Curriculum developers Ruth Catchen and Carolyn DeCristofano explore the benefit and protocol to integrate the arts into STEM

Catchen, Ruth D

DeCristofano, Carolyn

Keck Graduate Institute

The STEAM Journal
Volume 2
Issue 1 Synapse Article 9
September 2015
What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracing
the Promise of Integrating the Arts into STEM
Learning
Ruth D. Catchen
Educational Consultant, STEM and STEAM Education, rcatchen@gmail.com
Carolyn DeCristofano
Blue Heron STEM Education, carolyn@bhstemed.us
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam
Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons
© September 2015 by the author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivatives
License.
STEAM is a bi-annual journal published by the Claremont Colleges Library | ISSN 2327-2074 | http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam
Recommended Citation
Catchen, Ruth D. and DeCristofano, Carolyn (2015) "What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracing the Promise of Integrating
the Arts into STEM Learning," The STEAM Journal: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 9. DOI: 10.5642/steam.20150201.9
Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9
What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracing the Promise of
Integrating the Arts into STEM Learning
Abstract
Curriculum developers Ruth Catchen and Carolyn DeCristofano explore the benefit and protocol to integrate
the arts into STEM.
Author/Artist Bio
Ruth Catchen, M. Music, MA, received her Bachelor of Music degree from American University and her
Master of Music degree from The Catholic University of America in Vocal Performance. She has performed
with many distinguished opera companies, conductors and orchestras in the United States. Later in her career,
she turned her direction to music education and founded a youth chorale with the Naples (FL) Philharmonic
Orchestra. She received a second master’s degree in 2007 from the University of Colorado in Curriculum and
Instruction/Leadership. Since then, she has worked in developing arts integrated curriculum programs for
various schools and school districts and does professional development to support teachers in developing and
implementing STEM/STEAM curriculum. She serves as co-chair for the Girls’ STEM Experience in
Southern Colorado and also served on the advisory committee to create STEM standards for the Colorado
Department of Education. She blogs at http://ruthcatchen.wordpress.com/. Carolyn DeCristofano,M.Ed.,is a
curriculum and instruction specialist and President of Blue Heron STEM education. For over twenty years,
she has focused on creating STEM and multi-disciplinary experiences for various learners. Her projects have
included curriculum, exhibit, and program development and educational research; and she has initiated and
implemented collaborative student and teacher programs linking STEM fields to each other, as well as to
English/Language Arts, the arts, and social studies. This work has brought her into partnerships with school
districts and educational institutions, such as the Museum of Science (Boston), Harvard’s Project Zero,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, TERC, and WGBH, Boston. The former Professional
Development Director for the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) project, she served on the development team
for EiE, and as a Blue Heron consultant, still works with the program. Also as part of Blue Heron, she works
on the Engaging Youth through Engineering team, playing an editorial and developer role for its middle
school STEM curriculum modules. In addition, Carolyn is the author of nonfiction books for children,
including the acclaimed A Black Hole is NOT a Hole (Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc., 2012).
Keywords
STEM, STEAM, Arts Integration
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
License.
This field note is available in The STEAM Journal: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9
  
 
 
What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance?  
Embracing the Promise of Integrating the Arts into STEM Learning 
 
Ruth Catchen & Carolyn DeCristofano 
 
Not long ago, during a professional development program, one of us (Ruth) was part of a 
conversation about integrating the arts in STEM education.  When one colleague in the program 
was asked what he thought about STEAM, he replied that he is “…fine with it as long as it 
doesn’t mean using interpretative dance to imitate the movement of molecules.”  Of course 
everyone laughed, possibly imagining a chaotic scene of students flitting and flapping their arms 
to look like molecules in a pot of boiling water.  
 
