Building Teacher Community During a Summer of Crisis: STEAM Professional Development in 2020

Abstract

The GoSTEAM program promotes authentic integration of the arts into PreK-12 computer science, engineering, and invention instruction. STEM and arts teachers come together to form STEAM Innovation Teams in collaboration with university-based coaches and creative Innovators-in-Residence. Starting with a STEAM professional development summer institute and continuing throughout the year, the teams come together to design and implement novel STEAM lessons and initiatives in their schools that integrate learning goals from both the STEM and the art disciplines. This type of transdisciplinary collaboration between colleagues from vastly different fields is new to most teachers and presents unique challenges. A primary goal of the GoSTEAM professional development is therefore to create safe, interdisciplinary spaces where meaningful, cross-disciplinary collaborations can occur. In 2019, this was accomplished through an intensive, 120-hour face-to-face summer professional institute that incorporated many community building activities and collaborative planning sessions. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer institute changed to an online format and faced the challenge of providing teachers with a personally meaningful STEAM experience during a summer of crisis. Results show that the 2020 institute successfully supported the teachers, energized them, and provided them with tools to augment their virtual instruction. This paper describes the program adaptations due to COVID-19.

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