Jongmin LEE, University of Science and Technology, Korea, Korea (Republic of)
This paper looks at multiple experiences in higher education institutions and research institutes in Korea and the United States. The sites of observation include a 3-week intensive education program for new STEM graduate students in Korea, 2-semester capstone course series for undergraduate thesis writing in the United States, and a science writing group composed of researchers and non-researchers. Using official records, metadata, and personal memos, this paper aims to understand what motivated students to find a particular topic and develop it into a concrete one. I hope to find out that engineering and science students, compared to established counterparts, were better motivated by broader changes in society than recent trends in the discipline. I would also like to check if they, in the middle of their intensive training for their degree, have good communicative skills to work across disciplines.
In Apple (pseudonym) University in the United States, engineering students wrote STS thesis papers on emerging technology of their choice and related social and ethical issues. After reviewing recent scholarship on technology and society, they chose their topics based on their majors and recent social trends. I aim to see connections between the keywords of their STS thesis papers and keywords of the Apple University newspapers which reflect important changes in Apple University and surroundings. In Orange (pseudonym) University in Korea, engineering and science students chose their topics of group presentations based on project instruction, their majors, and recent social trends. Some groups were more engaged with hands-on projects utilizing sensors, Raspberry Pi, or 3D printers to create simple apps while others found “big data” from the public domain and applied them into TensorFlow. In Avocado (pseudonym) writing group in Korea, researchers and their non-researcher friends met regularly to share their writings and learn from each other. I will look at their topics of their writing and investigate how their topics and their academic and personal background were related.
Throughout these three sites of research, I aim to observe how environmental and social awareness of emerging technology influence their creative activities whether essays, artifacts, or codes. This paper focuses on what motivates these groups, how they worked together on group projects, and what helped and not helped them to communicate their motivation with their group members. Overall I will reflect on my role as an advisor, facilitator, and collaborator and suggest possible ways to create more inclusive and productive environment for everyone involved.
Document 1 : Document 1