A stereotype exists of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students as skilled technicians but poor communicators. The days when programmers could be brilliant but incapable of discussing their work are over. Today employers and educators alike recognize the importance of communication skills for STEM students. In the field of technical communication, Laura Reave (2004) has outlined the many recent surveys that have sought to identify the gap between workplace demands and the communication skills of graduating students. In the STEM fields, organizations such as the National Academy of Engineering have recognized the various contexts of engineering practice and the need to engage multiple stakeholders, including interdisciplinary and globally diverse team members, public officials, and a global customer base. They noted “good engineering will require good communication,” stating that the increased imperative for accountability necessitates an “ability to communicate convincingly and to shape the opinions of other engineers and the public” (p. 55). And, ABET, the accreditation organization for applied science, computing, engineering, and technology, has outlined a broad range of student outcomes, relating to teaching technical communication—most notably, “an ability to communicate effectively” (ABET).
In many institutions, communication skills are taught in service courses by technical communication faculty. This presentation will consider the ways in which effective communication is articulated and negotiated by faculty in English and the STEM fields. We will consider the following issues:
* How do we articulate these standards into objectives to carry out in our programs?
* In what ways do the ABET standards strengthen or weaken our position within our universities?
* How do we negotiate the tension of working with STEM programs from within English departments?
This panel will draw on the perspectives of three different universities and the ways in which the technical communication program for undergraduates is situated.
You can't always get what you want: Comparing the objectives of a technical communication service course to STEM faculty expectations
Jennifer Veltsos will present the results of a qualitative study of STEM faculty in a Midwestern university regarding the ability of a Tech Comm service course to meet the needs of its constituencies. The study investigated the perceived communication needs of STEM students and compare those perceptions to both the ABET standards and the course objectives to determine whether the service course is truly serving the students.
Making ends meet: Revising the technical communication course with limited technological resources
Karen Gulbrandsen will present the results of a year-long project that began in October 2009 to revise the university's service course in technical communication to meet the objectives of English and STEM departments. Questions at the outset of the project included how do we understand the communication needs of our students, how do current textbooks meet or fail to meet those needs, and how do we implement a plan to address those needs given the department's objectives and very limited technological resources.
One Size Fits None: Re-Viewing the Technical Communication Service Course
Quinn Warnick will describe the efforts of one university's writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) program to make inroads into the engineering college. Over the last decade, this WAC program has reinvented itself as a multimodal communication program, integrating written, oral, visual, and electronic communication throughout the curriculum. However, the program's success in developing allies across campus has been limited by several factors. This presenter will discuss the practical challenges accompanying any attempt to revise a technical communication curriculum that serves students in multiple departments, and will explore the trend toward discipline and department-specific technical communication courses, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all technical communication service course.