Exploring Transdisciplinary Approaches to STEM Teaching and Learning

Pratt Institute, Brooklyn NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving teaching practices in areas of integrated STEM. As STEM industries move and grow rapidly into integrated and transdisciplinary arenas, disciplinary knowledge will only partially fulfill workforce needs until higher education provides a transdisciplinary alternative. This project responds to and directly addresses the recommendations of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Their recent report on integrated learning in higher education calls for the “professional development of faculty who are capable of teaching integrative [transdisciplinary] courses”. The participating faculty in this project will take part in a year-long training program. Participating faculty will become better equipped to train undergraduate students with the critical 21st Century STEM skills, including those at the human-technology interface. The training program’s approach draws on a recent framework on Transdisciplinary Epistemic Practices (TEPs) that helps transdisciplinary researchers and educators justify, evaluate, and legitimize knowledge claims about their work. The TEP framework is a powerful explorative tool for understanding, explaining, and modeling effective learning practices. Through applying this framework to their own transdisciplinary undergraduate courses, and developing a modified version of it and associated rubrics, specifically for higher education, participating faculty will become more adept at supporting and assessing student learning. Overall, this project will provide educational development for ten faculty members, who will in turn teach over 2,000 undergraduate students from non-traditional STEM backgrounds, and help develop a more general model for further faculty development. The primary intellectual goal of the project is to validate a novel conceptual approach to teaching integrated STEM fields-- a new transdisciplinary epistemic framework. The project aims to achieve this through the creation of a novel professional development model that is grounded in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, within the context of a Faculty Learning Community, and evaluated through phenomenological methods. The project aims to bring together established tools to address new integrated learning needs in higher education, and address the following two research questions: 1) How can TEPs provide a conceptual framework for faculty development in a higher education art and design context? 2) How can faculty use this conceptual framework to design and execute transdisciplinary STEM learning opportunities for all students? The project’s broader impacts include the potential validation of a novel model for broadening participation in STEM, targeting students with a strong interest in non-STEM disciplines such as art, design, or architecture. The hypothesis being that transdisciplinary STEM courses with components that are recognizable or familiar to students with a strong interest in art, design or architecture, will be more equitable, accessible and engaging to them, since they are more aligned with the students’ learning identities than traditional STEM courses. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.