Five-Week Module to Introduce Interdisciplinary STEAM Vision to Preservice Secondary Teachers

Abstract

To improve students' interdisciplinary learning, it is necessary to find ways to support teacher candidates' views on pedagogical preparation for STEAM practices during teacher education. Thereby, in this chapter, the authors explored the influence of a five-week collaborative cross-disciplinary STEAM module on secondary mathematics, science, and English language arts pre-service teachers' views and lesson planning skills in the context of STEAM integration. As English language arts provide the foundation for students' learning of STEM subjects, the authors conceptualize English language arts as the arts component in the STEAM module. The findings indicated an improvement in pre-service teachers' STEAM conception and showed slight evidence in their STEAM lesson planning skills. Based on the results, the authors further provide possible implications for pre-service teacher education emphasizing STEAM integration.