INTEGRATING COMMUNICATION INSTRUCTION THROUGHOUT COMPUTER SCIENCE AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CURRICULA

摘要

One of the more recognized challenges facing engineering education has been providing graduates with the communication abilities necessary to ensure their success in the workforce. Employers typically place effective communication at the top of the qualities they seek in new engineers. To prepare their students to communicate effectively in their careers, engineering programs may require a technical writing course taught by another department and, in some cases, one or two communication-intensive courses in their programs. Nevertheless, new college graduates encounter significant difficulty adjusting to workplace communication practices, and employers invest substantial sums in mentoring, providing in-house training, or subscribing to external programs to teach new employees the communication skills that are basic in their workplace. While technical writing courses provided by non-engineering faculty are helpful, they are too general to prepare students adequately for the domain-specific communication tasks demanded by their careers. Attention to communication in a few engineering courses is also beneficial but does not provide enough breadth or guided practice to move students from novice to highly competent communicators in engineering contexts. Studies of the communication abilities needed by new engineering graduates produce a longer array of topics than a single communication course can provide, even when supplemented by a few writing-intensive courses in the major. Isolation of communication instruction in these ways reinforces the assumption by many students that writing, speaking, and other communication assignments are "busy work" rather than key aspects of their professional education. Supported by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, we are developing and piloting model curricula that teach communication skills as an integral part of computer science (CS) and software engineering (SE) courses. Among the compelling reasons for exploring this pedagogical approach is the way it positions communication instruction within the disciplinary context in which students will pursue their careers, an especially effective way of teaching domain-specific communication abilities. Recent research has demonstrated that well-designed writing assignments that are based on the intellectual content of courses not only develop students' writing abilities but also increase their mastery of course content. Thus, communication instruction in engineering courses can support technical instruction instead of detracting from it. Also, when communication assignments based on real-word practice are integral with their technical assignments, students can see how communication is the means by which they make their technical knowledge valuable to their employer, clients, and other stakeholders. Repeated attention to communication in engineering courses over the four years of their undergraduate study can enable students to see that acquisition of communication expertise is an essential element in their development as engineering professionals.