For months this statement haunted. Let’s pause and consider the half-joke and the ensuing 
laughter. At first, the comment seems to convey acceptance, or at least tolerance, of the idea of 
STEAM education. The speaker was “fine with” the idea. Yet, both the comment and laughter 
also indicate a fundamental objection to the core premise of integrating the arts into STEM. A 
contradiction is implied: “Yes, we can integrate the arts in STEM learning, as long as the arts are 
not too artsy.”   
  
Going deeper, the response implies that 
types of experiences indicated by the 
phrase “interpretive dance” have no room 
in STEM learning. This suggests an 
inherent wariness of those parts of art that 
may look chaotic, arbitrary, and 
ultimately lacking in rigor to the logical, 
reductionist eye that is developed and 
valued as fundamental part of problem-
solving within each of the STEM fields. 
To some observers, the addition of the 
arts makes for STEMlite rather than 
STEMserious. This view grants no 
credence to the implied critical thinking 
skills used in doing arts activities; nor 
does this perspective seem to allow that 
the trial and error inherent in many 
creative experiences may bring 
something of value to a student’s ability to solve problems and meet challenges with 
resourcefulness and resilience. 
 
 
 
What is Interpretive Dance? 
Non-specialists may perceive it as a flighty, whimsical 
waving of the arms that has no ground in traditional 
academic thought. It may seem like random motion that 
others pseudo-intellectually imbue with meaning. 
 
Lifelong dancer and performing artist Nadia Hava-
Robbins, MA writes, “Interpretive dance translates 
particular feelings and emotions, human conditions, 
situations, or fantasies into movement and dramatic 
expression combined.” (See her article: 
www.snowcrest.net/turningpoint/interpdance.html)  
 
In chemistry class, the interpretive dance task might be 
to translate the situation of molecules into body 
movement that reflects key components of “heating,” 
“boiling,” “liquid,” “change,” or “evaporation.”  
1
Catchen and DeCristofano: What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance?
  
We embrace the value that logic and reductionism provide to STEM disciplines. They are part of 
the STEM culture for good reasons. In addition, commonly shared information and acceptance of 
the value of evidence, numeracy, and technological prowess are all important to the STEM 
fields, and we would never wish to exchange that for a less-rigorous, opinion-based approach to 
STEM knowledge. Adding the arts to STEM learning need not threaten these core values and 
perspectives; instead it promises to add dimension to STEM learning. Although we recognize 
that some programming labeled “STEAM” or “art” may not be sufficiently rigorous, our view is 
that STEAM is not inherently some light and fluffy, non-rigorous means to sell more arts or 
more STEM to students. 
 
From these reflections come a first principle, a sort of mantra that we can use as we progress 
toward rigorous STEaM curriculum: 
 
There is no STEaM without STEM. 
 
If we keep this mantra in mind, we can help ensure that STEM learning benefits from the 
introduction of the arts, and that the arts do not become a distraction or an arbitrary experience 
that can be replaced to greater benefit with another. Note that we do not capitalize the a in this 
“STEaM,” in order to stress that in this context we are keeping STEM learning goals as the 
primary focus. There are other meaningful and important ways that the STEAM fields can 
interact with each other (STEM could inform A, for example) – but here we are limiting our 
thoughts to situations where we want arts engagement primarily to support STEM. 
 
So…What is our vision of what the arts can add to STEM learning?  
 
Arts experiences can serve several valuable purposes in the STEM classroom: 
Clarify and expand understanding 
 Some arts experiences prompt learners to interpret information that they have learned. In 
seeking to create this interpretation, students re-encounter ideas and may explore them 
more deeply, discovering gaps in their own recollection or aspects of the new content 
that, once probed, seem unclear.  
 Additionally, student performances of an artwork (creating a painting, composition, 
dance, etc.) provide the teacher with opportunities to clarify what it is that students seem 
to be taking from the STEM lessons – offering unique insights into students’ own ideas 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2
The STEAM Journal, Vol. 2, Iss. 1 [2015], Art. 9
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9
Foster expansion of knowledge 
 Arts experiences invite students to see the world and empirical knowledge in new ways.  
Educators and industry alike want to foster creativity---the ability to  
 
