 |
Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 21, Issue 1, Article 5 (Dec., 2021) |
On the basis of evaluation outcomes presented therein, the model of engaging university students and pre-service teachers from different majors and universities in STEM-related community service projects in partnership with community organisations is considered effective. This result is particularly resonant with respect to strengthening participants’ competence in STEM and STEM education and cultivating positive attitudes toward serving the community through STEM. From the participants’ feedback on the values they perceived and changes they would like to see, some elements seem crucial to this experiential service-learning approach in achieving the intended goals. These features are highlighted below.
At the core of this approach is the experiential service-learning process that entails the application of multi-disciplinary knowledge to solve problems in real-world contexts through community engagement. Helle et al. (2006) argued that problem-based projects should be sufficiently complex to allow participants to generate questions of their own choice, thereby promoting their development of ownership of the learning process. The problem-solving process involved in particular settings created by the scheme not only drove participants to apply prior knowledge and learn new knowledge but also enabled them to develop ownership after their successful quest to meet all the challenges at the end. This result echoed the transformational nature of service learning highlighted by Martinez and Bravo (2019): transforming the learning process from a unilateral or bilateral one to a multilateral one, embracing interactions beyond those between the teacher and learner to those among peers, mentors, community partners and the clientele.
Place-based contextual problem-solving
The problems addressed by the U-STEMists were set in local contexts, which proved to be motivating and made the projects meaningful to the participants, echoing the benefits of infusing a cultural perspective into science or STEM learning (NSTA, 1990; NRC, 2012). The two projects, namely, ‘sub-divided flats’ and ‘salt-producing industry’, exemplified how this infusion could be put into practice. These observations did not necessarily imply that problems of a more global context, like those suggested by Bybee (2010), could not be addressed by this type of scheme. To widen the problem contexts, an international focus on environmental or humanitarian causes could be engaged. To this end, Daniel and Mishra’s (2017) study on an international STEM service-learning course on environmental conservation provided a relevant example.
The provision of relevant training prior to the project development stage was found to be helpful for participants to gain access to the essential knowledge needed for the generation and realisation of design ideas. Pre-service teachers commonly found the technological and engineering knowledge provided stimulating to extend their thoughts about alternative solutions. For STEM majors, who opted to conduct projects for schools but were not being well versed with STEM education, found those workshops on STEM activity design and pedagogy helpful. Although expecting that this type of initial training to bring different majors on a par with each other in terms of their knowledge base was unrealistic, such basic training provisions served to narrow the gaps of understanding and provided a common platform for participants to communicate with each other in hammering out possible solutions to complex problems they needed to address.
The heterogeneous grouping in terms of the expertise of participants was crucial to the success of this project-based approach. Participants with complementary academic backgrounds were enrolled as U-STEMists to mimic the work contexts in the real world. Enrolling students from different universities served to further enhance group collaboration. The feedback from the U-STEMists on learning from other majors provided support to the effectiveness of peer collaborative learning (Salomone and Kling, 2017). In particular, pre-service teachers joining the invention teams benefited from the authentic experiences gained from these projects with the support of their counterparts in STEM fields, thus bridging the gap in STEM teacher professional training (Shernoff et al. (2017). As a result, they expressed greater preparedness to teach STEM, echoing previous findings (Nelson, et al., 2017). The following extract on the reflection of a pre-service teacher from her team’s final report exemplified the wide-ranging benefits they gained in terms of enrichment of their professional repertoire:
This is a meaningful activity and I learned a lot in this period. … Cooperating with different people helped me learn the use of some STEM-related applications and provided opportunities for me to contact with primary and secondary students. These experiences prepared me to become a professional teacher by learning new knowledge and practising the skills of teaching and communicating. (Female, Primary General Studies Education)
Challenges remain because expecting that all the groups to have the exact combination of expertise necessary for meeting their specific project needs is too idealistic. Those groups lacking certain expertise may opt to scale down the complexity of their project or seek particular knowledge, which is strongly encouraged, through self-directed learning strategies. A third option is to strengthen the mentorship provided, which we can consider next. In addition to collaboration within a group, sharing among different U-STEMist teams at various junctures of the project has the potential for further broadening participants’ perspectives on problem solving through STEM.
Given that participants were expected to come across new areas where new knowledge or skills needed to be learnt to develop creative solutions to authentic problems that were often complex, mentorship was essential to guide the team in ideas generation and solutions design. The mentor could serve as an adviser, a resource person, a bridge between the student team and the community partner and even a moderator in case issues were unsettled within the team. However, as reflected by the U-STEMists’ feedback, good mentorship could not be taken for granted. Mentorship could only be strengthened through a strong commitment of mentors to the project and a thorough understanding of their specific roles. Support from the university authority is also instrumental in engaging a sufficient number of mentors from various fields to cater to the diverse needs of different projects. The disposition of mentors as being helpful and empathetic may be equally, if not more, important to help student teams steer through challenges during testing times.
The U-STEMists, in many instances, highly valued their relationship with the community partners that are conducive to the successful completion of their projects. This relationship has led them to a better understanding of societal needs and personal fulfilment gained from networking with the community to address those needs. The following extracts of the U-STEMists’ personal reflections from their project reports exemplify such important gains:
I am grateful for the chance to participate in this STEM programme. It has taught me one thing. Many people are living in tiny places, and they have an urgent need to upgrade their living quality. That is why we need to lend them a helping hand. I hope we can raise people’s awareness to deal with this problem. (Project: Sub-divided flats, male)
Being able to work in the applied science and engineering fields was really fun and challenging. As a team, we were able to collaborate and brainstorm successfully for ideas and plan for a solution to the problems in the Yim Tin Tsai salt field. These plans led us to undertaking experiments to test our theories. This project was also my first real experience in using STEM education to contribute to society. I felt satisfied and fulfilled, especially because I worked with great teammates (Project: Salt production on Yim Tin Tsai, male)
Like mentors, community partners need to be well aware of the role expected of them. Community partners need to strike a balance between their organisational needs and the developmental needs and limitations of the university students with whom they partner. Too high or too low expectations for the ability of the U-STEMists can backfire. Achieving the right balance requires timely and effective communication among the community partners, the student team and the mentor. Another problem is the matching of community partners to fit the interests and aspirations of the student project teams. Obviously, if the pool of community partners can be enlarged, flexibility in matching the U-STEMist groups with community partners to the satisfaction of both parties can increase, helping ensure a smoother working relationship throughout the project.
Team building and collegiality
The development of collegiality within the student project team proved most challenging. The issue of free riders was brought up several times although its effect seemed to be more than compensated by the positive effects of peer collaboration. Nevertheless, this situation should not be unnoticed because it would create minor inconveniences within the team at best and demotivate committed members at worst. A solution, as suggested by some of the participants, was to allow more time for them to get to know each other before they decided with whom to work. However, administrative difficulties would arise in such a case because some participants might not be able to join any teams, which had happened before. An alternative was to spell out rules of behaviour at the beginning, monitor them strictly and intervene as soon as problems were identified. A third solution was to make the scheme credit-bearing to increase the commitment of the participants (Siniawski et al., 2014).
