Investigating an Instructional Model for Integrated STEM in Teacher Education

Active learning experiences that incorporate technology, design, and making combine to form an important and necessary pedagogical approach that supports the 21st century skills of collaboration, communication, creativity, digital literacies, and computational thinking as a problem-solving framework. Active learning experiences in teacher preparation serve as a model for future educators to follow, while building the educators' efficacy to conduct future implementations with their own students. In this study, a multidisciplinary Pop-Up Makerspaces activity was conducted as an active hands-on approach to interdisciplinary STEM education. The intersectionality of English language arts with integrated STEM through design and making included: (a) enriching language and integrated STEM literacy, (b) scaffolding and supporting pre- and inservice educators through well-designed active learning as these opportunities help to develop self-efficacy, and (c) exploring new models and frameworks for transdisciplinarity.