Is it STEM or STEAM? And is their room for art in adult education?

STEM education is considered essential for economic and workplace skill development, but there is a push to move beyond the science, technology, engineering, and math to include arts education. The idea behind the STEAM movement is to integrate application of ideas, creation, and ingenuity – ideas proponents believe are not fully inclusive in STEM instruction.  In order to move from STEM to STEAM, the following core elements:

  • STEAM is integrated instructional approach with standards and lesson design.
  • STEAM involves two or more instructional standards combined from STEM areas and Arts.

I invite you to look through some STEAM resources and share your thoughts:

  • Is it realistic to include art in STEM instruction? 
  • What would it take to move your classroom from STEM to STEAM?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Sincerely, 
Kathy Tracey
@Kathy_Tracey

 

Comments

Maybe I am a traditionalist or maybe when you start one acronym you should just stick with it. I would prefer to keep it STEM because frankly, all education should be interdisciplinary. The arts can be a part of everything, from a pie graph to drawings of Fibonacci sequence. We don't need to "reinvent the wheel" to work it into a movement that has been well recognized for a while.

Hi Madeleine, 
I couldn't agree more with your statement that all instruction should be interdisciplinary. The more connections we can make between subject areas, the more 'real and tangible'  the subjects become for learners. I wonder if the change to STEAM is due to funding issues with art (in the PreK-12) world. Perhaps by making the connection between art and STEM subjects, there is a stronger reason to support art in education? 

Just a thought...I'd love to hear what others think.

Kathy 

Kathy, that would be my take. Funding issues can really influence approaches. I know that Utah St U in Blanding holds a STEAM conference every year. Most of its students are Native American (Navajo and UTE), and the blending of those two worlds (technology and art) works very nicely there. There might have been cultural incentives as well.

In working with STEM grants in this region, I have found a discrepancy re the definition of STEM occupations. In this region, schools tend to include health occupations under STEM. However, according to NSF, health occupations don't quality. Just throwing more grist into this mill with another issue to ponder. Leecy

Some of you may have seen my discussion on a number line tool to check for adults' understanding of very, very early math concepts. Here is the link:

https://community.lincs.ed.gov/discussion/guest-led-discussion-number-sense-simple-tool-uncovers-it

As a musician who teaches math sometimes, I found that the same concept is used to understand basic addition and to keep a steady melody beat in music. It is a physical action. Tapping along to "Twinkle" on the melody rhythm gives a sense of EQUAL DISTANCE between beats. That is the concept of "and 1 more" in early elementary addition. That understanding that each whole number is the "same sized 1 more" than the number before it is what allows students to "count on from" one of the numbers in simple addition.

In a paper published in the MPAEA Journal of Adult Education, I reported that in a group of 86 adults in a HSE class, 14% did not have the "equal distance concept", based on the number line test. You can read the full paper here (only 6 pages):  http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1072923.pdf

If you have students who seem not to understand division, they may have difficulty with subtraction as well. Try asking them - What is 25 minus 7? - and have them do it without paper and pencil, in their head, but using fingers if they want to (tell them that fingers are OK). If they are off by 1 in the answer, they are likely counting 7 digits starting with 25 and arriving at 19 as the answer instead of 18. They do not understand the EQUAL DISTANCE of space on a number line between all whole numbers.

The second early concept many adults lack is a sense of Part-Whole Coexistence. That is, when I have 9, I have 6 and 3 (and all other combinations) at the same time as I have the entire 9. Another 60% of those 86 adult students lacked this concept. Physically in music, Part-whole Coexistence is the experience of the beat of one measure at the same time as the individual beats of the melody. Think of the Blue Danube Waltz - one beat to a measure at the same time as all the melody notes.

In other words, only 25% of the adults in that HSE class had the early, under-the-radar math concepts they needed to succeed in math.

It is not either math or music. It is music rhythm as the physical experience of basic math concepts. It is the physical relationship of parts to whole in ratios and fractions that many adults don't get. Try moving with the music beat. If you have a student who doesn't feel the beat, check the video links from the Number Sense discussion (see above) for one way to help them feel the relationship.

Math is the language of physical relationships - how far, how fast, how many more or less. Music rhythm provides the physical experience of those relationships.

Dorothea Steinke

Lafayette, CO

dorothea@numberworks4all.com

http://www.mathinyourfeet.com/    is about dance and math... 

My experience, too, is that many of our students in pre-college level math don't have those basic concepts.   Many of them don't know to subtract if they are finding out "what should you add ?"  E.G.   You've traveled 58 miles of a trip that is 75 miles total... how much more do you have to travel?   

    Often, if I say "if you'd gone 74 miles, how much more..."   and they say "1"  -- and how did they get that answer?? They added.  

Not sure music would help with that but we work hard with the "parts and wholes." 

Some of you may have seen my discussion on a number line tool to check for adults' understanding of very, very early math concepts. Here is the link:

https://community.lincs.ed.gov/discussion/guest-led-discussion-number-sense-simple-tool-uncovers-it

As a musician who teaches math sometimes, I found that the same concept is used to understand basic addition and to keep a steady melody beat in music. It is a physical action. Tapping along to "Twinkle" on the melody rhythm gives a sense of EQUAL DISTANCE between beats. That is the concept of "and 1 more" in early elementary addition. That understanding that each whole number is the "same sized 1 more" than the number before it is what allows students to "count on from" one of the numbers in simple addition.

In a paper published in the MPAEA Journal of Adult Education, I reported that in a group of 86 adults in a HSE class, 14% did not have the "equal distance concept", based on the number line test. You can read the full paper here (only 6 pages):  http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1072923.pdf

If you have students who seem not to understand division, they may have difficulty with subtraction as well. Try asking them - What is 25 minus 7? - and have them do it without paper and pencil, in their head, but using fingers if they want to (tell them that fingers are OK). If they are off by 1 in the answer, they are likely counting 7 digits starting with 25 and arriving at 19 as the answer instead of 18. They do not understand the EQUAL DISTANCE of space on a number line between all whole numbers.

The second early concept many adults lack is a sense of Part-Whole Coexistence. That is, when I have 9, I have 6 and 3 (and all other combinations) at the same time as I have the entire 9. Another 60% of those 86 adult students lacked this concept. Physically in music, Part-whole Coexistence is the experience of the beat of one measure at the same time as the individual beats of the melody. Think of the Blue Danube Waltz - one beat to a measure at the same time as all the melody notes.

In other words, only 25% of the adults in that HSE class had the early, under-the-radar math concepts they needed to succeed in math.

It is not either math or music. It is music rhythm as the physical experience of basic math concepts. It is the physical relationship of parts to whole in ratios and fractions that many adults don't get. Try moving with the music beat. If you have a student who doesn't feel the beat, check the video links from the Number Sense discussion (see above) for one way to help them feel the relationship.

Math is the language of physical relationships - how far, how fast, how many more or less. Music rhythm provides the physical experience of those relationships.

Dorothea Steinke

Lafayette, CO

dorothea@numberworks4all.com