Education, Training, and Professional Development Stem Overview  

Education, training, and professional development remain central interests of the Society. In this program stem, more than thirty high-quality sessions emphasize four areas of continuing interest to educators, trainers, students, and other professionals.

Rainey, Kenneth T. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Professionalism

Education, Training, and Professional Development Stem Overview  

Responding to the concerns and issues we face, the workshops, panels, papers, discussions, and demonstrations in the Education, Training, and Professional Development Stem share common experiences, uncommon insights, and bold forecasts for the future to enlighten our community of technical communicators.

Hawkes, Lory. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>Professionalism

Education, Training, and Research Stem Overview  

Whether we are new or experienced technical communicators, formal and continuing education and training are vital for our careers. And the basis for much of our education and training is developed from research.

Armbruster, David L. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Research

Education: Issues within the STC Academic Community  

STC supports students through scholarships, the honor fraternities, and recognition of student chapter achievements. STC members provide a network for information and contacts for employment. The academic community can strengthen its ties to STC by encouraging students to apply for the awards and recognitions and to take advantage of the network of professionals.

Smith, Elizabeth Overman 'Betsy'. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Education>Community Building>STC

Education: More Needles in the Haystack

One of the great challenges -- and joys -- of teaching takes place outside the classroom. Whether on Saturday or Sunday, in the heat of August or chill of early January, class preparation plays a major role in developing the best possible learning environment for students. Access to current resources is paramount. For HCI educators, the World Wide Web is becoming an essential link to such information.

Gasen, Jean B. SIGCHI Bulletin (1996). Articles>Education>Usability

Education: Some Progress and Some New Questions

For each of the last five years, there has been a workshop on HCI Education at the annual CHI conference. What makes these workshops so interesting isn't just the variety of people it brings together or issues discussed, it's the way the workshops have changed over the years. Just as HCI has evolved as a discipline, the topics of these and other workshops have also evolved. These changes are one indication of how much we have learned and what we have left to understand.

Sears, Andrew. SIGCHI Bulletin (1996). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Educational Aspects of Technical Communication: Overview and Application of Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

By discussing the modern technical communicator's audience with the presumption that they are individuals reading text, many technical communication theorists vastly limit and underestimate the role of the technical communicator. Indeed, Billie J. Wahlstrom writes that as new technologies have been developed over the years, '[technical communicators] have adopted an ahistorical approach . . . largely ignoring . . . luminal eras when changes in communications technologies caused profound cultural transformations' (Walstrom 131).[1] Moreover, arguments in technical communication theory frequently miss the fact that even though they can become wildly divergent, they may all seem appropriate to certain audiences and in certain situations. For example, Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver's The Mathematical Theory of Communication outlines a theory of communication in seeming contradiction to Carolyn R. Miller's in 'A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing.' But despite this conflict, we still find value in both of these theories. How is this possible? Are there any unifying theories that allow for such divergent theories to coexist? Indeed there are, but they require us to look at technical communication in a different way than what is presently assumed in technical communication discourse.

Larson, Jerrod. Orange Journal, The (2001). Articles>Education>Theory

Educational Models and Open Source: Resisting the Proprietary University  

This paper presents an educational model derived from open source methods for computer programming. The article places this search for an alternative model within a framework of proprietary educational practices that are driven by a need for efficiency and rationalization. As an alternative model, the paper suggests that an open source derived educational process would emphasize collaborative problem based learning, working through drafts, risk taking, mentoring, user testing, releasing early and often. . . .

Faber, Brenton D. ACM SIGDOC (2002). Articles>Education>Knowledge Management>Open Source

The Effect of Rater Training On Reducing Social Style Bias in Peer Evaluation    

This study employed a quasiexperimental control group design in a university setting to test the effect of a rater-training program on reducing social style bias in intragroup peer evaluations after controlling for ability based on GPA. Comparison of rating scores of the test group to the control group indicated minimal social style rating bias in the test group, whereas significant bias was exhibited in the control group. Implications for college instructors who use peer evaluations for grading in team projects are discussed.

May, Gary L. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Collaboration

Effective Computer-Based Training Design

The purpose of computer-based training (CBT) is to motivate students to reach clearly defined objectives, so CBT design elements should help learners reach those goals. The interface design results from a complex interrelationship among these primary factors.

Edwards, Verlane. STC Central Iowa (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Electronic Outlining as a Tool for Making Writing Visible

The electronic outlining software found in many commercial programs, when projected on the classroom wall, helps us train students in the main activities involved in creating an outline. Freed from paper, the electronic outline allows continuous revision, encourages multiple iterations of the many interdependent activities involved in research, planning, writing, and revision, and serves as a focal point for discussion of the ways in which the group is developing an ongoing consensus, as part of a larger conversation.

