Author(s):
Exploring Transdisciplinary Approaches To STEM Teaching and Learning, a Level-1 Engaged Student Learning project, formed an 11-member faculty learning community (FLC) to field-test a transdisciplinary epistemic practices (TEP) framework designed to foster learning at the intersection between STEM and art/design through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The year-long FLC worked to identify and clarify diverse disciplinary practices among faculty and to rethink such practices in relation to the TEP Framework. Faculty did this by observing the disciplinary and transdisciplinary teaching approaches of their peers and exploring new ways of fostering transdisciplinary learning in their classrooms. The TEP Framework served to foster structured conversations among practitioners from disparate disciplines, who shared the goal of bringing STEM-inclusive transdisciplinary learning into their classrooms. Members of the FLC used the TEP Framework to design and implement new learning experiences, such as designing new creature anatomies, experimenting with bioplastics formulas, printing 3D brick facades that foster biodiversity, and using circuit diagramming to create interactive art installations. FLC members exhibited teaching and learning through the TEPs in a culminating gallery exhibition. The exhibition also served as a means of communicating the FLC’s discoveries to a diverse on-campus audience. The project provides a model for using transdisciplinary epistemic frameworks to foster educational programs that empower students to tackle difficult problems at the intersection between STEM and art/design disciplines.
Coauthors
Mark Rosin, mrosin@pratt.edu; Heather Lewis, hlewis@pratt.edu
