Digital Learning Across Boundaries

STEM to STEAM is Year 2 of the Digital Learning Across Boundaries project

Welcome to our STEM to STEAM online course materials.

This is a free, interactive and participatory online course which focuses on using digital technology and the creative Arts in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – known as STEM to STEAM.

To get started, please click on Section 1: Introducing STEM to STEAM to the right, or at the very bottom of this page.

Overview

STEM to STEAM adds the Arts to the integrated and applied study of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM), to create interdisciplinary challenge-based learning opportunities. Creativity and imagination, which lie at the heart of the arts, are blended with the critical thought and enquiry of STEM.

This is a flexible online course that you can join in with at a pace and depth that suits you. We will suggest activities and ideas based on our international DLaB project work, and encourage you to try them within your teaching.

We would like you to leave each week with something new to try out in practice and we will encourage you to share your experiences and swap ideas on our weekly themes within our Google+ community. You can start sharing ideas in the online community now; there’s no need to wait for the start date.

Who is this course for?

Our course is aimed at primary and lower secondary teachers, however anyone with an interest in the field is very welcome. It is in English.

Overview of course structure:

The course is divided into three sections, each with a different theme and suggested activities:

  • Section 1: Introducing STEM to STEAM
  • Section 2: Introducing Design Thinking
  • Section 3: Evaluating Design Thinking and STEAM

Duration: Self-Paced. Workload: Approximately 2 hours per section.

Structure for each section:

We will begin each section by sharing resources and case studies with you from the Digital Learning Across Boundaries (DLaB) project run by a partnership of universities, schools and cultural institutions in Norway, England, Belgium and Denmark. We will suggest some activities that help you plan to put ideas into practice with your own learners. These are based on our project collaborations between primary and lower secondary classes centred around three trigger questions that prompted a range of investigations:

  • What if we could change size?
  • What if we moved to space?
  • What if one of our senses changed?

Our project partners worked in three sub groups: Experiencing STEAM, Hearing STEAM and Seeing STEAM, to reflect a broad range of arts activities.

One of the most exciting aspects of this course is the chance to share and reflect upon these co-created resources with our online community of fellow practitioners. Real life examples, photos, videos and comments within the community will give the course a truly practical focus. The community will also give you a chance to make some international connections and set up some collaborations of your own. You can join the community now introduce yourself and start sharing STEAM ideas.

You can also follow us on Twitter at @DLAB_Erasmus and use the hashtag #DLABErasmus to see what others are posting.

Here’s an introduction to the course:

What this course will give you:

We hope that our course will inspire you to:

  • explore strategies to bridge the sciences and the arts
  • leverage the principles of the arts to maximise the output from STEM learning

Succeeding in a MOOC

You may wish to watch the below 4 minute video that describes five steps that will help you succeed in a MOOC.

To get started on the MOOC:

Click on Section 1: Introducing STEM to STEAM below to get started.