STEAM-H Mindset and Teacher Education in the Age of Generative AI
From the beginning, human knowledge was seen as one cohesive whole. It was Aristotle who came up with a classification of knowledge into three types: Episteme (theory of knowledge), Techné (art or craftsmanship), and Phronesis (practical wisdom). This initial categorisation led to subject specialisation followed by the emergence of divisions and sub-divisions in academic disciplines. In the age of Generative AI when expert knowledge of any academic discipline is a click away, we need generalists who can make sense of the world around us as the nature of phenomena/issues/problems cannot be understood or solved from only one discipline-specific understanding. The need of the hour is interdisciplinary perspectives to solve any problem. Therefore, for teachers and learners a STEAM-H mindset becomes a necessity. STEAM-H stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics-Humanities. A STEAM-H mindset is capable of establishing interdisciplinary connections and thereby making sense of the world around us by analysing patterns, making predictions and planning accordingly.
As a Teacher Educator, I need to develop a STEAM-H mindset. To have a STEAM-H mindset, the first step is to collaborate with Generative AI. It can explain threshold concepts from any discipline in a nanosecond. It is imperative that I am conversant with the threshold concepts in all the disciplines to ensure relevant inputs for an effective pedagogy to be adopted by my teacher-learners. The next stage of collaboration can be with my colleagues who are experts in different disciplines. They are in a position to provide useful insights from their disciplinary perspective on the concept that I recently got acquainted with. In the third stage, I again go back to Generative AI and share my colleagues’ and my perspective on the application of the concept and get a third perspective. Now, in the last and fourth stage, I will test my conceptual understanding by applying it with my pre-service learners. Again, my pre-service learners (who come from different disciplinary backgrounds), Generative AI and I will follow the four stages cycle to test the proof of the chosen concept from the lenses of different disciplines. A STEAM-H mindset will approach concepts in the following unified manner because life does not exist in bits and pieces. It is rather a bouquet of different flowers which makes it beautiful as well as complex. We as teacher educators must embrace the STEAM-H mindset before it’s too late.