Although some studies have incorporated poetry into engineering courses, no studies exist that explore the use of writing poetry about technical topics to develop creative thinking skills in undergraduate engineering education. This study explores engineering students' perceptions of incorporating poetry writing within an upper-level…

Undergraduate science degrees in South Africa seldom offer explicit courses focussing on improving the disciplinary writing skills required for effectively communicating scientific research. Similarly, most students entering the 'Honours' degree in Molecular Medicine at a South African university have not commonly been afforded opportunities to…

Since its release in late 2022, ChatGPT and subsequent generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools have raised a wide variety of questions and concerns for the field of technical communication: How will these tools be incorporated into professional settings? How might we appropriately integrate these tools into our research and teaching? In…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used as a cost-effective assistant to human instructors to generate performance feedback for online learners. This study found that AI-generated feedback had a positive impact on students' writing practice in an online learning space. Underperforming students stated that they wanted AI to further…

Capstone experiences are typically the culmination of an undergraduate program and allow students to integrate their content knowledge with communication and technical skills, many of which are desirable in the job market and graduate school. Learner-centered teaching fits well with a capstone course because it requires students to be more engaged…

The objective of this study was to develop an online report writing activity that was a constructive and cooperative learning process for a course on traditional general physics experiments. Wiki, a CMC authoring tool, was used to construct the writing platform. Fifty-eight undergraduate students (33 men and 25 women), working in randomly assigned…

This study reports on science student perceptions of their skills (scientific knowledge, oral communication, scientific writing, quantitative skills, teamwork and ethical thinking) as they approach graduation. The focus is on which teaching activities and assessment tasks over the whole programme of study students thought utilised each of the six…

An integrated technical writing and design course has been developed at Rowan University. This course was developed using aspects of project-based learning and recent discussions about design education, as well as pedagogical approaches from the write-to-learn and the writing in the disciplines (WID) movements. The result is a course where the…

Proposes a four-phase plan for a team formal report project in the business and technical writing course. Finds positive attitudes toward both the formal report and collaborative writing among students in 29 formal report groups. (SR)

In order to help science students communicate more effectively with people outside their field, a two-semester technical writing course was developed with an emphasis on thinking rather than on blind adherence to the rules and forms of technical writing. The initial test group was composed of freshman science majors with exceptional writing…

Proposes that technical writing teachers ask their students to analyze the ethos--the revelation of a writer's character through the rhetorical choices a writer makes--of the profession they are preparing to enter. Provides examples of such analysis. (RL)

A five-stage process for faculty management of college research paper assignments is outlined. Students are instructed in gathering sources, organizing findings, and using standard format. Progress is closely monitored and specific feedback given. A study of student reaction to the technique found it well received and contributing to student…

The technical writing teacher discovers two things about his/her students: they do not like to write and they do not like to read. They are not in the class because they are motivated, but because they must be there as part of a technical or vocational degree. One of the most common complaints about the class is, "I don't need to know how to…