From STEM to STEAM: A Breakdown of An Enactive and Ecological Continuum

STEM and STEAM education promotes the integration between science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and the arts. In a recent Frontiers in Education article, the researchers dive into the history of STEM/STEAM, the current educational landscape, areas for further STEM development in education, and the future of STEAM in the classroom. This blog gives an overview of that in depth study that you can find here. 

The teacher, learning context, and socio-cultural environment are all important factors in determining how learners experience learning, according to the enactive and ecological psychology approach to education. According to the method, education is a guided observation and action process that is embodied cognitively.

The second step is dependent on how learners engage with the digital and/or analog learning affordances present in the socio-technical environment. The article makes the argument that, when it comes to comprehending the fundamentals of the learning process, the scope of an enactive-ecological approach can be expanded to include the study of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM).

First, the study provides a thorough overview of the literature on the theoretical underpinnings of both the enactive and the ecological learning theories, outlining their main distinctions and commonalities. The foundations and most recent scientific developments of an integrated STEAM pedagogy are then discussed, and we move on to the idea of mixed reality (XR) as a new educational technology approach, providing an understanding of its current foundations and a general disposition on how to understand digital immersion from ecological psychology.

In the next section of the article, there is a systems theoretical approach to integrate the enactive-ecological approach in STEAM pedagogy. This approach is framed in the Santiago school of cognition and pays attention to the interactive dynamics that occur between learners and their interaction with learning affordances existing within their educational medium, establishing that sensorimotor contingencies and attentional anchors are important to limit sensory variety and stabilize learning concepts.

Finally, there are two empirical studies considered, one from Chile and the other from New Zealand, in which the researchers demonstrate how the enactive-ecological approach built upon a systems theory perspective can contribute to understanding the roots of STEAM learning and inform its learning design.

Additional Source: Research Gate 

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