Creating Systemic Change in STEM Teacher Education by Reauthoring Whose Knowledge Matters in STEM

• In Event: Designing for Social Change: Justice-Oriented Interventions in K–12 STEM Settings

Abstract

PURPOSE AND FRAMEWORKS

In 2009, I attended an education outreach meeting where a famous Native Hawaiian navigator invited Native Hawaiian educators to connect their curriculum with the voyage of two iconic voyaging canoes as they sailed around the world using only traditional Polynesian navigation practices (Polynesian Voyaging Society, 2019). In response, a math teacher, who graduated from a teacher preparation program at my university, explained that the math standards made it impossible to connect instruction to the voyage.
Witnessing this exchange forced me to examine the design and goals of STEM education at my university. What about the design of STEM courses and teacher preparation programs taught this educator traditional Polynesian navigation did not address math standards content? What knowledge had been centered (Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2018; Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2020)? What knowledge forms had been devalued or excluded altogether (Yanez et al., 2019)? What kind of education were our teacher education programs perpetuating as a result? Studying these questions and their answers led me to design the STEMS2 Framework (STEM + Social Science and Sense of Place).

METHODS AND DATA SOURCES
The STEMS2 Framework was designed over 13 years of critical ethnographic case studies (Fusch et al., 2017; Calabrese Barton, 2001) combined with a design process grounded in agile design methodology (Matthews et al., 2006). Critical ethnographic case studies involved a network of 32 educators from diverse personal, cultural, academic, and geographic backgrounds who are engaging with the STEMS2 Framework and implementing STEMS2 Pedagogy with the goal of de-siloing content instruction via application of interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional (i.e., Western, Indigenous and ancestral) knowledge systems. Data collected included, community partner interviews, teacher interviews, classroom and community observations, student and teacher work samples and talkstory interviews.

RESULTS AND SIGNIFICANCE
The STEMS2 Framework exists in three parts: Theory, Pedagogy, and Network. The three components iteratively work together to address questions related to whose interests are served and whose knowledge matters in STEM and related science practices. STEMS2 Pedagogy is rooted in connecting with communities, learning from the place, the people, the kupuna [ancestors], and the moʻolelo [stories]. It requires engaging in real world problem-solving at the invitation of the people in a place. While STEM content knowledge and skills are tools used in problem-solving, community needs and a sense of place are at the center. This reframing allows a range of ways of knowing (i.e., Western academic STEM content, indigenous knowledge, and place knowledge) and knowledge bearers (i.e., STEM field researchers, youth, cultural practitioners) to be valued voices in spaces where STEM concepts are applied in problem-solving.
Participants describe application of STEMS2 Pedagogy as a process of decolonizing instruction. For some, decolonizing means centering Native Hawaiian knowledge in their Science and Engineering courses. For others, it means learning about themselves and relearning to value knowledge forms their STEM education experiences have taught them to separate or devalue all together. For all, the process of engaging with the STEMS2 Framework and implementing the pedagogy is met with empowering successes and systemic road blocks.

Author

• Tara O'Neill, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa