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

(Further) developing: reflecting on the process in retrospect (how did the outcome change between the idealization and finalization phases, what were the most exciting aspects, what were the aspects that most interested stakeholders) and imagine what could be the starting point to begin a new process.

 

SHORT DESCRIPTION

This activity is an engaging way for participants to honestly evaluate and reflect on their projects and to understand which is the best way forward to possibly implement new changes or to understand how to continue implementing the project.

Participants should be able to compare their project to a sailing boat, which should be characterised by different elements such as anchors, sail and wind, rocks and so on.

Subsequently, metaphorically, the participants will have to associate each piece of the sailboat with an element of their project such as: a risk (the anchors), the difficulties to be overcome (the rocks), innovation (the wind) etc…

The end result should be a creative design characterized by the important points of the project. Similar themes can be grouped together and the team can discuss their findings and vote on which action items to use to improve the evolution of the project or how to move forward. 

 

TOOLS

pen, pencils, whiteboard, sticky notes, computer

 

DURATION

1.5 hours

 

SKILLS

Observation: having delivered the message does not mean having closed off communication with the outside world; on the contrary, this is the phase in which you can collect the most interesting feedback: this means knowing how to observe the reactions to your work, both taking an empathic point of view and setting up monitoring tools and actions.

Critical thinking: to develop an idea, you have to handle a lot of information coming from different sources, from synthesizing research materials to analyzing feedbacks: that means having a questioning, challenging and self-regulatory approach to knowledge, being aware of potential biases, to compare and combine information in order to draw logical conclusions.

 

USEFUL LINKS

https://miro.com/miroverse/sailboat-retrospective

https://miro.com/guides/retrospectives/how-to-run-sailboat-retrospective

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