A Systemic Analysis of Making in College, a pathway to STEM with a community approach
(Teaching and Learning Innovation Expo 2016 Guest Talk)
Speakers:
Dr. Sharon Lynn Chu
Assistant Professor, Department of Visualization, Texas A&M University
Dr. Francis Quek
Professor, Department of Visualization, Texas A&M University
Abstract:
Technologies such as 3D printing and open source electronics and programming have given rise to the Maker movement that enables broad participation in innovation and production. Because Making integrates many threads of knowledge from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), there is excitement in its use in education. However, the nature of Making is based on hands-on projects, exploration and discovery, creativity and peer learning, which run counter to most frameworks of formal schooling. Thus, the majority of Making initiatives to date have taken place in informal settings such as libraries, summer camps, and afterschool programs. Dr Francis QUEK and Dr Sharon Lynn CHU would present their experiences integrating Making in the curriculum. Results have so far shown that curriculum-aligned Making in the classroom can positively impact students’ confidence and interest in science, and can lead them to see themselves as possible scientists and engineers in their future careers.
Dr Sharon Lynn Chu
Dr Sharon Lynn Chu is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University in the Department of Visualization, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychology. She has a PhD in Architecture from Texas A&M University, a Masters in Computer Science & Applications and a Graduate Certificate in Human-Computer Interaction from Virginia Tech, and a Bachelor of Social Science in Communication & New Media with Honors from the National University of Singapore. Her academic research focuses on learning and educational technologies. She directs the StoryLab@Texas A&M, which studies the various intersections of storytelling, technology design, and human technology use. Her current projects investigate the integration of Making into formal schooling contexts, the role and design of wearables to support informal science learning for children, how to support teachers to teach culturally-meaningful science, and how to motivate older adults to see value in the here and now.
Dr Francis Quek
Dr Francis Quek is a Professor of the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University. He joined Texas A&M University as an interdisciplinary President’s Signature Hire to bridge disparities in STEM. Formerly he has been the Director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech. Francis received both his B.S.E. summa cum laude (1984) and M.S.E. (1984) in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. He completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the same university in 1990. Francis is a member of the IEEE and ACM. He performs research in Making for STEM learning, embodied interaction, embodied learning and sense making, multimodal verbal/non-verbal interaction, multimodal meeting analysis, interfaces to support learning, vision-based interaction, multimedia databases, medical imaging, assistive technology for the blind, human computer interaction, computer vision, and computer graphics. He leads several multiple-disciplinary research efforts to understand the communicative realities of multimodal interaction.
