MuMaBot: weaving disciplines, languages and ideas in STEAM

This contribution investigates the effect on ECEC professionals of STEAM in-service training, an area that many educators find challenging (Johnston et al., 2022). Our research questions are: is the course effective in giving professionals the ability to plan child-centered, multimodal STEAM activities? Were there changes in their ideas about children’s role in learning? Research has shown that STEAM education can provide settings in which children can actively engage in constructing knowledge (Hunter‐Doniger, 2021), and that a multimodal (Ludovico et al., 2017) and transdisciplinary (Areljung, 2023) approach can grant children a better access to knowledge. To effectively generate change in professionals, research suggests approaches that interweave theory and practice (Gealy et al., 2022) and use collaborative reflection (Jensen & Iannone, 2018). Part of the training course was structured as a Action-Research-Training (Zecca, 2018), which employed reflective journals as a tool for the participants. The analysis is being conducted on the journals and on self-evaluation questionnaires with Likert scales. The participants were provided with a consent form and they were at liberty to withdraw from the study at any time. Their names have been replaced by pseudonyms. The analysis is ongoing, but the preliminary findings indicate that the course was partially effective in supporting the professionals in planning multimodal STEAM activities, and more effective in highlighting the child-centered approach. Many reported a new outlook on the children’s role in the class setting. The findings are mixed. The training is partially effective, but the main difficulty to be addressed is the ability to design in a transdisciplinary and holistic way.