What does community engagement look like? For NIU Professor of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment Pi-Sui Hsu, it means partnering with middle school teachers in the U.S. and Taiwan to educate young adults who can think critically and argue effectively about issues important to their world.
NIU ETRA professor Dr. Hsu sits in front of a computer.
Scientific argumentation is one of the eight essential practices of the Next Generation Science Standards. NIU Professor Pi-Sui Hsu has dedicated her career to better understanding how middle school students and teachers learn, so she can help to improve the teaching of scientific argumentation at this important stage of development
Professor Hsu says that what motivates her to do this work is her conviction that scientific argumentation is essential to produce young adults who can think critically, and effectively address important issues in their world. It’s essential to produce the next generation of informed, engaged citizens.
Learn from Professor Hsu at a brownbag lunch presentation on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, at noon.
Register for the free brownbag lunch talk.
Professor Hsu will share the story of her collaborative research journey. She’ll share insights into how faculty can use field work to build authentic, mutually beneficial partnerships. And she’ll answer faculty questions about their own potential collaborations.
This goal has required Hsu to create trusting, mutually beneficial relationships with educators throughout northern Illinois and in Taiwan. These partnerships have benefitted thousands of students in diverse communities, and they’ve helped to advance understandings of pedagogy and educational technology.
“I think a partnership should be established on the ground of reciprocal benefit,” Hsu says.
“My research is field driven, which means I spend a lot of time visiting teachers and learning about what happens in K-12 classrooms. I don’t dictate what teachers should do in their classrooms! Instead, I reach out and ask a teacher, ‘What challenges do you have in your classroom?’ I share some emerging technologies that I think might help, and I ask, ‘Which of these tools do you think will benefit your students most? Or which one would you like to try?’ It starts from understanding the teacher’s busy schedule and the variety of students they work with.”
Professor Hsu has spent more than a decade visiting middle school science classrooms, forming alliances with teachers in DeKalb, Rockford and across northern Illinois, as well as in Taiwan.
In fact, one of her signature community engagement programs facilitates live online interactions between young people in Downers Grove and Taiwan. Another signature project was a partnership with the Rockford Public Schools in which students built and raced miniature, solar-powered cars. Students were highly engaged as they learned about 3D printing, direct and indirect sunlight, and solar panels. Working in groups, the students took part in deep discussions and argumentation with one another to come to design decisions.
Accomplishing this has at times meant daily 5 a.m. commutes to the suburbs, international journeys where Hsu convinced adolescents to return to school at 8 p.m. to meet with their U.S. counterparts (who logged in at 7 a.m.), creating and running week-long summer camps and after-school programs in Rockford and making sure she’s back on campus to teach her own evening classes.
Travis Woulfe, executive director of Improvement and Innovation for the Rockford Public Schools, said: “We calculate that dozens of teachers, thousands of middle school students and the greater community of Rockford have benefitted from the worthwhile partnership with Dr. Hsu. Her desire and effective engagement on a small scale has continually grown and will have further impacts.”
Learn more about Professor Hsu’s exceptional community partnerships in this story from NIU Today.
