Category: Teaching Tip
Quick and short tips on teaching practices.
Weaving Art into STEM (CELT Teaching Tip)
Weaving Art into STEM: CELT Workshop Highlights Visual Literacy
By Kelly McGowan, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
Meteorology students may not expect to spend a class session in an art museum — or that the rolling clouds in a painting would spark a rich discussion about their field of study — but that’s just what happened at Iowa State thanks to some creative thinking and collaboration by a professor and staff in University Museums.
Dr. Bill Gallus, professor of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences and newly appointed University Museums CELT Faculty Affiliate, has worked with the museums in various ways over nearly two decades. The faculty affiliate role, started in August 2023, aims to integrate visual literacy and learning with the use of University Museums works of art in curriculum.
The class visit to the Brunnier Art Museum for a 2015 Ellen Wagener exhibit is just one example of how Gallus and University Museums Curator Adrienne Gennett hope instructors across campus can weave art into their courses.
“What makes art, I think, so useful in the classroom,” Gallus said, “is it just opens up so many questions where you can really test how well the students have understood what they learned in your STEM course.”
Wagener’s vast natural land and skyscapes were the perfect canvas for Gallus to pose questions about what was happening meteorologically in the art. What did it mean that the clouds did not have a smooth base? Could students guess what time of year was depicted? What things might the students question?
Art experiences promote critical thinking
In deepening his involvement with the museums, Gallus learned about the visual literacy framework of data collection, interpretation, and evaluation. It struck him how closely those three steps mirrored “exactly how we conduct science.”
That parallel allows for a meaningful connection between art-based activities and classes like his.
Bringing an art experience into a STEM course can challenge students to think more broadly and critically, Gennett said, and help them understand that different interpretations and answers are valid. It can also help expand ways of thinking and encourage students to consider problems from a different angle.
It’s valuable to give students a moment to consider multiple ways of thinking, she said, “to not necessarily have the correct answer, but to also understand it takes a lot of evaluation before you can come to an answer.”
Gallus and Gennett said these lessons apply both in coursework and in life.
University Museums are ready to help
Many students come to Iowa State having never visited an art museum before, Gennett said. This type of art integration can make an impression that lasts a lifetime.
With 30,000 works of art in the permanent collection and Art on Campus Collection, she said there is bound to be a good fit for any field of study — and her team is ready to help faculty enhance their courses with art.
“We work really hard to make it as easy as possible,” she said. That can include pulling art out of storage, bringing a work of art to a teaching space, providing tours, discussing art with students, and even helping faculty to create a lesson around works of art.
Faculty can explore the online museum database for inspiration. Collections in the database group art together for their possible application to the life sciences or physical sciences, for example.
“We can take a work of art and use it throughout the university,” she said, “in different courses, in different fields of study — and we can teach the valuable basic skills of visual literacy and communication.”
Exploring the Impact of Mentorship at Iowa State University (CELT Teaching Tip)
AI (Artificial Intelligence) in Teaching Series
An ‘odyssey’ in quality course design: Professor details experience with CELT resources
Five strategies for a successful start for your students (Teaching Tip)
- Welcome students. Send a welcoming email or Canvas announcement to your class (see the communication strategies page). Let students know where and when the first class session occurs: in person or online, how to access the Canvas course page, include a copy of the syllabus, and share your student office hours. This welcome sets the stage for prepared students on the first day of class.
- Do a readiness assessment. On the first day of class, include a short, no-stakes quiz with a mixture of prerequisite knowledge questions and topics students will encounter in the course. This readiness assessment can provide you with diagnostic information about the new class. Further, providing the correct answer to the questions can be an early resource for content review. Get started by using the Quizzes and Exams strategies page.
- Ask students about their goals. No matter the class size, ask students why they signed up for the class and how it will help them achieve their goals. Students can complete this information in word or sentence format using Qualtrics. Display the Qualtrics word cloud results in real-time or share them during the next class session.
- Give a syllabus quiz. Instead of a detailed syllabus reading, give a short quiz in the first week of the term (see CELT’s Sample syllabus quiz questions page). This method is an easy first assignment win for students and can lessen potential anxiety about course expectations and grading.
- Make Connections. Prepare a small follow-up assignment in which students actively engage and make a connection with the course material and their lives. Perhaps this is finding a news article or social media post related to your course content. Maybe it is asking students to identify something within their lives impacted by the course topic. At the next class session, create triads of students to share the information. This strategy is beneficial if you use permanent triads for discussion and project teams throughout the semester and further connections with content and between classmates. Find additional ideas for engagement on the Ideas to create a welcoming, engaging, and inclusive classroom page along with the Engaging Students Online page.
Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching