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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 21, Issue 1, Article 5 (Dec., 2021) |
The U-STEMist scheme reported in this paper provides a promising approach to promote STEM education in the tertiary sector, underscoring the linkage of STEM with humanity, an aspect that has yet to receive sufficient emphasis. On the basis of the findings reported, the U-STEMist Scheme has, to a considerable degree, lived up to its motto of helping the participants to learn, to serve and to thrive. The U-STEMists have learned how STEM knowledge can play out in addressing real-world issues, including social, cultural and educational in local contexts, and how they can contribute to real-life problem solving through learning and applying knowledge. Echoing Herrenkohl et al.’s (2019) notion of ‘learning humanities’ that focused on building relationships, the U-STEMists seem to have learnt even more through relating with their peers, mentors, community partners, clientele such as school students and the disadvantaged and with their own selves in reflecting on these relational experiences distilled from their projects. These relational outcomes can be considered another important dimension to link STEM with humanity in addition to the STEM dimension. The following extracts of four U-STEMist’s open responses to the questionnaire underscore this relational dimension to STEM:
The activities held in stage one were useful to me, especially the workshops and lectures held by those professional professors. They truly broadened my horizons on today’s technology and education affairs. Furthermore, the mentor, co-mentor and assistants were really helpful. They were enthusiastic about giving us lots of advice and information. Throughout the program, I could feel the passion of these professionals for education. I never regretted joining this program! (Female, Chemistry)
In the whole scheme, I think that communication with different parties is the most valuable. With our teammates from engineering fields, I am able to know some new applications and skills. Through this project, we have become good friends. With the help of the community partner, his professional knowledge and patience in raisingd our confidence workshops are shown to be possible for primary and secondary students. Whenever we face difficulties during learning the related concepts, he never hesitated in giving support to us. I feel that my great teammates and community partner are the most precious to me. (Female, Primary General Studies Education)
Under our guidance, some (school) students can really think of great ideas that may promote societal development in the future. I can see the value of conducting STEM education in primary schools. (Female, Civil Engineering)
I think the most valuable part of the scheme is the constant communication between community partner, mentor, project coordinator and group mates. My project is to produce a mobile app for teens, which is a sophisticated project. Therefore, it requires effective communication between members of the project. (Female, Global Economics and Finance)
As a biochemistry major responded to the questionnaire, the scheme has ‘pushed’ them to leave their ‘comfort zone’ to address real-world problems and tax their ability to apply knowledge that have and have not learned before, in collaboration with counterparts in unfamiliar real-world situations. All these factors have proved to be rewarding yet challenging.
Nevertheless, the suggestions raised by the U-STEMists reveal some pertinent issues that shine a spotlight on the future’s implementation of cross-university STEM projects. In light of the complex process involved in the community projects, detailed planning is of utmost importance in engaging a pool of mentors with sufficiently wide-ranging expertise, networking with potential community partners, garnering sufficient resources for the projects, prior training to enhance participants’ technological competence, close matching of participants’ interest with the needs of their community partners and strengthening team building to facilitate enhance group collaboration. All these measures are vital to bring the challenges to a manageable level for the average participant. In Vygotskian terms, this ensures that the targeted problem falls within the Zone of Proximal Development of the learner. This zone is where the learner is able to learn through social interaction under the teacher’s guidance (Vygotsky, 1978), in an environment characterised by independence and autonomy (Oliver et al., 2019) for developing collaborative thinking skills through STEM project learning. Moving participants far beyond this zone may backfire and run the risk of undermining their self-confidence in solving problems of even greater complexity in the future. Expertise and experience need to be built step by step, as does problem-solving capacity.
Undoubtedly, crucial to the success of this approach in forging a close STEM–humanity link on both the service and relational dimensions is the triadic relationship among U-STEMists, their mentors and community partners. That this relationship is able to work well cannot be taken for granted because complex human relationships and interpersonal communication are involved. With a thorough understanding of the roles, the parties involved need to work concertedly to formulate practical goals for the project and see it through to completion in a concerted manner. Inevitably, the expectation, roles and inter-relationships of all the parties concerned are subject to subtle changes as they negotiate through the problem and devise potential problem-solving strategies, timeline and resources required.
To facilitate this process, the scheme management needs to play a more active role in aligning the learning process with the intended learning outcomes (Bettenhorn, 2015) through coordinating, overseeing and monitoring the progress of individual teams. Timely remedial actions need to be taken wherever necessary to avoid any issue sidetracking efforts towards the goals. Effective management of this triadic relationship, coupled with guided reflections by the U-STEMists on their project in terms of values and actions and their relationship with the others (Yang, 2016), can effectively foster a sense of control in applying their knowledge to solve societal problems. With all these improvements, the scheme can lead to participants’ empowerment, an achievement that has already been reported for middle school students (Chittum et al, 2017).
In addition to the learning process, an additional benefit of such a scheme, especially for pre-service teachers, is the generation of a substantial number of projects that can serve as exemplary teaching materials or ideas, as reported by Shernoff et al., 2017). Through in-depth sharing among STEM project teams, pre-service teachers can have their understanding of STEM fields broadened and deepened with the acquisition of vicarious learning experiences.
One aspect of this scheme might not have been emphasised sufficiently, namely, that the capacity of STEM in solving societal problems should neither be underemphasised nor over-emphasised. University students needed to realise that STEM was no panacea to social problems, nor could it necessarily provide long-term solutions to problems rooted in fundamental policy issues that perpetuate inequality between the rich and the poor and between the privileged and the under-privileged. The existence of sub-divided flats and the ordeal of the residents could reflect these systemic social issues. This limitation could have been further emphasised by guiding the U-STEMists to reflect on the effectiveness of their projects, potentially adding another dimension to the STEM-humanity relationship. Limitations thus existed in STEM as a means to solve societal problems and meeting the goals of humanity. Such use could only work in conjunction with other means.
Echoing Bathgate et al. (2019), all these provisions would not be possible without adequate support from the senior management of all the university partners involved. Although the evaluation outcomes of the U-STEMist Scheme had implications for formalising service learning through integrating service learning opportunities with the formal curriculum (Siniawski et al., 2014), additional research and trials were needed to pinpoint how this type of integration could be put into practice such that both learning paths could leverage each other, yet at the same time, retaining their unique contribution to university-level STEM education.
List of abbreviations
CoSTEM - Committee on STEM Education
NRC – National Research Council
NSTA - The National Science Teachers Association
STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
