CTL Fellows Project

Integrating Science and Design Pedagogy

Usually, conversations about STEAMD (science, technology, engineering, & mathematics plus art & design) education revolve around how to effectively integrate art and design as practices at the margins of academia into the mainstream of STEM fields. But what happens when this dynamic is reversed? What are best practices for integrating science education into a design program?

As one of Pratt’s Center for Teaching and Learning Fellows, I am conducting a study to better understand how we might integrate what students learn in their science courses with the learning environment and learning goals of the design majors.

This project focuses on the following research questions:

1. What are best practices for fostering natural science learning in the undergraduate non-majors classroom? How do these best practices relate to the design studio education Pratt students receive?
2. What do design students want out of their natural science education?
3. What kind of natural science learning is valued by design faculty? How do design faculty perceive science?
4. How has science learning influenced student creative practices?
5. What might be best practices for fostering science learning in the undergraduate non-majors classroom at an institution focused on design?
6. How can we integrate science education with design education?
7. How can we integrate more of these best practices into the existing Pratt science curriculum?
8. How can faculty colleagues outside of the natural sciences benefit from hearing about the process and products of this investigation?

My study is predominantly comprised of interviews conducted with faculty, students, and advisors involved in Pratt’s four design programs.

Are you a student or faculty member from Pratt’s School of Design interested in participating in this study? If so, please contact me.

The full collection of blog posts on this project can be found here.

This project is supported by the Faculty Fellows program of the Pratt’s Center for Teaching & Learning.

Thanks to Judit Török, Heather Lewis, Jonathan Scelsca, Kara Hearn, Jonathan Hoey, Nida Abdullah, and Vika Longi for providing invaluable support to this project.