Schools of Thought  

How do you educate graphic designers in today's complex world? Teach them sociology, psychology, business - and yes, some composition and color theory.

McCarron, Carolyn. Adobe Magazine (2000). Articles>Education>Graphic Design

Selecting Communication-Intensive Assignments

Including communication-intensive assignments does not need to radically alter your course. The best source for ideas is your own original assignments. We recommend taking traditional writing assignments and simply enhancing them to address other communication concerns.

University of Minnesota. Articles>Education>Writing

Selecting Web-Based Training Technology  

Provides an overview of Web-based training (WBT) technology. Using a hypothetical training scenario, he suggests how WBT technology can improve training for several types of workers.

Magnan, Raymond. Intercom (2001). Articles>Education>Online

The Service Course and Its Stretchable/Permeable Borders  

The smaller the program, the more stretchable/permeable the borders of the service course must become.

Patterson, Celia. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Writing

Service Learning in the Introductory Technical Writing Class: A Perfect Match?    

Teachers at all levels of college instruction use service learning, a popular pedagogical tool since the mid-eighties, to teach students both social consciousness and pragmatic, real-world writing skills. This article explores the concept of service learning as rhetorical action in the field of technical communication in general, and the question of whether service learning is appropriate in beginning level technical writing courses. Using my experience through two years of service learning instruction in community college classes, I respond to the charge that students in lower-division courses may lack the maturity to successfully enact service learning assignments. I also analyze the appropriateness of the community college as a catalyst for community-based writing projects.

Stone, Elisa. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Education>Service Learning>Technical Writing

Setting Learner Goals and Objectives

While pursuing my undergraduate degree in business education, I took an entire semester-long course on writing good learner goals and objectives. Though I won't pass on everything I learned, I do want to stress the importance of establishing goals and objectives for your learners (as well as for yourself) and provide some tips for establishing effective, measurable goals and objectives.

WebAIM (2001). Articles>Education>Accessibility

Setting the Discourse Community: Tasks and Assessment for the New Technical Communication Service Course      

This article argues for a social perspective of the new technical communication service course, a conclusion supported by several premises: the technical communication profession wants and needs accountability, accountability is demonstrated by evaluation, assessment requires that we define literacy, evaluating technical communication literacy requires portfolio evaluation, portfolio assessment supports the social perspective of learning, and the social construction concepts imply teaching strategies. The argument proceeds from a case study that demonstrates reliability, stability, and validity in its technical communication service course assessment, tasks, and instructor community. This article demonstrates that portfolios can help us both conceptualize and evaluate the new technical communication service course.

Coppola, Nancy W. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>Education>WPA>Assessment

Setting the Stage  

Many teachers and instructors now recognize the importance of interaction. They know that their students learn from interacting with the material, with each other, and with them. Moving away from ex cathedra lecturing, instructors increasingly build their courses on hands-on practice, group exercises, and discussion sessions. Surprisingly, this change in methodology is not reflected in the classroom layout. Teachers often take their assigned rooms as they come, and while schools rush to fit classrooms with the latest technology, they seldom invest similar effort in designing more flexible or useful classroom layouts. By and large, the classic classroom is still setting the rules.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Interactive

Shifting Models of the University: Academia Slouches toward the Millennium

Lack of faculty consensus has combined with a multiplication of university programs to convince the public that universities serve secular needs and that their priorities should be established by the marketplace. This view threatens to disenfranchise the faculty.

Davis, Charles G. ADE Bulletin (1994). Articles>Education>Writing

The SIGCHI Educational Resource Development Group

Dynamic HCI curricula strike a balance between understanding concepts, knowledge of facts, and acquisition of skills in analysis, design, implementation, and communication. The interdisciplinary nature of HCI provides another dimension upon which to build exceptional curricula. Unfortunately, it has been difficult for HCI educators to achieve this balance while drawing upon interdisciplinary expertise. One reason is the lack of a central depository for the information and resources that are otherwise distributed both geographically and across disciplines.