…take something that you know or have and 
make it something else. It is the ability to see 
beyond the lines or the rules. It is opening the 
space for stimulating conversation and ideas, 
some of which may be nonsense, but being 
compelled to follow them to their  
logical end. Creativity takes experiences and 
marries them to apply to something new. It is 
seeing something that for now is not there, and 
then making it happen. 
(http://www.middleweb.com/15943/steam-
action/,June 23, 2014, R. Catchen) 
 
Help students remember concepts and ideas by catering to specific learning styles 
o Visual (learn through seeing)  
 Arts offer many possibilities here through opportunities to do, observe and report 
results. 
o Auditory (learn through hearing) 
 Arts experiences often foster listening and communication, generating conversation 
and prompting questions.   
o Tactile (learn through touch) 
 Hands-on opportunities from the arts in building and design 
o Kinesthetic (learn through doing and moving) 
 Arts experiences often allow for children to explore the concrete world and abstract 
ideas through moving and doing.  
 
Expand experiential learning in the STEM classroom 
o Experience is memorable. Arts experiences enable students to: 
 Demonstrate and explore ideas in a variety of ways that deepen the quality of the 
learning experience. 
 Carefully designed arts experiences may lead to new questions for further discovery. 
 
Foster STEM engagement in new ways 
o Arts experiences are fun—physically and intellectually!  Movement, the permission to 
make sound (as in a musical piece), and manipulation of arts media are often associated 
with “play. They rarely have a role in the traditional classroom, which means we block 
off modes of interaction that are part of the engaged human experience. Students who 
might not show an interest in the abstract concepts or even engineering challenges may 
find new pathways of relating to classroom learning if they are invited to engage in 
something they already like to do. 
 
3
Catchen and DeCristofano: What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance?
Open doors to understanding the impacts of STEM on the future for both industry and 
the broader culture 
 
o The industrial domain is a wide-ranging area that includes development of new 
technologies with the need for them to be replicable, marketable and aesthetically 
pleasing. Marrying the practical with the aesthetic causes new understandings and 
investigation into form and function. 
o Arts experiences encourage the fantastical imagination. Asking, “What is your fantasy – 
what would you do if you could?” can untether students from unnecessary constraints of 
the here and now, allowing them to entertain new possibilities.  This question allows 
students to momentarily set aside given constraints in an engineering design challenge, 
for example, and try to envision something they hope to be able to do. This may open the 
door to new lines of thought that could lead to an engineering solution that actually can 
operate within the actual constraints. The opportunity here to deepen the learning exists 
as students face reality and at the same time use their imagination to envision or create. 
o Culture drives technical and investigatory priorities; new knowledge and abilities in turn 
shape culture. Arts experiences that prompt students to respond to the implications and 
impacts of knowledge and abilities realized in STEM fields can heighten awareness of 
this mutual relationship. Personally responding through their own artistic creativity and 
examining artwork by peers and/or professionals expand the focus of STEM beyond the 
technical, potentially humanizing students’ perceptions of STEM fields—in the sense of 
bringing in a humanities-based perspective. This may strengthen students’ grasp of how 
critical it is that society understand science, technology, engineering, and math well 
enough on technical and social levels to be able to make social, political, and personal 
choices around priorities and policies.  
 
Given all that we see as STEaM’s promise, we have worked with colleagues over the last several 
months, trying to better articulate the loosely defined STEaM acronym.  
 What does it mean when we say STEAM/STEaM?  
 How do you know if an experience is STEAM/STEaM?   
 What does high-quality STEaM education look like?  
 Is the “A” all-encompassing as in STEAM or is it infused as a part of the learning as in 
STEaM?  
 
