2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Building on a successful first year, we report on the design, deployment and results of scaling up and expanding the focus of our State University of New York (SUNY) Innovative Instruction Technology Grant (IITG) supported project titled iSTEAM (faculty training for inclusive STEM education drawing on concepts of arts/humanities). Our reframed project is designed to further advance inclusive STEM education by using exploratory training modules that leverage AI, use gamification, and envision sharing of OER materials statewide. Our project responds to two urgent calls at the intersection of science and engineering undergraduate education and the influence of AI on higher education at large. First, the proposed faculty training helps STEM instructors across SUNY explore ways to teach with AI tools toward greater knowledge about its potential to support STEM education–while also exploring its pitfalls such as inaccuracy, context-blindness, harmful content (generation), and “knowledge drift” due to AI recycling its own content. Second, our project supports participating faculty to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by recognizing and mitigating potential harms of AI-integrated science to DEI goals in science education and careers. By exposing participants to pedagogical literature, including on the use of AI for effective and inclusive STEM education, we help them diversify approaches to scientific knowledge and discovery, make classrooms and teaching/learning/assessment more equitable, address issues of power and privilege often masked in the name of science or technology, and expand the scope and extend the applications of science to inspire students from diverse communities. Expanding the first iteration’s already rich resources, we demonstrate how the workshop and associated activities help participating STEM faculty draw from the humanities the knowledge-making and communicative practices of diverse cultures for enhancing the design and implementation of courses, assignments, instruction, and assessment. This presentation will highlight both workshop content developed (including readings, video discussions, online games, and teaching/learning activities) and feedback from our faculty participants, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between rhetoric, inclusivity, and the emerging and growing role of AI in STEM education.