Communicating Like Engineers: Using WAC to Improve Technical Students’ Writing and Thinking

1. Communicating Like Engineers:Using WAC to Improve Technical Students’ Writing and Thinking Faculty of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana

2. Communicating Like Engineers • Context: RHIT and Engineering Communication Across the Curriculum • Short presentations: assignment development, procedure, student reactions, assessment, plans for revision • Discussion and questions

3. Ed Wheeler, Electrical and Computer Engineering Wayne Padgett, Electrical and Computer Engineering Anneliese Watt, Humanities and Social Sciences Richard Layton, Mechanical Engineering Patsy Brackin, Mechanical Engineering Julia Williams, Humanities and Social Sciences Presenters

4. Context for Engineering Communication Across the Curriculum Julia Williams, HSS

5. What is WAC? • Bi-annual conference • Bloomington, Indiana • Focuses on Writing Across the Curriculum efforts • National representation • Engineers, scientists, mathematicians participating

6. Engineering Communication • Needs: • Engineers who think, design, and communicate • Accreditation demands: student learning • Industrial demands: professional engineering practice • Writing as learning tool: enhanced technical proficiency and communication ability

7. Engineering Communication • Constraints: • Crowded engineering curriculum • Writing not integrated with technical content • Student attitudes: more work • Faculty attitudes: more work • Site for exchange and collaboration • Technical faculty • Technical communication faculty

8. EE 206 Elements of Electrical Engineering:Writing on a Technical Topic, Guided Peer Review Ed Wheeler, ECE

9. Not communicating effectively, particularly in writing, remains the greatest shortcoming of most engineers today.Norman Augustine, Former Chair and CEO of Martin Marietta Corporation • "By the time I leave office, I want engineering to do a better job of supplying information on which public policy can be based.” William Wolf, National Academy of Engineering

10. Paper Assignment for EE 206 • Assignment • Initial topic choice • Peer-revision • Final draft • Two options for students • Technical or peer audience • General audience

11. Technical or Peer Audience • Paper assignment • Write a paper on one or two specific uses of transducers in measurement & control in your discipline. • Objectives • Demonstrate independent learning of new technical material • Use of effective graphics where appropriate

12. General Audience • Paper assignment • Write a paper on some topic partly or wholly within your discipline. Consider your audience to be comprised of generally well informed members of the general public. Objectives • Accommodate varied audience • Learn that doing this well is difficult • Appreciate that the goal is not to “dumb down”

13. Observations and Outcomes • Successful assignment • Many excellent papers • Interesting and fun to read • Students engaged in process • Peer-evaluation forms • Burden not too heavy

14. EC 380 Discrete Time and Continuous Systems:Literature Search and Oral Report Wayne Padgett, ECE

15. Writing in Engineering Courses - author may wish to remain anonymous

16. EC380 Course Requirements EC 380 Discrete Time and Continuous Systems 4R-0L-4C W, S Pre: EC 300 System properties applied to discrete-time and continuous systems. The z-transform, FIR and IIR filters. Convolution and the Fourier transform in continuous and discrete-time systems. Literature search and oral report.

17. Traditional Approach • Student chooses technical topic • Student researches topic (literature search) • Student documents research (formal report) • Student presents research (oral presentation) • Professor grades report and presentation

18. Traditional Disadvantages • Research is unstructured, sometimes ineffective • Large number of topics • Report grading is time-intensive • Presentations use large amount of class time • Other course assignments may be redundant • Students sometimes re-use topics, papers

19. Alternative Approach • Student reads pre-selected articles (one topic), reads 1 self-selected paper (new topic) • Student analyzes papers for technical level and intended audience • Students research a topic in pairs and give oral presentation • Professor grades analysis and report

20. Alternative Advantages • Student receives specific guidance on research technique • Writing assignment is shorter, and research-skill oriented • Research requirement is less intense, fewer presentations

21. Alternative Disadvantages • Less depth in research • Students still want to re-use topics • Some students still find the assignment redundant • Professor schedules assignment timing instead of student (more structured)

