Course Content
Introduction
Activities and exercises developed within this methodology aim to increase fundamental soft skills in female students who are currently attending STEM university courses. Following the introduction of "Arts" in STEM - i.e. implementation of creative and artistic thinking - we developed a methodology that helps mentoring students while elaborating different types of projects with the aim to empower their skills through an art thinking process. The proposed methodology follows an input-output process that leads students through the development of a project, where each output activity represents the input of the following activity.
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Technology & STEM
The methodology
WeSTEAM methodology
Useful links
Incubation
In the Incubation Phase the participants carry out research in relation to the topic of their interest and begin to put the foundations for a more concrete and precise idea.
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Creative visualisation
Connections and analogies
Conceptual reworking through photography
Learning questionnaire
Imagination
In the Imagination Phase participants begin to idealize and define the key steps for the development of the project. During this development phase, the first goals and objectives are set.
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Interactive mind map
Your project storyboard
Visual storytelling
Learning questionnaire
Creation
During the Creation Phase, participants begin to concretely develop their product, project, or idea. After a prototyping step, this phase is accompanied by testing moments, where participants begin to understand what works and what should be changed. The testing phase is accompanied by the collection of external feedback, crucial to implement transversal points of view useful for the finalization of the project.
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Shape your prototype
Collecting feedback
Art data visualization
Learning questionnaire
Evolution
During the last Evolution phase participants aim to complete the project and present it to the audience of experts and external auditors. The Evolution Phase is a finalization phase but also a phase that looks to the future, as participants can take the key decisions on what should be changed in order to make the project more successful and to plan potential follow up.
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Strengths and weaknesses towards the finalization
Pitch your project creatively
Wind and anchors of your project
WeSTEAM Methodology
About Lesson

ACTIONS

Exploring: gathering stimuli through direct experience, e.g., field trips and visits to museums, exhibitions, research centers.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

This exercise aims to creatively shape and visualize through an artistic medium, in this case photography, the key concepts that participants have identified. In addition, it leads participants to develop a method of transversal imagination open to external and experiential stimuli. Transforming one or more concepts into photographic shots to stimulate the participant to a major visual and conceptual reworking and at the same time wants to put them in touch with reality.

The activity can be subdivided as follows:

  1. Participants should take a camera and leave the room they are in. They should go outdoors and explore the world and the environment around them.
  2. Completely immersing themselves in the environment, once they have found an interesting object that can represent the concepts previously identified in the other exercises, participants must take a photo.

The aim is to render the concepts they want to express in everyday visual and aesthetic images.

  1. Once the participants have collected a good number of photographs, they can return to the classroom and collect them into a single presentation. The presentation should be able to express and show the connections between one photograph and another and the connections with the concepts.

TOOLS

camera or mobile phone, computer, projector

SKILLS

Curiosity: “You never stop learning,” goes a famous adage: this means approaching the research phase with the attitude of an explorer, aware that to gain a better understanding of things you must never stop digging and that next to a road already beaten there is always an unexplored path.

Open-mindedness: During the creative process you must be able to welcome inputs from outside, in order to seize opportunities, prevent risks and solve problems: this means being receptive to novel ideas and willing to modify your opinions and actions, understanding the context and adapting yourself to it.

Awareness: in such a complex and multifaceted process, that brings together creativity and rationality, self-expression and decision-making, it is important to keep in touch with yourself: this means being able to understand and express your emotions and thoughts, in order to avoid falling victim to stress and frustration, and to self-discipline in respect to tasks and timelines.

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