The Search for Method in STEAM Education by Jaime (Jim) E. Martinez is the third in the Palgrave Macmillan Series, Studies in Play, Performance, Learning and Development edited by Lois Holzman.
Jim writes in his Introduction…
This book is about creating new kinds of developmental interdisciplinary learning environments that will be necessary if STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) education reforms are going to amount to more than just another educational fad. The title is a “shout out” to Lev Vygotsky, a developmental psychologist whose ideas I will be referencing throughout the book. Vygotsky contributed important and transformative theories of learning to the education research field and used the phrase “search for method” to describe his efforts to discover a new psychology, one that would be helpful to people during a revolutionary moment in Soviet history in the 1920s and ’30s (Vygotsky, 1978 p. 65).
At a time when educators, educational researchers, and policymakers are trying to figure out how to use traditional knowledge acquisition methods of education to create STEAM education, I am concerned with transforming learning environments into ones that are developmental and interdisciplinary. In writing this book, my approach has been more creative than academic, and the data I offer is in the dialogues and stories. The voices of educational innovators who are creating and collaborating beyond the disciplinary boundaries of the institutions they work for will be prominent. I find that conversations and stories are a great way to learn developmentally.
Dr. Jaime E. (Jim) Martinez is an associate professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at New York Institute of Technology. His research interests include experiential learning and performatory approaches to human learning and development. Dr. Martinez earned his Ph.D. in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY). His prior careers include teaching in public schools, a partnership in an entrepreneurial startup company and sixteen years as an information technology professional.