Our research shows no protocol for what STEaM is or any consensus regarding best practices in 
STEaM education. Multiple viewpoints exist. With this in mind, we have developed some 
thoughts to guide our own practice as we move forward. We use these to sift possible arts lessons 
in search of those that stand to best serve our STEM goals in any given context. However, these 
details of our current work are beyond the scope of the question at hand;  
 
What’s wrong with interpretive dance? Nothing. In fact, when implemented carefully with 
STEM goals in mind, there can be an awful lot that’s right with it. 
4
The STEAM Journal, Vol. 2, Iss. 1 [2015], Art. 9
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9


English

What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance?  Embracing the Promise of Integrating the Arts into STEM Learning

Scholarship@Claremont

The STEAM JournalVolume 2Issue 1 Synapse Article 9September 2015What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracingthe Promise of Integrating the Arts into STEMLearningRuth D. CatchenEducational Consultant, STEM and STEAM Education, rcatchen@gmail.comCarolyn DeCristofanoBlue Heron STEM Education, carolyn@bhstemed.usFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steamPart of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons© September 2015 by the author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivativesLicense.STEAM is a bi-annual journal published by the Claremont Colleges Library | ISSN 2327-2074 | http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steamRecommended CitationCatchen, Ruth D. and DeCristofano, Carolyn (2015) "What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracing the Promise of Integratingthe Arts into STEM Learning," The STEAM Journal: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 9. DOI: 10.5642/steam.20150201.9Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracing the Promise ofIntegrating the Arts into STEM LearningAbstractCurriculum developers Ruth Catchen and Carolyn DeCristofano explore the benefit and protocol to integratethe arts into STEM.Author/Artist BioRuth Catchen, M. Music, MA, received her Bachelor of Music degree from American University and herMaster of Music degree from The Catholic University of America in Vocal Performance. She has performedwith many distinguished opera companies, conductors and orchestras in the United States. Later in her career,she turned her direction to music education and founded a youth chorale with the Naples (FL) PhilharmonicOrchestra. She received a second master’s degree in 2007 from the University of Colorado in Curriculum andInstruction/Leadership. Since then, she has worked in developing arts integrated curriculum programs forvarious schools and school districts and does professional development to support teachers in developing andimplementing STEM/STEAM curriculum. She serves as co-chair for the Girls’ STEM Experience inSouthern Colorado and also served on the advisory committee to create STEM standards for the ColoradoDepartment of Education. She blogs at http://ruthcatchen.wordpress.com/. Carolyn DeCristofano,M.Ed.,is acurriculum and instruction specialist and President of Blue Heron STEM education. For over twenty years,she has focused on creating STEM and multi-disciplinary experiences for various learners. Her projects haveincluded curriculum, exhibit, and program development and educational research; and she has initiated andimplemented collaborative student and teacher programs linking STEM fields to each other, as well as toEnglish/Language Arts, the arts, and social studies. This work has brought her into partnerships with schooldistricts and educational institutions, such as the Museum of Science (Boston), Harvard’s Project Zero,Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, TERC, and WGBH, Boston. The former ProfessionalDevelopment Director for the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) project, she served on the development teamfor EiE, and as a Blue Heron consultant, still works with the program. Also as part of Blue Heron, she workson the Engaging Youth through Engineering team, playing an editorial and developer role for its middleschool STEM curriculum modules. In addition, Carolyn is the author of nonfiction books for children,including the acclaimed A Black Hole is NOT a Hole (Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc., 2012).KeywordsSTEM, STEAM, Arts IntegrationCreative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0License.This field note is available in The STEAM Journal: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9    What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance?  Embracing the Promise of Integrating the Arts into STEM Learning  Ruth Catchen & Carolyn DeCristofano  Not long ago, during a professional development program, one of us (Ruth) was part of a conversation about integrating the arts in STEM education.  When one colleague in the program was asked what he thought about STEAM, he replied that he is “…fine with it as long as it doesn’t mean using interpretative dance to imitate the movement of molecules.”  