Learning to Be Professional: Technical Classroom Discourse, Practice, and Professional Identity Construction    

Instruction in the technical and scientific disciplines gives students the technical skills necessary to succeed in industry. However, these disciplines also focus on socializing students into professional identities. This study examines one exemplar discipline, mechanical engineering, to see how classroom discourse and practice constructs professional identities for students (as future engineers) and their customers. Results suggest that although students' conceptions of the customer provided glimpses of professional identity, design processes in these classrooms were ultimately driven and shaped by academic communicative practices, audiences, and goals. Given this, instructional interventions are provided to integrate professionalization processes within classrooms where situated learning is apparent.

Dannels, Deanna P. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Education>Professionalism

Learning to Write: Learning about Sustainability  

I had been involved with a program at Clemson to integrate laptop computers into the engineering curriculum. In this pilot project, I had taught first-year writing since 1998 to engineering and science majors using their own laptops in classrooms equipped with ethernet connections and a video projector. This proved to be a rich environment for sharing work and collaborating among ourselves. I wanted to see whether we could extend our collaborations to other Clemson classrooms. Mary Haque (a professor in Clemson University’s Horticulture Department) and I decided that my first-year composition classes could collaborate with her horticulture classes.

Longo, Bernadette. Kairos (2001). Articles>Education>Engineering>Writing

Legitimizing Technical Communication in English Departments: Carolyn Miller's "Humanistic Rationale For Technical Writing"    

Carolyn Miller's oft-cited "Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing," published in 1979, tries to give technical communication faculty more cultural capital in English departments controlled by literature professors. Miller replaces a positivistic emphasis in technical communication pedagogy with rhetoric. She shows how technical knowledge is produced by individual activity and social affirmation and not by objective descriptions of sensory impressions. Her "Rationale" is an attempt to change institutional and discursive structures by persuading literature professors that technical communication can have as much distinction in the academy as literature.

Moore, Patrick. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Academic>Education>TC>Professionalism

Lessons Learned From Instructional Design Theory: an Application in Management Education    

Given that many doctoral programs do not provide extensive training on how to present course information in the classroom, the current paper looks to educational psychology theory and research for guidance. Richard Mayer and others' copious empirical work on effective and ineffective instructional design, along with relevant research findings in cognitive science, are summarized and adapted to the management education context. The goal of this article is to enhance instructors' ability to effectively relay course material and to offer specific advice for how instructors can implement prior research findings.

Burke, Lisa A. Business Communication Quarterly (2007). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Multimedia

Lessons to be Learned

Ivy-covered halls are filling up again with eager students of the user experience fields ready to change the world (or at least to study out the recession). But are these programs really teaching them what they need to know?

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Education>Information Design

Let the User Write the Documentation  

Teaching non-writers how to write can be challenging, especially when they are adults using new software to do their jobs. But who knows best how to write about their jobs than the end users. Through field experiences and case studies, this paper describes methods and approaches for eflectively including the end user in the documentation process, as well as educating experienced writers who are new to the system.

Doyle, Diane J. and Janet M. Samuelson. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Education>Writing

Life-Long Computer Skills

Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Education>Technology>

A Lifetime of Learning and Teaching

After more than 30 years of making money as a translator, I wonder why no one ever thought of guiding me in that direction. Instead I was left to find it for myself, as the result of fortunate circumstances and opportunities I somehow created for myself.

Howell, Betty. Accurapid (2005). Articles>Education>Translation

Linking Industry Best Practices and EC3(g) Assessment in Engineering Communication

Enthusiastic comments about 3(g)--one of the most widely appreciated ABET 2000 criteria--have masked disagreements about what 'effectiveness' is and how it should be defined in relation to schools' missions. Most of the methods that have been recommended for assessing engineering communication imitate procedures used for large-scale testing in English composition. The main purpose of this paper is to show that these methods have nothing to do with effectiveness or audience, and that they provide meager feedback to guide curriculum improvement. This uncertainty provides an opportunity for cooperation between engineering and communication faculty in individual institutions as well as between ASEE and professional organizations in engineering communication. Continuous monitoring and evaluation of industry best practices seem well suited to provide engineering schools with assessment strategies that can be updated as communication practices in industry change. Research projects should focus on exemplars' adaptations to new technologies and audiences. Collaboration between organizations for technical communication and the ASEE and between faculty from engineering and faculty from technical communication on individual campuses can ensure that engineering programs are realistically preparing students to meet future challenges.

