Initiatives across Curricula
The Art and Science of Light, Movement, and Sound: Pre-service Teacher’s Engagement with STEM Education through the Integration of the Arts
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anne Marie Morrin
The STEAM-ED Project is an interdisciplinary educational and outreach project, involving B.Ed. students, primary schools Artists, Architects and Scientists. This STEAM-ED Project aims to inspire and guide the best in STEM education through the integration of the Arts (STEAM). The project combines new innovative technologies in exploring scientific concepts through Art and Perception. The STEAM Ed was delivered in collaboration with a pilot primary school involving in-service and pre-service teachers, children, and STEM experts. The project focused on empowering young people to build a powerful toolkit enabling them to build creative, innovative and STEAM skills for life. The STEAM-ED Project encompass a variety of different successful national and international models in Art and STEM education including The Studio Classroom; Studio 13, and Lab Space Concepts; Design Thinking; the ‘Child as a Client’ and; reinvigorating public ‘Spaces’. The presentation will focus on the pre-service teacher’s engagement with the project. The research, design, deliver and evaluation of innovative teaching methods and technologies in exploring scientific concepts through art (STEAM). The participants’ were immersed in both Science/Art engagement, with the intention of developing attitudes towards teaching and developing integrated STEAM skills, creativity and imagination that generates original ideas, which in turn encourages engagement, changes attitudes towards and develops innovative ways of teaching STEAM subjects.
Video Games, Homer and Ovid: What Do Students Learn?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amy Manders, Alan Garfield
Studies suggest strong motivational effects of video games in educational environments. Rather than simply listening to lectures or viewing power point presentations, video games allow students to immerse themselves in a online world that they, in various ways, control and interact in and with. They become invested in their game world. But motivation notwithstanding, what do students really learn from these games? The literature is strangely silent on this question. Yet since the 1980s, research has consistently shown that playing computer games (irrespective of genre) produces reductions in reaction times, improved hand-eye co-ordination and increased players’ self-esteem. What’s more, curiosity, fun and the nature of a challenge also appear to add to a game’s educational potential. That's admirable, surely, but do students really acquire knowledge from these video games? This study examines ten popular video games (console, computer, mobile and internet) and their use of classical content. Does gamification really lead to content acquisition or is it mainly a neutral strategy, without direction? What are students learning about Greeks and Romans in video games that use classical content?
Mentor, Creativity and Reflection Building Significant Changes in Tertiary Education: Integrating Sustainability as a Cross-curriculum Priority in Teacher Education Programs
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen, Kathryn McLachlan, Wendy Goldstein, Thelma Raman
This accredited teacher education program offered at a Sydney-based university in 2018 was designed to make a difference in participants’ understandings of sustainability principles by integrating it into schools as a cross-curriculum priority. The programs focus was on intercultural experiential learning, fostering creativity and reflective practices and engaging participants’ through current sustainability knowledge, learning and skills. Additionally, teachers were encouraged to mentor pre-service and in-service teachers in a diverse range of creative strategies to integrate Science, Technology, English, Arts and Maths (STEAM). The paper presents a new and fresh approach to education for sustainability and discusses the evaluative analysis results from the program. Findings include increased teacher competency in initiating new creative approaches using inquiry-based learning for generational future change and action. Improved ability to teach others, work with colleagues towards leading change through newly acquired collaborative leadership approaches and recognised by colleagues as accredited highly accomplished teachers.
The Effect of Visual Thinking Strategies on Writing Instruction
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Szymanski
How can educators use visual thinking strategies to teach writing and develop observation and inference skills for their students? This is an essential question in our image-rich digital world. Though the teaching of writing has a long textual history that uses text and verbal prompts to support and inspire students’ thinking and writing (Sperling, 2001), there are few studies investigating the use of images in place of verbal prompts. This paper will examine the effect of a curriculum intervention designed to teach students visual thinking strategies to improve their observation, inference writing skills in high school English classes. Visual thinking strategies are designed to support visual literacy, thinking, and communication skills using visual art in museums. The foundation for the strategies rest on three questions: What’s going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you say that? What more can we find? The results indicate that using visual thinking strategies for writing prompts has a positive effect on the quality of student writing and specifically their observation and inference skills.