22. RH 330 Technical Communication:Audience Analysis and Accommodation Anneliese Watt, HSS

23. Audience Analysis in Tech Comm:What We Want--Writing • Students should be able to: • Define their audience • Describe the relevant characteristics of that audience • Craft a document that adequately accommodates that audience. • Audience Analysis Worksheet (handout)

24. Audience Analysis in Tech Comm:What We Want--Reading • Students should: • Consider the forum within which the document is distributed, read, and/or published • Understand who constitutes the target primary and secondary readers. • They should then ask how the above may have affected the presentation and reception of the material.

25. Common Student Complaint: • “I don’t understand the article I’m reading.” • Why?--you may not be the audience. • In doing research for a technical report, students need to be reminded to consider the audience for the article they are reading, and how that affects the presentation of the material. • They also need to be encouraged to pursue material from a variety of forums.

26. Example: DVD Articles • Handout: DVD articles • Epinions.com • Scientific American “Ask the Experts” (2 articles) • IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics. • Common topic • Differences in audience and purpose • Drastically different in strategies of language, organization, tone, etc.

27. Regarding DVD Articles, Students Are Asked: • What readers are targeted by this publication? • What can the document tell us about the audience it is intended for? • What elements of the document reflect reader accommodation?

28. Tech Com Assignment Summary • Audience analysis worksheet • Students analyze their reading • Students prepare for their own writing. • DVD articles as a 1-2 day assignment • Students become more effective researchers and readers of technical info • Students more successfully accommodate their own audiences.

29. ME 406 Control Systems:Laboratory Report Richard Layton, ME

30. Writing? In a technical course? • Basic needs • Critical thought about class-related work • Technical coherence in reporting • To meet these needs • Open-ended problems • Writing, writing, writing, writi…

31. Course attributes • ME406 Control Systems, Fall 00 • 61 seniors in 17 teams in 2 sections • Lecture + lab + design • “Jigsaw” structure for lab instruction • Writing assignments by teams • 3 or 4 students per team • Heterogeneous, instructor-assigned • Peer-ratings to address hitchhiking

32. Assignment Lab report Revise outline, in-class Oral presentation of outline Revised report Feedback Graded w/ marginal notes Focused mini-lectures on technical errors/omissions Active listening and student critique Graded w/ general comments Team writing assignments

33. Writing goals • Report results of lab or design problem • Many paths to a satisfactory outcome • Discussion, implication, inferences • More than just reporting • Why these deliverables? • Vertical synthesis • Coherence, coherence, coherence

34. Issues • Team writing and editing • Team commitment • Coherence • Clarity of expectations • “Open-ended” shouldn’t mean “obscure” • Timeline given in advance • Motivate the writing

35. Mechanical Engineering 450/460/470Machine Design:Professional Writing Practice Patsy Brackin, ME

36. What is Senior Design? • Mechanical Engineering 450/460/470 • Machine Design • Traditional machine design concepts: fatigue, buckling, use of machine components, etc. • Design project with an industrial sponsor: Sagian, Union Hospital, Neoteric, Caterpillar

37. Writing Components of ME 460 • Team meetings: Agenda and Minutes • Weekly progress report memos to instructor • Logbook • Final design report

38. Areas for Improvement • Logbooks: • Poor documentation. • Students have difficulty reflecting on their learning. • Design Reports • Inappropriate level of abstraction: either too general or too detailed • Students ignore guidelines: omit required sections, leave out supporting materials, etc. • Students don’t believe they should be explicit and direct about their project: reluctant to answer the question, what is the problem?

39. Communicating Like Engineers:Using WAC to Improve Technical Students’ Writing and Thinking Faculty of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana

40. Communicating Like Engineers • Context: RHIT and Engineering Communication Across the Curriculum • Short presentations: assignment development, procedure, student reactions, assessment, plans for revision • Discussion and questions

41. Website for Handouts http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~williaj/wac2001