Writing- and Communications-Across-the-Curriculum in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Virginia Tech

摘要

The Materials Science and Engineering Department (MSE) comprehensive undergraduate writing- and communications-across-the-curriculum program is integrated into eight required MSE courses over students' three years of study in the Department. The program focuses mostly on the development of students' discipline-specific writing skills but also includes instruction in public speaking, interpersonal communications in the workplace, creative scientific thinking, and collaborative writing. In addition, the program includes faculty training and support for integrating writing into technical coursework, developing writing assignments, assisting students in revising their own writing, and grading written assignments.Our writing and communications program is integrated into eight required MSE courses in such a way that the writing and communication tasks in each class do not too often duplicate those addressed in subsequent program classes. We are developing methods for teaching course content using writing and communications as learning tools in such a way that time for technical content instruction is not sacrificed. As well, we are using "workplace model" tasks as central components to several courses.The program is staffed by a director, a faculty member from the English Department experienced teaching developmental and technical writing, interpersonal communications, public speaking, and career advising. A committee of six MSE faculty members teach the program classes and form the writing committee overseeing the program.We keep extensive writing portfolios on our students, and, after two years of operation, we have documented early trend data that show significant improvement in student writing performance and in their perceptions of writing and communication tasks. We are integrating our portfolio grading program into ABET accreditation and into the University core curriculum requirements for writing.