Driskill, Linda. Rice University (2000). Articles>Education>Engineering>Assessment

Literacy and Expertise in the Academy  

The ability to read and write are usually regarded as a birthright in this country. The transmission of reading skills to the general public has been part of the agenda for American education since the initiation of the public school movement (Cook-Gumperz; Graff; Soltow and Stevens). As a result, we regularly espouse the ideal if not the practice of teaching everyone to read, and recent educational reforms have attempted to add writing to this agenda.

Geisler, Cheryl. LLAD (1994). Articles>Education>Literacy

Literature Reviews in Student Project Reports      

Writing project reports is an important part of the engineering curriculum at Singapore universities. One important section of the formal report is the literature review. Most universities around the world provide guidelines on writing reviews, emphasizing that plagiarism is unethical. However, these guidelines do not offer explicit training on how to avoid plagiarism. In order to write academically acceptable reviews while avoiding copying from source materials, students face a major challenge and resort to employing various strategies to cope with the task. In this study, we examined the literature review sections of final year project reports to find out how engineering undergraduates in a Singapore university cope with writing reviews and to suggest ways in which they can extend their skills to improve their literature reviews.

Krishnan, Lakshmy A. and Sujata S. Kathpalia. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2002). Academic>Education>Writing>Plagiarism

The Lone Ranger as Technical Writing Program Administrator    

The popularity of technical writing and communication has caused many colleges and universities to scramble to hire qualified tenure-track faculty members. So-called lone ranger candidates are often lured to workplaces in which they are the sole technical writing faculty members by promises of autonomy and the ability to develop programs in ways, and at a pace, that would not necessarily be possible at other institutions. This article explores challenges faced by several such lone ranger faculty members and outlines survival strategies that may help lone rangers sustain and build their technical writing programs.

Sapp, David Alan. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

Looking for Trouble: Moments of Crisis in a Professional Writing Curriculum

As a new director of a new Professional Writing program, my colleagues and I spent much of our time designing curriculum. The sequence and content of our courses, we felt, were the only real way to make our program more than the sum of its parts.

Franke, David. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Academic>Education>Management

Looking Toward the Electronic Future in the Classroom  

The electronic tools available in the technical communication classroom have increased in number and sophistication over the last decade. Our three panelists examine the implications to the classroom of virtual reality, E-mail, and 'the information superhighway.'

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

Looking Toward the Electronic Future in the Classroom: Using Electronic Mail  

In the last decade, electronic mail (email) has continued to gain popularity and use, especially in the business community. Growing email use has transformed business communication, making it necessary for business executives, scientists, and engineers to acquire knowledge and competence in electronic communication. Such changes make it necessary to teach skills for effective email communication in technical and business writing classes. Preparing students to meet unique communication challenges that they will face in today’s business world is valuable.

Kim, H. Young. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Correspondence>Email

Lore: An E-Journal for Teachers of Writing

Lore is an e-journal for adjuncts and graduate students who teach writing at colleges and universities. This journal is designed to provide a forum for sharing knowledge, building communities, and voicing concerns about what happens in the classroom.

Bedford-St. Martin's. Journals>Education>Rhetoric>Writing

LORE: Rhetoric, Writing, Culture

'Lore' allues to Stephen North's idea of 'practitioner lore,' or the important traditions of teaching and research which seldom make their way into publishing writing. This journal seeks to publish such underrepresented work.