Price, Jonathan R. Communication Circle, The (1997). Articles>Education>Editing>Writing

Electronic Portfolios: For Assessment and Job Search  

Electronic portfolios have slipped silently into colleges and universities as effective assessment tools of student work.

Brammer, Charlotte. Association for Business Communication (2007). Articles>Education>Portfolios

ELT on the NET: The Internet In English Language Teaching

Well before most us come to the end of our working lives use of the Internet and World Wide Web in education will be standard practice.

Hudson, Roger. Usability.com.au (1997). Articles>Education>Online>Australia

The Emerging Role of Emotional Intelligence in Business Communication Classes  

Communication is a major component of emotional intelligence models. While we teach persuasive writing, presentations, bad news, good news, and you orientation in our business communication classes, to date we have not looked at the effects emotional intelligence has on our teaching. Emotional intelligence encompasses all areas that we teach in business communication. The purpose of this paper is to show how emotional intelligence is a part of what makes some people good business communicators and others poor ones. If we knew which students had a high-level or which had a low level of emotional intelligence, hypothetically that information could help us teach business communication concepts more efficiently in our classrooms.

Martin, Jeanette S. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Emotions

Engaging Learners with Various Training Methods

While preparing these workshops, I knew that I would be addressing people from many backgrounds. My own background is in education. In pursuing my Master's program in Instructional Technology, I began working on a distance education project for special educators. It was my first introduction to Web accessibility. I eventually came to work at WebAIM where Web accessibility has become my primary interest. Currently, I am coordinating WebAIM's K-12 education initiative. My path to Web accessibility is very unique, as is yours. I would love to hear why you are here learning how to become a better accessibility trainer.

WebAIM (2001). Articles>Education>Accessibility

English Department Service Courses

The service curricula in this survey include institution-wide general education courses, English courses required in addition to institution-wide general education courses for preprofessional students (those pursuing four-year or longer non-arts and sciences degrees), and other specialized preprofessional English courses, such as technical writing.

Fontane, Marilyn Stall. ADE Bulletin (1994). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

English Professors as Technical Writers: Experience is The Best Teacher

The future of the English curriculum is being argued and discussed in academic settings across the country. Students, more and more, seek courses of study that will lead directly to jobs. The buzzword is 'relevance.' The bottom line is 'big bucks.'

Barnum, Carol M. ADE Bulletin (1983). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

Environmental Problem-Solving in Communication Courses  

Describes how teachers of communication courses can use local environmental controversies to stimulate creative thinking and illustrate proper research methods.

Griggs, Karen. Intercom (2001). Articles>Education>Environmental

EPSScentral: Online Learning

Articles about emerging trends in online learning that may affect the design and development to electronic performance support systems.

EPSScentral. Articles>Education>Online>EPSS

The Erasure of the Sentence  

This article examines the sentence-based pedagogies that arose in composition during the 1960s and 1970s—the generative rhetoric of Francis Christensen, imitation exercises, and sentence-combining—and attempts to discern why these three pedagogies have been so completely elided within contemporary composition studies. The usefulness of these sentence-based rhetorics was never disproved, but a growing wave of anti-formalism, anti-behaviorism, and anti-empiricism within English-based composition studies after 1980 doomed them to a marginality under which they still exist today. The result of this erasure of sentence pedagogies is a culture of writing instruction that has very little to do with or to say about the sentence outside of a purely grammatical discourse.

Connors, Robert J. CCC (2000). Articles>Education>Writing

Essential Elements of a Writing Course Proposal

At some point in their careers, many writers may teach writing courses, either before a 'live' classroom audience or, these days, online. But how does a new teacher develop that first course proposal? What elements should go into it?

Dreifus, Erika. Klariti (2005). Articles>Education>Proposals>Writing

Ethics, Critical Thinking, and Professional Communication Pedagogy    

Critical thinking pedagogy offers a supportive environment for teaching ethics in the professional communication classroom. Four important aspects of critical thinking which particularly encourage ethical thought and behavior are identifying and questioning assumptions, seeking a multiplicity of voices and alternatives on a subject, making connections, and fostering active involvement. Focusing on these behaviors allows an ongoing incorporation of ethics into many different aspects of the classroom.

Kienzler, Donna S. Technical Communication Quarterly (2001). Articles>Education>Ethics>Methods