REFLECTING ON WRITTEN COMMUNICATION AS AN EMBEDDED COMPONENT IN UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING CURRICULA

Communication in general and technicalwriting in particular have long been seen as importanthigher order skills for all graduating and practicingengineers. Developing technical writing skills in ourstudents requires a high level of student-instructorinteraction. The interaction needs to provide mean...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) 2015-08
Main Authors: Moorthy, Arun S., Stiver, Warren H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Communication in general and technicalwriting in particular have long been seen as importanthigher order skills for all graduating and practicingengineers. Developing technical writing skills in ourstudents requires a high level of student-instructorinteraction. The interaction needs to provide meaningful,embedded and iterative writing opportunities. Feedbackthat is detailed and timely is essential for successotherwise numerous writing experiences can reinforcepoor writing behaviors. Providing this intensity ofinteraction can be difficult in a technically focused andpacked curriculum. It can be difficult in competition withother time demands on students and instructors alike. Inthis paper, we present opinions on the challenges,opportunities, and approaches in providing technicalwriting education and support for undergraduateEngineering students. We focus primarily in theframework of Engineering curricula at Universities inOntario, but ideas discussed also have applications tohigher-level STEM education in general.
ISSN:2371-5243
2371-5243
DOI:10.24908/pceea.v0i0.5812