Of course everyone laughed, possibly imagining a chaotic scene of students flitting and flapping their arms to look like molecules in a pot of boiling water.   For months this statement haunted. Let’s pause and consider the half-joke and the ensuing laughter. At first, the comment seems to convey acceptance, or at least tolerance, of the idea of STEAM education. The speaker was “fine with” the idea. Yet, both the comment and laughter also indicate a fundamental objection to the core premise of integrating the arts into STEM. A contradiction is implied: “Yes, we can integrate the arts in STEM learning, as long as the arts are not too artsy.”     Going deeper, the response implies that types of experiences indicated by the phrase “interpretive dance” have no room in STEM learning. This suggests an inherent wariness of those parts of art that may look chaotic, arbitrary, and ultimately lacking in rigor to the logical, reductionist eye that is developed and valued as fundamental part of problem-solving within each of the STEM fields. To some observers, the addition of the arts makes for STEMlite rather than STEMserious. This view grants no credence to the implied critical thinking skills used in doing arts activities; nor does this perspective seem to allow that the trial and error inherent in many creative experiences may bring something of value to a student’s ability to solve problems and meet challenges with resourcefulness and resilience.    What is Interpretive Dance? Non-specialists may perceive it as a flighty, whimsical waving of the arms that has no ground in traditional academic thought. It may seem like random motion that others pseudo-intellectually imbue with meaning.  Lifelong dancer and performing artist Nadia Hava-Robbins, MA writes, “Interpretive dance translates particular feelings and emotions, human conditions, situations, or fantasies into movement and dramatic expression combined.” (See her article: www.snowcrest.net/turningpoint/interpdance.html)   In chemistry class, the interpretive dance task might be to translate the situation of molecules into body movement that reflects key components of “heating,” “boiling,” “liquid,” “change,” or “evaporation.”  1Catchen and DeCristofano: What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance?  We embrace the value that logic and reductionism provide to STEM disciplines. They are part of the STEM culture for good reasons. In addition, commonly shared information and acceptance of the value of evidence, numeracy, and technological prowess are all important to the STEM fields, and we would never wish to exchange that for a less-rigorous, opinion-based approach to STEM knowledge. Adding the arts to STEM learning need not threaten these core values and perspectives; instead it promises to add dimension to STEM learning. Although we recognize that some programming labeled “STEAM” or “art” may not be sufficiently rigorous, our view is that STEAM is not inherently some light and fluffy, non-rigorous means to sell more arts or more STEM to students.  From these reflections come a first principle, a sort of mantra that we can use as we progress toward rigorous STEaM curriculum:  There is no STEaM without STEM.  If we keep this mantra in mind, we can help ensure that STEM learning benefits from the introduction of the arts, and that the arts do not become a distraction or an arbitrary experience that can be replaced to greater benefit with another. Note that we do not capitalize the a in this “STEaM,” in order to stress that in this context we are keeping STEM learning goals as the primary focus. There are other meaningful and important ways that the STEAM fields can interact with each other (STEM could inform A, for example) – but here we are limiting our thoughts to situations where we want arts engagement primarily to support STEM.  So…What is our vision of what the arts can add to STEM learning?   Arts experiences can serve several valuable purposes in the STEM classroom: Clarify and expand understanding  Some arts experiences prompt learners to interpret information that they have learned. In seeking to create this interpretation, students re-encounter ideas and may explore them more deeply, discovering gaps in their own recollection or aspects of the new content that, once probed, seem unclear.   Additionally, student performances of an artwork (creating a painting, composition, dance, etc.) provide the teacher with opportunities to clarify what it is that students seem to be taking from the STEM lessons – offering unique insights into students’ own ideas       2The STEAM Journal, Vol. 2, Iss. 1 [2015], Art. 9http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9Foster expansion of knowledge  Arts experiences invite students to see the world and empirical knowledge in new ways.  