The Apiscope Buzz: A Mixed Methods Action Research Project Investigating STEM to STEAM Using the Apiscope as a Tool for Differentiated Teaching and Learning

Teaching and Learning Research Initiative. Available from: New Zealand Council for Educational Research. P.O. Box 3237, Wellington 6140 New Zealand. Tel: +64-4384-7939; Fax: +64-4384-7933; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.tlri.org.nz

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STEM Education; Art Education; Individual Differences; Teaching Methods; Learning Processes; Individual Instruction; Course Content; Interdisciplinary Approach; Creativity; Authentic Learning; Outcomes of Education; Experiential Learning; Observation; Entomology; Action Research; Grade 7; Grade 8; Foreign Countries; Authors; Artists; Specialists; Middle School Teachers; Middle School Students; Achievement Tests; Program Implementation; Teacher Workshops; Program Development; Professional Isolation; Role Perception; Researchers; Literacy Education; Music Education; Video Technology; Student Attitudes

This Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) project was a 2-year exploratory study focusing on differentiating the curriculum in response to individual learner differences. The project was designed to explore learning and teaching of differentiated scientific content through observational processes and the expression of that learning through the creative arts. The authors set out to explore how the study of a living system could provide a context for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) content that is conceptual, complex, and sophisticated. The authors wondered how accessing rich content, through authentic, experiential observational processes, would encourage students to express their learning artistically, shifting from STEM to STEAM learning. Throughout the project and underpinning all aspects of the research, the authors sought to understand how differentiation, as a response to learner differences, was enacted by teachers. The authors found that by embedding the arts within the rich content provided by the study of bees through authentic, experiential observational processes facilitated collaboration and creation of artistic products. Integrating the arts into the curriculum enlivened the content, introduced creative processes alongside scientific exploration and discovery, and resulted in authentic, real-world learning outcomes through student exploration of complex living systems and real-world environmental problems.

ERIC

2021

ED615012