Sears, Andrew, Julie A. Jacko and Marilyn Mantei. SIGCHI Bulletin (1997). Articles>Education>Usability

SIGCHI Tutorials To Go Program

The Tutorials To Go program enables local SIGs to sponsor professional seminars for their members, both for purposes of professional development and for purposes of outreach to others who might eventually become members of the local SIG. These seminars are based on successful CHI Conference Tutorials, chosen by a committee of SIGCHI members, and agreed to by the developers of each Tutorial. The program is sponsored by the ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee, and was developed by Tom Hewett and colleagues listed below.

ACM SIGCHI (1999). Articles>Education>Usability

A Simple Recipe to Help Build a Goal-Oriented Training Program for Your Department  

Addressing a department's learning requirements is a tough call because of the different levels of complexities and challenges involved. With learning requirements poorly understood and sometimes even out of sync with department goals, a majority of training programs fail to achieve any major business objectives. What you need is the right approach to develop, monitor and standardize a cost-effective, people and result-oriented training program that works magic for you and your department.

Kudesia, Saurabh. STC Management SIG (2007). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

Situating the Adult Learner in the Online Classroom  

Adult learners in the online classroom present new challenges for educational institutions and instructors. Often instructors create the online course by copying course syllabi, content, and assignments to the online course website. Along with the using the same content, instructors try to adapt their current pedagogical practices to the online classroom. This paper explores the aspects of adult learning in an online environment, discusses how it differs from the traditional educational environment, and offers suggestions for facilitating a successful online classroom for the adult learner.

Hoy, Cheryl. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Education>Online

The Skills that Technical Communicators Need: An Investigation of Technical Communication Graduates, Managers, and Curricula    

This study examines the skills that recent technical communication graduates and managers believe technical communication students need before entering business and industry as new technical communicators. Through questionnaires and interviews with recent graduates and managers of technical communication departments as well as an analysis of the participating schools' curricula, this study suggests areas where technical communication may need more preparation, including business operations, project management, problem-solving skills, and scientific and technical knowledge. Further research is needed at local, state, and national levels to analyze technical communication undergraduate curricula along with responses from recent graduates of technical communication programs and managers of technical communication programs. Only through continued research can we ensure that future technical communicators receive an education that eases their transition into the world of business and industry.

Whiteside, Aimee L. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>Education>TC>Workplace

So You Want to Teach Technical Communication?  

Institutions of higher education often hire technical and business communicators on a part-time basis to teach professional and technical writing courses. This workshop prepares practitioners for teaching positions by offering practice planning syllabi for courses, developing and critiquing writing assignments, examining student writing and criticizing its strengths and weaknesses, testing and discussing strategies for handling the paper flow and effective time management, and consulting with two experienced professors who are also researchers in the field. Participants will work in small groups to examine real papers, real syllabi, and real problems.

Philbin, Alice I. and Michael L. Keene. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>TC

So You've Decided to Develop A Distance Education Class...  

As colleges and universities race into Distance Education via the World Wide Web, instructors are asked to move out of their 'safe' zones and into a new realm of teaching.

Walker, Cynthia L. Kairos (2001). Articles>Education>Online

Some Ideas About Producing Online Modules: Learning Dynamics Australia    

Online learning results from the interaction of a learner and a Web-based set of content and collaboration with other people. The selection and direction of the content are determined by the learning and business outcomes of any module. The client sets the outcomes and provides the content. The LDA team translates that content into a set of screen components that state the meaning of the content and builds in continuity through a navigation system. In addition, collaboration with a tutor andother learners helps to maintain the personal nature of learning.

