Transdisciplinarity in STEM education:

Constructing Meaning Where Disciplines Intersect, Combine, and Work Together

Nenad Radakovic,

Transdisciplinarity gives educators the opportunity to create learning activities that are more engaging, authentic, and equitable for all learners.

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Rationale

• Helping students and educators grasp the complexity of phenomena from diverse scientific and societal perspectives

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• Developing pedagogy that integrates disciplines, while altering discipline-specific approaches

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• Focusing on problem solving with students for what is perceived to be the common good

What is Transdisciplinarity?

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Theoretical Perspectives

• Transdisciplinarity in education
• Rosenfield, 1992; Pohl and Hadorn, 2007
• Technology in pre-service teacher education
• Koehler & Mishra, 2009; Martinovic & Karadag, 2012; Brakoniecki, Amador, & Glassmeyer, 2018
• Design Thinking in STEAM Education
• Dym, Agognino, Eris, Frey, Leifer, 2005; Kröper, Fay, Lindberg, & Meinel, 2010

Research Questions

• How do STEAM educators, researchers , and pre-service teachers view transdisciplinarity in the context of lesson development?

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• What is the role of technology in the development of transdisciplinary research and teaching?

Context & Participants

• The lesson was implemented in the summer camp (Camp Art Attack) located at a university in the Southeastern region of the United States .
• Three professors and two pre-service teachers were the researchers
• Two lessons were taught- one to a group of four students (ages nine to eleven) and another one to two students (ages nine and ten).

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• Development of instruction that focuses on math and music using an online music sequencer (https://onlinesequencer.net/)

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Methodology

• Participatory action research design (Whyte, 1991; Kemmis, McTaggart, & Nixon, 2013) to examine pre-service teachers’ planning a transdisciplinary lesson mediated by technology. In this, our area of focus explored the ways in which we explained transdisciplinarity to pre-service teachers that were just beginning their study of teaching and learning.

Lesson Development

Phase 1

Discussed transdisciplinarity, and the ways of incorporating mathematics and music and tools.

Phase 2

Developed the draft of the lesson plan.

Phase 3

Pre-service teachers practiced presenting the lesson and were coached on the implementation.

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Phase 4

Developed the draft of the lesson plan

Phase 5

Pre-service teachers present a revised practice lesson and were coached on the fine tuning of the instruction delivery.

Phase 6

Lessons taught to four campers (ages 9 to 11) and then two campers (ages 10 & 11)

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Data Collection & Analysis

Stage 1

Open coding was involved in the initial stage of the analysis of the transcribed data. PSTs  individually went through each other’s reflections and coded for emergent themes.

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Codes: Struggle to define transdisciplinarity, purpose of lesson, facilitating discovery, technology in instruction and planning.

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Stage 2

Axial coding used to look at the connections between the existing themes organized in the first round of coding (Strauss, 1987).

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For example, the team looked at the connection between technology and planning, planning and transdisciplinarity, and coaching for transdisciplinarity.

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Stage 3

Selective coding (Vollstedt & Rezat, 2019)to examine at instances that illustrated the themes, created narratives based on the themes, and answered the RQs.

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For the purpose of triangulation, the group looked at the videos of rehearsal of the lessons using the same codes.

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Findings

• Pre-service teachers started with disciplinary thinking while keeping in mind the transdisciplinary goal.
• To make sense of this, PSTs needed to break apart the content areas in order to rebuild them using a transdisciplinary lens.
• In the interviews, Emily stated that she focused more on math since this was not her “strong subject”, whereas Cymone felt that she focused more on music because of her background in music.
• To understand transdisciplinarity, you need to first understand disciplinarity and meta-disciplinarity.

Findings

• Tra(ns)versing: Connecting disciplines. Traveling between areas while ignoring borders.

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• “Which led us to talk about how we have all been approaching this differently because of our different background knowledge--we all bring something different to the table--a different perspective.”

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• “Hoping that this would lead to some meaningful music connections-- because that’s what we want too, we don’t just want them to make math connections--it’s about using both disciplines and making meaningful connections in both at the same time and maybe that makes all the learning more meaningful and worthwhile because the students constructed it on their own by doing a task that hopefully facilitated those connections.”

Findings

• Transforming: A different discipline provides a different representation of a problem.

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• “They explored the online sequencer but there was not any excitement to see what sounds sound good with each other. They chose 7 as one of their numbers. They eventually saw that their numbers were going to add up but they said it would take a long time. I do not think they liked their piece. They did laugh at it because of the low note. They thought the low note was stubborn. They did not know what a bass was, so I guess they thought it would sound high like the other notes they chose. I think maybe for them, we could have started off with drum kit.

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• Just transforming to a different context doesn’t automatically provide these representations. You need to sometimes let go.

Discussion: Marbling Metaphor

R1: How do STEAM educators and researchers view transdisciplinarity in the context of lesson development?

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Discussion: Constraints vs Autonomy

R2: What is the role of technology in the development of transdisciplinary research and teaching?

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As we continue to explore and push for disciplinary specific literacies, the world does not exist in silos.

To explore wicked problems, what we need is transdisciplinary problem solvers. What practices and pedagogies are needed?

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Towards a Taxonomy of Transdisciplinarity

Constructing Meaning Where Disciplines Intersect, Combine, and Work Together

Nenad Radakovic, W. Ian O’Byrne, Melissa Negreiros, Tracey Hunter-Doniger, Emily Pears, & Cymone Littlejohn

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College of Charleston