International Journal of Education & the Arts

Luton, C. (2021). Coaching preservice teachers to integrate the arts in STEM content. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 22(5). Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea22n5

This article explores an innovative strategy for teaching preservice university freshmen to integrate the arts in STEM content. Based on theoretical foundations of brain science, and combined with the author’s 15 years of experience as an elementary school teacher, and an additional 15 years in higher education, this approach represents a conceptual framework that includes coaching teacher candidates to write, teach, critique, and reflect on lessons that integrate the arts, and to effectively use arts-infused lessons throughout their academic program and their own reflective professional practice. This instruction includes early hands-on learning opportunities and experiences, enabling preservice teachers to learn from their own teaching, and the teaching of their peers, by using reflective reciprocal feedback to revise and improve lesson design and teaching skills. Possible implications for more effective educator preparation, arts integration in STEM content, and curriculum design and program development are discussed.