration, and these data informed post-surveys
and focus group questions. After the initial analysis, focus group interviews were
devised to ask direct questions, regarding STEAM teaching practices as already
noted. Using the initial data codes a second round of analysis was conducted on
post-survey data, focus group data and teacher artifacts (e.g. media created within
the PD and unit plans). After the second round of analysis, codes were refined to
create themes, which were discussed, interpreted, triangulated and compared
between researchers, ensuring validity and reliability (Erickson 1986).
Findings
Findings addressing our research questions are detailed in the following sections;
themes are addressed separately, but overlap is evident between the themes.
Professional Development in Education 427
activities in the class (an important component of PBL), where they took the role of
the teacher and learner, as critical to deepening their understanding of how to imple-
ment STEAM. Nine of the teachers mentioned the combination of experiencing
technology integration within a project that crossed disciplines as essential to fur-
thering their understanding of STEAM.
Four of the seven focus group participants discussed the importance of under-
standing how PBL lines up with STEAM principles, believing they learned how to
implement it effectively and better assess student learning. Three of the seven men-
tioned how ‘STEAM was clarified for me,’ saying they ‘heard of STEM but had
never experienced it or done it in class,’ and could now see ‘that there are many
more layers to STEM and STEAM, it’s not just changing some verbiage or throwing
in some engineering.’ Participants pointed to the combination of STEAM and PBL
explored within a collaborative group as key to deepening their understanding of
ways to implement units in their classrooms. They further believed the support of
instructors, mentors and technology assisted in deepening their understanding. A
representative sentiment expressed by one of participants is as follows:
This professional development allowed me to practice and consider project-based
learning, STEAM, transdisciplinary approaches, and useful technology as both the stu-
dent and teacher. I benefited from learning about these ideas in a collaborative group
with other teachers and the support of mentors (instructors). In a way, this class mod-
eled what we hope to see in our classrooms because the learning is more powerful.
initially establish a relationship with them but that Google Hangout was also a
useful way to collaborate with the experts, and a tool that could be easily
incorporated into their classrooms. Importantly, all six projects that the teachers cre-
ated (during the class) demonstrated their ability to provide relevant experiences for
students connected to community issues, which required leaning on experts outside
of the teachers’ individual disciplines. All projects utilized experts, emulated role-
playing of government or community organizations and addressed issues local to the
school or city surroundings. Again, technology greatly assisted in demonstrating
understanding. For example, one group’s presentation included an iMovie that was
produced on site at the local river, detailing water quality issues related to moving
the waterway by role-playing a reporter and official from local wastewater treatment
plant. The data sharing, analysis and organization was done with Google Docs, a
blog and a Google Presentation with an embedded iMovie.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Bosch Community Grant Fund.
Professional Development in Education 435
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Professional Development in Education 437
1. Please list your name, schools you have taught at and subject(s) taught.
2. How many years have you been teaching?
3. Do you have any certifications or have you taken any coursework specific to the inte-
gration of science, technology and mathematics?
4. Is there a difference between STEM and STEAM?
5. How do you view the role of science, technology and/or mathematics in education?
6. How often do you use the Internet, mobile devices or digital media tools?
7. How would you describe the role of the student when using science, technology or
mathematics for learning?
8. Describe your knowledge and use of STEM or STEAM practices.
9. What do you hope to gain from this STEAM PD?
10. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your current teaching practices
specific to science, mathematics or technology?
11. Describe how you use technology to support teaching content.
12. Do you collaborate with your colleagues on issues of planning, curriculum and
instruction?
Post-survey questions
1. How would you describe STEAM teaching and learning to another teacher?
2. What do (did) you consider the most valuable learning in this PD?
3. Describe how you collaborated in this class.
4. What do you consider the most valuable part of the PD?
5. Do you intend to implement any of the learning from this week in your classroom?
Please describe. What will it look like in your classroom? Will it involve other
teachers?
6. What could be improved? What was not useful to you?
7. How do you perceive the role of instructors, experts and peers to help you understand
STEAM integration?
8. Is there anything else you would like us to know?
438 D. Herro and C. Quigley
Project summary and problem: The Hamilton County Health System has noticed that
several patients have gotten very sick. They believe the most harmful bacteria are
coming from one of three sources: the patient’s room (sheets, pillows, fellow patient,
bed pan, etc.), the cafeteria (tray, eating utensils, etc.) or the surgical tools. The hospital
lab is very busy and occasionally depends on the community to do simple tests to
identify the disease-causing bacteria, diagnose the disease it is causing, and determine
how to get rid of it in both the patient and the building
Transdisciplinary standard/teaching: Science, technology, English/language arts
Student roles: All students will perform swabbing, staining and microscope work to
identify different bacteria. Once students know the different types of bacteria, one
student will diagnose the disease, one student will determine what patients need, and
one student will identify the source of the bacteria and determine how to disinfect the
source. Students will collaborate to find solutions to the problem
Driving question: Why do some patients get sicker in the hospital?
A doctor or nurse will present the problem to my students and ask that they help the
hospital. She will then indicate that my students will present their findings in 8–10 days
Daily outline/products: Individual: Day 1 – completed Petri dish (formative).
Day 2 – ticket out the door about bacterial cell walls and Gram staining (formative).
Day 3 – one completed lab sheet and microscope slides (formative).
Day 4, 5, 6 – research using Diigo and group created blogs (formative).
Day 6, 7, 8 – presentation of results (via Prezi, or Google Presentations) (summative)
Other: Students will confer with two additional groups on day five to discuss their
findings. This will provide students a chance to adjust their research (if necessary), and
this will also give me a chance to work with these students to identify what went wrong
with their lab methods and bacterial classification
Resources needed: On-site people, facilities. Students will hear about the project from a
doctor and then present their findings to a panel of doctors and nurses (hopefully from
Hamilton County Health System). The experiments and research will occur in the
science classroom
Equipment needed: Microscopes (10), computer (one per student), Bunsen burner (one
for teacher)
Materials: Microscope slides (three per group per class = 120), Petri dishes (three per
group per class = 120), nutrient agar, swabbing sticks, crystal violet stain, iodine, slide
covers, gloves, goggles, matches (for teacher)
Public audience/ties to community: Students will be presenting their findings to a team
of experts (a panel of doctors and nurses). Students will learn about the problem from a
doctor, nurse or medical student in the classroom or via Google Hangouts
Reflection methods/learning log: Student groups will record and post research via Google
Docs/blog