Morgan, David. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Online>Australia

Some Notes on Simulacra Machines, Flash in First-Year Composition, and Tactics in Spaces of Interruption  

This article is an examination of the discourse surrounding a new media tool, Macromedia's Flash, and a discussion of a qualitative study of Flash's use by students as part of an electronic portfolio assignment in a first-year composition course. My article explores how the software industry constructs Flash as a discursive object for the regulation of information flow, while also examining how the present generation of students interacts with these new media environments, making meaning within them through the use of simulacra tools.

Ellertson, Anthony. Kairos (2003). Articles>Education>Multimedia>Flash

Some Philosophical Underpinnings for Communication: Western and Eastern Foundations as seen in Commonplace Principles  

This paper focuses on one area of Western and Eastern philosophical underpinnings for communication, namely, the use of Commonplaces. However, it needs to be pointed out that we mainly focus on the Western tradition, while making some preliminary references to the Chinese rhetorical tradition since Chinese culture has very rich sources of foundation of rhetoric and communication. However, to our knowledge, ‘Commonplaces’ is a research topic that has been embarked on because of its rich traditions. In particular, we visit this singular concept of Commonplaces in two cultures: First, a brief view of the Western rhetorical tradition relating to definition/theory behind the use of Commonplaces as used in the Classical, Medieval, and the Renaissance world as the basis for communicating either orally or in written form. Second, we will briefly trace some Chinese rhetorical underpinnings of using Commonplaces, philosophies, points of view that mankind could use to communicate better, get along with people in order to achieve both informative and persuasive ends.

Hildebrandt, Herbert and Yunxia Zhu. Association for Business Communication (2007). Articles>Education>Communication>International

Some Speculations About Writing Programs in the Eighties

This decade is a very good time to be a writing teacher. Those of us who were foresighted or brash or lucky enough to have chosen this career five or ten years ago now find ourselves in the midst of a ferment of professional activity.

Hairston, Maxine. ADE Bulletin (1981). Articles>Education>Writing

Some Thoughts on Teaching Grammar to Improve Writing    

The conviction that writing can be improved with a knowledge of grammar has prevailed for quite a long time. But research has shown no correlation between grammatical knowledge and writing ability.

Baum, Bernard. CCC (1967). Articles>Education>Writing>Grammar

Static in the Electronic Classroom: Can Technology Get in the Way of Learning?  

Technology can be a very powerful tool in the technical communication classroom, but can technology sometimes get in the way of learning? It can if we do not carefully plan our transition from the traditional to the electronic classroom. In preparing for this transition, we must consider the needs of our students, the capabilities of the technology, and our own responsibilities as instructors.

Glover, Kyle S. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Online

STC-U: Supporting Members through Education

How does an STC chapter address such a wide scope of skills and interests? The answer for us is an educational program called STC-U.

Nelsen, Kymm. Tieline (2003). Articles>Education>TC

Stepping Lively: Reformatting the Gap Between Student Writing and Professional Writing    

Teachers of technical writing are urged to use computers not only for influencing the process of writing but also for designing and formatting the product of writing. Engineering students at a Midwestern university now submit final drafts of senior projects in commercial-style formats, thus increasing their range of skills in the act of preparing final written products and adopting some conventions of communicating in the workplace. Reformatting student writing to mimic commercial-quality writing not only increases the scope and responsibility of writing instruction, but also better prepares students to adapt to communication situations in the workplace.

Kumpf, Eric P. and Joseph T. Emanuel. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Education>Writing

"Stepping Lively": Reformatting the Gap Between Student Writing and Professional Writing    

Teachers of technical writing are urged to use computers not only for influencing the process of writing but also for designing and formatting the product of writing. Engineering students at a Midwestern university now submit final drafts of senior projects in commercial-style formats, thus increasing their range of skills in the act of preparing final written products and adopting some conventions of communicating in the workplace. Reformatting student writing to mimic commercial-quality writing not only increases the scope and responsibility of writing instruction, but also better prepares students to adapt to communication situations in the workplace.

Kumpf, Eric P. and Joseph T. Emanuel. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Education>Writing>Business Communication