Lore. Journals>Education>Rhetoric

Lumiere Ghosting and the New Media Classroom  

Refocusing courses around the structure of narrative and how they use theatrical forms of interaction in the presentation of complex online help and instructional systems

Gilette, David, John Elsdon and Enrica Lovaglio. Kairos (2005). Articles>Education>Multimedia

Maintaining a Curriculum

In 1991 the University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule) in Hanover was the first German academic institution to teach technical writing. Since then our curriculum has been subject to changes and it still is: Developing a curriculum is an ongoing process.

Baumert, Andreas. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Education>Management>Germany

Making Decisions about Distance Education: Organizational and Individual Perspectives  

Decisions about distance education, whether from the perspectives of academic or corporate organizations, are often made on the basis of economical, pedagogical, and psychological perspectives. Decisions are also made by potential distance learning students. Distance learning delivery organizations often include student self-surveys in their initial online promotional materials. This metaanalysis of several student distance learning 'readiness' surveys identifies their major common elements, and it offers a checklist of topics to include in distance learning student 'readiness' surveys. Finally, recommendations are offered concerning the ethical and research dimensions of the decision-making required for effective distance education delivery.

Shirk, Henrietta Nickels. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Online>Assessment

Making Disability Visible: How Disability Studies Might Transform the Medical and Science Writing Classroom      

This article describes how disability studies can be used in a medical and science writing class to critically examine the assumptions of scientific discourse.  An emerging, interdisciplinary field, disability studies draws on feminist, postmodern, and post-colonial theory and extends their critiques to the medicalization of disability.  Deconstructing the medical model of disability helps students understand how science is socially constructed.  After conceptualizing disability studies, this essay discusses sample disability-related classroom activities, readings, and writing assignments.

Wilson, James C. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Making Educational Software and Web Sites Accessible: Design Guidelines Including Math and Science Solutions

Students with disabilities are increasingly placed in inclusive classrooms where they learn alongside their peers. This poses a challenge to teachers and students because instructional materials may not be available in a form that is accessible to the disabled student. Inaccessible materials stigmatize students with disabilities by preventing them from using the same materials as their peers and can limit their educational opportunities. As technology becomes more prevalent in classrooms, students with disabilities face even more challenges in keeping pace with their classmates.

Freed, Geoff, Madeleine Rothberg and Tom Wlodkowski. WGBH (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Making it Fit: Teaching Online Information Design in Two Programs with One Course  

To serve students in an interdisciplinary minor in Interactive Media as well as our own concentrators in business and technical writing within the department, we developed a course in designing online information.

Worley, Rebecca B. and Deborah C. Andrews. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Information Design

Making Professional Development Work for You  

Obtaining a degree and entering the workforce is not the end of the educational experience; it is the beginning of the Life-long process of professional development. Professional development benefits employees by helping them to progress and increase their worth to the company, and it benefits management by poviding them with more skilled and knowledgeable employees, Many opportunities are available to communicators, such as professional societies, conferences, seminars, books, and journals. Communicators, then, must seek out the opportunities, devise a professional develop-merit plan, overcome the obstacles, and then implement what they have learned.

O'Brien, Charles J. III and Russell B. Stoner. STC Proceedings (1993). Careers>Education>Continuing

Making Sense of the Visual in Technical Communication: A Visual Literacy Approach to Pedagogy    

We employ an array of terms to denote the visual; however, we have not yet agreed on a clear framework for understanding the function and relationship between visual concepts. I propose a literacy approach to the visual so that as educators, researchers, students, and practitioners, we acquire more than skills that rely on changing definitions and technologies but an intellectual faculty that provides the knowledge, understanding, and abilities that the visual affords. Through an analysis of arguments for visual instruction, I present the wayS in which scholars justify their claims about the visual. These arguments uncover the breadth and depth of the visual and contribute to a taxonomy of visual terminology.

Portewig, Tiffany Craft. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>TC>Education>Visual Rhetoric