Putting the “H” in STEAM: Paradigms for Modern Liberal Arts Education

Abstract

This chapter seeks to connect current debates about the value of traditional liberal arts education to emerging trends in the learning sciences that promote metacognition, active learning, and other 21st century skills. This paper proposes that STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), an emerging K-12 approach that infuses the arts within STEM fields, has enormous potential to infuse the liberal arts with design thinking, collaboration, creative computing, and innovation while maintaining the level of deep reflection and critical thinking associated with humanist inquiry. While STEAM has yet to reach higher education in the same way that it has K-12 grades, it is argued that the trends in K-12 foreshadow coming trends in higher education. STEAM within higher education looks at movements that address interactivity, innovation, and inquiry in the form of interactive media design studios, makerspaces, and digital humanities initiatives. This chapter will examine artifacts produced thus far and propose further empirical research studies within higher education to advance what we know about emerging technology-enhanced learning environments and their role in disciplinary knowledge formation. A secondary goal is to create a stronger dialog between K-12 research and higher education trends that have their roots in pre-college initiatives.