Art-Based Innovation Teaching and Learning: How Do Students, Teachers, and Administrators Experience STEAM Education Online?

Abstract

STEAM education, incorporating the arts into traditional STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) studies, is spreading globally. The arts component is called out to promote creative and innovative thinking among STEM learners. As with any novel educational trend, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) teaching and learning methods have been predominantly developing in the offline settings, especially given the creative nature, softness, and tacitness of learning goals brought in by the arts. However, this global digitalization trend which has been further enforced by the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed the entire educational field to online spaces and STEAM studies had to follow. Given the relative novelty of STEAM, as well as the new normal of online settings that it has to adapt to, our knowledge and understanding of how STEAM studies will survive the shift to the digital era remain very limited. In this study, we analyze the case of a STEAM-based study program on innovation, which was conceptualized as an offline program before the pandemic and had to transform into a fully online format following the global lockdown. Applying the Community of Inquiry (COI) pedagogical framework we analyze in depth the perspectives of all the course participants—students, teachers, and administrative staff—their experiences, their adaptation to the shift into an online space and the lessons learned. Our study shares theoretical, practical, and policymaking implications on STEAM teaching and learning.