A Socio-Technical Interaction: WPI

1
A Socio-Technical InteractionWPIs Third Year
Project

• US-Africa Business Conference
• June 9, 2008
• Susan Vernon-Gerstenfeld, PhD

2
WPIs
Required socio-technical project

• Provides third year students the opportunity to
  investigate and report on a problem at the
  intersection of science or technology and
  societal structures and values anywhere in the
  world

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Why Project-Based Education?

• Provides real-world context
• introduces the realm of messy problems
• provides a short-term
• work experience
• fosters team building
• and collaboration skills
• encourages critical thinking
• Sets the above in a sponsored and
• guided academic context
• Demands consideration of the meaning of
  society-technology interactions

4
Where Do We Do Projects?

• Project centers are all
• over the world
• Europe, Asia, Australia
• North America
• Central America
• Africa
• African sites are in
• Namibia
• South Africa

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How Do We Do Projects?

• Prepare on campus for 7 weeks
• Develop background
• Do preliminary interviews
• Learn the methods of community
• development and sustainable
• development
• Be on site for 2 months to collect data, analyze,
  make recommendations
• Practice writing research reports, oral
  presentations, and team skills

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The African Projects

• Focused on well defined national priorities and
  very often are in informal settlements
• Often have a Peace Corps aura but are grounded in
  academic research