Educators and industry alike want to foster creativity---the ability to   …take something that you know or have and make it something else. It is the ability to see beyond the lines or the rules. It is opening the space for stimulating conversation and ideas, some of which may be nonsense, but being compelled to follow them to their  logical end. Creativity takes experiences and marries them to apply to something new. It is seeing something that for now is not there, and then making it happen. (http://www.middleweb.com/15943/steam-action/,June 23, 2014, R. Catchen)  Help students remember concepts and ideas by catering to specific learning styles o Visual (learn through seeing)   Arts offer many possibilities here through opportunities to do, observe and report results. o Auditory (learn through hearing)  Arts experiences often foster listening and communication, generating conversation and prompting questions.   o Tactile (learn through touch)  Hands-on opportunities from the arts in building and design o Kinesthetic (learn through doing and moving)  Arts experiences often allow for children to explore the concrete world and abstract ideas through moving and doing.   Expand experiential learning in the STEM classroom o Experience is memorable. Arts experiences enable students to:  Demonstrate and explore ideas in a variety of ways that deepen the quality of the learning experience.  Carefully designed arts experiences may lead to new questions for further discovery.  Foster STEM engagement in new ways o Arts experiences are fun—physically and intellectually!  Movement, the permission to make sound (as in a musical piece), and manipulation of arts media are often associated with “play. They rarely have a role in the traditional classroom, which means we block off modes of interaction that are part of the engaged human experience. Students who might not show an interest in the abstract concepts or even engineering challenges may find new pathways of relating to classroom learning if they are invited to engage in something they already like to do.  3Catchen and DeCristofano: What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance?Open doors to understanding the impacts of STEM on the future for both industry and the broader culture  o The industrial domain is a wide-ranging area that includes development of new technologies with the need for them to be replicable, marketable and aesthetically pleasing. Marrying the practical with the aesthetic causes new understandings and investigation into form and function. o Arts experiences encourage the fantastical imagination. Asking, “What is your fantasy – what would you do if you could?” can untether students from unnecessary constraints of the here and now, allowing them to entertain new possibilities.  This question allows students to momentarily set aside given constraints in an engineering design challenge, for example, and try to envision something they hope to be able to do. This may open the door to new lines of thought that could lead to an engineering solution that actually can operate within the actual constraints. The opportunity here to deepen the learning exists as students face reality and at the same time use their imagination to envision or create. o Culture drives technical and investigatory priorities; new knowledge and abilities in turn shape culture. Arts experiences that prompt students to respond to the implications and impacts of knowledge and abilities realized in STEM fields can heighten awareness of this mutual relationship. Personally responding through their own artistic creativity and examining artwork by peers and/or professionals expand the focus of STEM beyond the technical, potentially humanizing students’ perceptions of STEM fields—in the sense of bringing in a humanities-based perspective. This may strengthen students’ grasp of how critical it is that society understand science, technology, engineering, and math well enough on technical and social levels to be able to make social, political, and personal choices around priorities and policies.   Given all that we see as STEaM’s promise, we have worked with colleagues over the last several months, trying to better articulate the loosely defined STEaM acronym.   What does it mean when we say STEAM/STEaM?   How do you know if an experience is STEAM/STEaM?    What does high-quality STEaM education look like?   Is the “A” all-encompassing as in STEAM or is it infused as a part of the learning as in STEaM?   Our research shows no protocol for what STEaM is or any consensus regarding best practices in STEaM education. Multiple viewpoints exist. With this in mind, we have developed some thoughts to guide our own practice as we move forward. We use these to sift possible arts lessons in search of those that stand to best serve our STEM goals in any given context. However, these details of our current work are beyond the scope of the question at hand;   What’s wrong with interpretive dance? Nothing. In fact, when implemented carefully with STEM goals in mind, there can be an awful lot that’s right with it. 4The STEAM Journal, Vol. 2, Iss. 1 [2015], Art. 9http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss1/9

Ruth Catchen

Carolyn DeCristofano

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What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracing the Promise of Integrating the Arts into STEM Learning

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What’s Wrong with Interpretive Dance? Embracing the Promise of Integrating the Arts into STEM Learning

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