International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Smolin, L. & Preston, E. A. (2025). Centering art practices: A narrative inquiry into elementary teachers’ STEAM integration. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 26(17). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea26n17

This article explores the pedagogical orientations of four K-5 teachers who participated in four years of monthly STEAM professional development involving STEM-based artmaking and emergent curriculum design with professional artists. This narrative inquiry captures how the teachers made meaning of their experiences. Interviews were analyzed and focused on turning points concerning instructional practices, integrating the arts, and disciplinary boundaries. Each of the teachers’ STEAM practices involved idea-driven inquiry, material exploration, creative interpretation, and the use of physical space. These contemporary arts practices helped the STEAM Ahead students make “personally relevant connections between materials, design, society and the natural environment” (Sochacka et al., 2016, p. 15). These practices also shifted classrooms toward a physical and relational setting more conducive to collaboration and creative production. By foregrounding the arts in STEAM learning, we invite future directions for transforming pedagogical practices that expand disciplinary knowledge and boundaries through artistic ways of knowing.