Families Learning Together: Expressive STEM Inquiry in San Marcos, TX
March 21 @ 14:00 - 15:00
For nearly a decade, Families Learning Together (FLT) has explored the intersections of art, design, and creative computing through a community-based, intergenerational learning model. Anchored at the Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos and the San Marcos Public Library, FLT invites families, youth, elders, university students, and K-12 educators to engage in computational storymaking, dramatic robotics, and community science. Rooted in Expressive STEM, FLT bridges STEM disciplines, transdisciplinary literacies, and everyday life experiences to create purpose-driven, culturally sustaining learning.
In this DEL In-Between session, I will describe how FLT positions digital and computational making as a socially embedded practice that strengthens community aspirations. Highlights include FLT’s integration of multimodal STEM literacies into informal, intergenerational learning; the family playshop format, where everyone teaches and everyone learns; and the community design playground, where participants prototype activity sequences and develop facilitation skills. By rejecting siloed expertise and gatekeeping, FLT is building scalable, open-access learning networks that fuel interdisciplinary inquiry, problem-finding, and innovation.
Presenter
Sean Justice, Associate Professor, Art Education (School of Art & Design, Texas State University
I teach art, code, and creative confusion at Texas State University, where I explore what happens when teachers, students, and computers tangle with each other. My research looks at how learning changes in the digital age—elegantly, precariously, serendipitously. When I’m not teaching, researching, or writing about teacher education, I make photographs, videos, and generative animations that play with light, time, and uncertainty.
Read: Media: Family Time: Associate professor brings creativity and computers together