STEAM-y Partnerships: A Case of Interdisciplinary Professional Development and Collaboration

ABSTRACT

Museum partnerships can involve significant tensions, especially when these collaborations reach across institutions to blend disciplines such as art and mathematics. Rather than simply being obstacles to overcome, we suggest that tensions arising in multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary collaborations can be highly generative for collaborators, sparking new approaches to practice and catalyzing professional growth. To support this idea, we describe an interdisciplinary professional development program for museum practitioners focused on developing innovative programs and exhibits integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM). We discuss the design of this STEAM Professional Learning Laboratory in terms of a shared-facilitation model and relate that model to specific tensions that arose in this collaboration. Based on evaluation data, we summarize key characteristics of the Lab that supported successful collaboration and interdisciplinary learning. We share learning outcomes we documented for art and science museum professionals who participated in the Lab. We conclude with considerations for others in the field engaging in similar efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaboration
• STEAM
• professional development
• interdisciplinary
• museum

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge the following collaborators, without whom an article about collaboration would have been impossible: Ashley Atwell, Johanna Benson, Ashanti Davis, Lucera Gallegos, Akiko Hicks, Chantal Lane, Kevin Linde, Kristen Mihalko, Ricardo Nemirovsky, Joaquin Ortiz, Cierra Rawlings, Nan Renner, Bohdan Rhodehamel, Paul Siboroski, Paige Simpson, Paul Tatter, and the rest of the InforMath team. All opinions and analysis expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position or policies of the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

About the Authors

Molly L. Kelton, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education in the College of Education at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. She conducts research on interdisciplinary STEAM learning across formal and informal settings.

Patti Saraniero, Ed.D., is principal of Moxie Research, a program evaluation practice based in San Diego, California, that collaborates with arts, cultural, and education organizations. She is on faculty in the Nonprofit Leadership and Management graduate program at the University of San Diego and in the graduate theatre program at the University of California San Diego.

ORCID

Molly L. Kelton http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0813-7119

Patti Saraniero http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6692-5258

Notes

1. Watson, “Revving up the STEAM Engine”; Peppler and Wohlwend, “Theorizing the Nexus of STEAM Practice”; Allina, “The Development of STEAM Educational Policy.”

2. Silverman and Bartley, “Who is Educating Whom?.”

3. Dierking, Collaboration; Taylor, “Hacking Nonprofit Collaboration.”

4. Walters, “The 1+1.”

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Informal Mathematics Collaborative project funded by the National Science Foundation through Grant DRL-1323587.