Writing Across Engineering & Science (WAES)

Since Summer 2019, I have served as a Research Assistant with Writing Across Engineering and Science (WAES), a transdisciplinary Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) project focused on collaborating with faculty and students to integrate writing instruction across STEM departments at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We take a transdisciplinary action research (TDAR) approach, integrating research, interventions and assessment in an iterative cycle. Our work is supported by a Strategic Instructional Innovations Program grant from Grainger College of Engineering’s Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education as well as a National Science Foundation grant awarded in 2020, which I helped prepare.

As an RA, I took on several roles with WAES: mentoring faculty who are implementing writing instruction, leading sessions on rubric design in our faculty learning community, analyzing the placement of writing in the physics curriculum, researching and developing a workshop for physics student organizations, and planning and facilitating department focus groups on writing learning goals. One of my central contributions was developing and researching the impacts of Engineering 598 (STEM Writing Practice/Pedagogy), a graduate course with a dual focus on research writing practices and writing instruction.

See our team website for more information: https://publish.illinois.edu/waes/