Reimagining STEM education: developing Agency through STEA⁺M and design thinking

This book chapter analyses Australia’s Victorian Curriculum (Foundation to Level 10) to explore the development of neo-COVID societal agency. We undertook a curriculum potential analysis of the Stanford d.school Design Thinking Process alongside the 2889 content descriptors in the Victorian Curriculum. Design Thinking is traditionally aligned with the sciences, and frameworks such as the Stanford d.school Design Thinking Model were created for STEM education. Yet, we found that the STEM learning areas in the Victorian Curriculum do not consistently align with design thinking. In stark contrast, the Humanities learning areas have a consistently high curriculum potential to facilitate a design thinking process. This finding implies that the Victorian Curriculum is highly suited to a STEA+M education curriculum (i.e., STEA+M with A+ for Agency) rather than a STEM curriculum. Going into the next quarter of the 21st Century, we reimagine a transformed STEM education that utilises design thinking as the interconnection between the STEM learning areas and Agency to provide opportunities for students to learn how to address problems to ensure our future prosperity.