University to showcase unique approach to combining arts with STEM
Healthcare and industry sector leaders are set to gather to discover how a unique programme pioneered by academics at Birmingham City University has helped aspiring musicians to manage performance anxiety.
Academics across health sciences and the arts collaborated on a two-year pilot project, offering a programme using components from the Intelligent Behaviour Analytics® framework to students at the University’s internationally renowned Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC).
Students who took part in the pilot programme reported significant increases in confidence and resilience during musical performance, with all participants indicating that they would recommend the course to other students.
Following the pilot’s success, key elements have now been embedded in a core module, ‘Understanding and Managing Behaviours of Self, Teams and Organisations’, available as part of Birmingham City University’s Leading and Transforming in Healthcare MSc and focuses on health, wellbeing and confidence. The project demonstrates the strengths and opportunities of the emerging STEAM education agenda, which sees science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects fusing together with the arts.
Now, the concept is set to take centre stage at a special conference between 9am and 5pm on September 7, organised by academics at RBC, which will also explore how NHS leadership could benefit for a holistic approach including the arts.
The conference includes a series of panel discussions and welcomes dozens of leading academics and specialists from medicine, music, education and the arts, alongside live classical performances by students from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Keynote speakers at the ‘STEM to STEAM’ conference include Emeritus Professor Julian Lloyd Webber OBE – cellist, conductor, broadcaster and former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire – and Professor Neena Modi, Professor of Neonatal Medicine at Imperial College London.
Katherine Lam, Senior Lecturer in Piano at Birmingham City University’s Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, who will be one of the panellists at the conference and played a major role in the pilot programme, said: “Following the huge success of our RBC Health, Wellbeing and Performing with Confidence programme, we very much look forward to hearing the individual experiences and outcomes from our students and are proud to showcase their performances in the STEM to STEAM conference.
“An integral part of the conference will highlight the crucial role the arts play in our society and the myriad benefits a holistic approach brings to leadership training, to personal development and individual health and wellbeing.”
Professor Adam Crizzle is a visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University, as well as lead facilitator of the module, developed at the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences, and Director at Hillcroft House Research Hub which is behind the Intelligent Behaviour Analytics® programme.
He said: “The development of Intelligent Behaviour Analytics resulted in a series of pilot programmes within health, education and music. The outcome was a holistic MSc module from Birmingham City University. By drawing upon qualities from the arts, it has already resulted in students being equipped with higher levels of confidence and resilience, resulting in fewer stress levels and career advancement.
“This and other topics will be discussed by our panellists at the upcoming STEM to STEAM conference. With new pilot programmes in 2023 being launched with doctors, future Olympians and the military, we hope that the contents of this module can evolve leadership training to a higher level, across public services including the NHS.”