Building Group Spirit  

Technical communication courses and training programs often benefit from peer review or group critique. To encourage learning, these activities require a constructive climate: Students must listen to one another, be receptive to feedback, and refrain from reproaches, interpretations, and judgments. Such a positive group spirit is not a given, especially if the school or corporate environment encourages competition more than collaboration. Teachers must foster an appropriate environment if they want their collaborative learning activities to be successful.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration

Observations on Entrepreneurship, Instructional Texts, and Personal Interaction    

This article explores the complexity in Rohan's observation that "although texts in progress create community, this function hasn't value; in the world of business works in progress must be free" [1, p. 130]. To do so, the article describes the history of the development of the paper sewing pattern, discusses the role personal communications with consumers played as the genre evolved, and offers observations on the kinds of instruction provided by sewing machine and pattern companies. The extent to which gender and authority are connected in communications between consumers and corporate authors is explored. The article concludes by observing that once a genre is sufficiently established to become a standard, two changes occur: industries adopt authority for only certain types of necessary information, and women's authorship becomes anonymous, corporate, and personal exchanges with consumers are curtailed to save the expense.

Durack, Katherine T. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Instructional Design>Gender

Running Group Critique  

Feedback is central to learning. Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes, but practice without feedback does not allow students or training participants to improve.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration

Training Options and Team-Oriented Techniques  

After instituting training programs requiring 10 to 20 percent of every person's work week, Motorola reported that plants reinforcing the training received a $33 dollar return on investment for every dollar spent. The demand for training in new computer applications is growing. Selecting computer training options requires (1) an analysis of cost to benefits and (2) teamwork for preparing the materials and delivering the training. Some training techniques that work include knowledge mapping, pilot testing, and team training.

Feinberg, Susan G. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration

Using Student Management Teams to Improve Technical Writing Courses  

In this article, the authors describe the student management team (SMT) teaching concept, used to build appropriate teamwork competencies, and explain how they implemented an SMT in their technical writing course.

Mutschelknaus, Ina L. and Mike Mutschelknaus. Intercom (2000). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration