What is STEAM?

What is the role of art in STEM education?

What can science learn from the arts, and vice versa?

What is, or could be, the role of arts in education?

How can we bring practices and processes from the arts and science to help us examine and understand the world?

How can the arts and science feed innovation and discovery in each other?

The objective is to create a framework of the A (Art) Skills, the skills that characterize artistic processes into STEM. From the general perspective of introducing the variable A into STEM processes, it is necessary to define the added value that art and artists can bring to STEM sectors in terms of learning and research (e.g., the ability to think out of the box, the ability to manage unknowns, the ability to establish an empathic relationship with heterogeneous contexts, etc.).

• Cognitive flexibility
• Communication
• Complex Problem Solving
• Coordinating with others
• Emotional intelligence
• Ethics
• Integrity
• Judgement and decision-making
• Motivation to development
• Negotiation

• Networking
• Passion and self-motivation
• People management
• Personality
• Persuasion
• Respect
• Self-awareness
• Service orientation
• Trustworthiness

One rather popular, though by no means precise way to try to describe the nature of creativity is by thinking it in terms of the nature of our two brain hemispheres. Again, this comparison far from exact, the brain seems to have a much more complicated structure, and how the brain actually works is still a mystery. But it provides an interesting perspective if not over-analysed.

The theory is that people are either left-brained or right-brained, meaning that one side of their brain is dominant. If you’re mostly analytical and methodical in your thinking, you’re said to be left-brained. If you tend to be more creative or artistic, you’re thought to be right-brained.

This theory is based on the fact that the brain’s two hemispheres function differently. This first came to light in the 1960s, thanks to the research of psychobiologist and Nobel Prize winner Roger W. Sperry.

Another framework that can help to understand the nature of creativity is Howard Gardner’s well-known theory of multiple intelligences. He divides our different intelligences into 7-9 categories, based on how the information is received and processed by us. It provokes thoughts of how we use our different bodily senses for learning and knowing.

In Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) and its follow-up publications, Howard Gardner proposed eight abilities that manifest multiple intelligences. People do not have just an intellectual capacity, but have many kinds of intelligence, including musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, and linguistic intelligences.

While a person might be particularly strong in a specific area, he or she most likely possesses a range of abilities. For example, an individual might be strong in verbal, musical, and naturalistic intelligence.

Jungian archetypes is another well-known theory that can be used to understand different human characteristics based on suggested archetypes. Certainly not an exact science again, but helpful as a framework to study and understand the human mind. The theory is also widely used as a bases for different personality tests, for example the well-known DISC -personality test frequently used in human resource management.

Stereotypes that portray characteristics and personas. Icons in the picture going clockwise: Ruler, Creator, Sage, Innocent, Explorer, Rebel, Hero, Wizard, Jester, Seductress, Lover and Caregiver.

• These help us identify who we are, what characters we bear with us in our lives.
• These help us understand common patterns of behaviors in ourselves and others.
• An awareness of a specific behavior and characteristics is the key to changing them, whether they work against us and what we are trying to do.
• Applications and tools: Disc, de Bono’s 7 Thinking Hats.