Experiential Learning for STEM
Semester: Spring 2025
Faculty Advisor: Leslie Cheng
Field Site: The Paradigm Forum GmbH
Field Supervisor: E. Tabi Haller-Jordan
Praxis Poster:
PIS_Anne Nguyen_Praxis PosterREVISED.pdf
Further Context:
This past semester, I worked with Tabi, my filed supervisor, as a research intern on our ongoing project of humanizing technologists at The Paradigm Forum GmbH. This project was a co-creation of Tabi and the intern team started last summer and this Praxis was a continuation of the project since Tabi and I were both very excited to explore it further.
At the beginning of the semester, I explored the barriers and pathways to experiential learning regarding STEM and the way to engaging STEM talents learners in active learning. This led me to develop a learning & reflective journal for college students, particularly in STEM, that accompanies them through their time in college. The journal is created with a goal of enhancing students’ self-awareness and introspection in their values, identity, skills, learning, growth, visions or the lack thereof and encouraging mindsets and habits for change-making.
Some of the themes in the journal currently are values, connection, courage, and mindfulness. This journal uses reflective prompts, such as “When have you taken a risk even though there was no guarantee of desired outcomes?”, provocative texts from books and speeches, concept introductions of helpful practices like loving kindness, exercises targeting areas such as risk-taking and expanding comfort zone, and goals tracker for intentional habit building. This is still a work in progress and is being reiterated to incorporate feedback from students and staffs. I’d like to share a prototype of this journal with more students and staffs to gain different perspectives on whether and how this journal would be helpful for students.
Because I am a math student, questions emerge about how to connect math and humanizing technologists. Since math is commonly considered a very technical subject, which it is indeed, I explored different ways it could be understood and practiced as a humanized subject. Tabi and I had many discussions about what a moral dimension of mathematics, or Moral Mathematics, could look like. Eventually, I created a framework of moral mathematics, an approach and way of understanding and using math considering that impacts of math on humans and society, including 1) life through the mathematical lens, 2) process skills in mathematics, and 3) ethical implications of mathematics. We believe that this framework can be introduced and applied to various technical subjects to better attract students, engage students, and encourage students to think civically, interdisciplinarily, and innovatively. I would love to work with professors and teachers and find ways to implement this framework into math and technical classrooms, whether that is through incorporating experiential learning into the lesson plans or creating spaces students can collaborate and innovate.
I told Tabi that through this experience, I have become so much more interesting and knowledgeable as a person, not just from doing research and reading, but also from observing how she thinks, leads, and communicates. I became more a more intentional story-teller and approached communicating with others from a place of values and visions. And since this internship was a co-creation and learning partnership, I was pushed to be self-motivated and take initiative to steer the direction and assignments of the project. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to not just be hands-on, but to have agency and “skin-in-the-game”, and get to let my creativity roams freely and to learn so much from doing the work and from my supervisor.