Better Student Presentations: A Mini-Course in Visual Design Principles to Turn Engineering Students Into More Effective Communicators Immediately (Work in Progress)

Phyllis Beck; Alexis P. Nordin

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Southeast Conference
Location: Mississippi State University, Mississippi
Publication Date: March 9, 2025
Start Date: March 9, 2025
End Date: March 11, 2025
Conference Session: Professional Papers
Tagged Topic: Professional Papers
Page Count: 19
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--54146
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/54146
Download Count: 31

Paper Authors

biography

Phyllis Beck Mississippi State University orcid.org/0009-0000-8699-5771

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Phyllis Beck is a blend of art and science having completed an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at MSU and a PH.D in Computer Science where she focused on applying Artificial Intelligence, Natural language Processing and Machine Learning techniques to the engineering education space. Currently, she is working as an Assistant Research Professor at Mississippi State University in the Bagley College of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She has worked for companies such the Air Force Research Laboratory in conjunction with Oak Ridge National Labs and as an R & D Intern for Sandia National Labs conducting Natural Language Processing and AI research and was inducted into the Bagley College of Engineering Hall of Fame in 2021.

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Alexis P. Nordin Mississippi State University

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Alexis Nordin is currently an Instructor II in the Shackouls Technical Communication Program in Mississippi State University’s James Worth Bagley College of Engineering. She has taught technical writing and various other writing- and communication-based courses at MSU since 2004. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Mississippi State University and Louisiana State University and is certified as a Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

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Abstract

Content, delivery, and design are often termed the “three pillars” of an effective presentation. While engineering educators may be comfortable coaching students to improve their content and delivery, visual design can be an unnerving topic. Teachers recognize the importance of applying thoughtful visual design to their own multimedia instruction to prevent cognitive overload in students, but how do they impress the value upon students to follow suit in their own work, especially if a teacher has no formal training or expertise in fundamental principles of design? Data visualization has a purpose much larger than aesthetic, but do engineering students understand it? How should they execute it? And, importantly, how does a teacher evaluate visual design? It is a subject that has implications beyond classroom presentations, affecting multiple facets of students’ professional lives, from engaging posters to eye-catching résumés. This work-in-progress paper describes electrical and computer engineering seniors who are completing the first semester of a two-semester capstone design sequence. During their first-semester capstone design course, taught concurrently with a technical writing course, students are tasked with preparing three important presentations—shared deliverables of both the capstone design and the technical writing courses. Notably, the fist-semester capstone design course is now being taught by an engineering professor who also holds a fine arts degree and formerly worked as a graphic designer. Both the capstone design and the technical writing teachers—the former formally trained in design thinking and the visual arts, the latter not—have made a concerted effort to emphasize visual design principles this semester. This paper describes practical, classroom-ready tips, including sample checklists, rubrics, and presentation slides, to make visual communication easier for engineering educators to teach and simpler for engineering students to apply. The authors share samples of “before” and “after” student work and reflections from the students, as well as from the authors themselves as the course instructors. This paper also points to several high-quality resources that serve as good primers for students and educators alike to explore introductory Design Principles. The goal of this paper is to allow engineering educators to incorporate beginner-friendly design tips into their own classrooms quickly and to start enjoying better-designed student presentations immediately. The larger goal is to create stronger scientific communicators with core skills to succeed in industry and to broaden their work’s impact.

Citation
Format

Beck, P., & Nordin, A. P. (2025, March), Better Student Presentations: A Mini-Course in Visual Design Principles to Turn Engineering Students Into More Effective Communicators Immediately (Work in Progress) Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Southeast Conference , Mississippi State University, Mississippi. 10.18260/1-2--54146

TY - CPAPER
AB - Content, delivery, and design are often termed the “three pillars” of an effective presentation. While engineering educators may be comfortable coaching students to improve their content and delivery, visual design can be an unnerving topic. Teachers recognize the importance of applying thoughtful visual design to their own multimedia instruction to prevent cognitive overload in students, but how do they impress the value upon students to follow suit in their own work, especially if a teacher has no formal training or expertise in fundamental principles of design? Data visualization has a purpose much larger than aesthetic, but do engineering students understand it? How should they execute it? And, importantly, how does a teacher evaluate visual design? It is a subject that has implications beyond classroom presentations, affecting multiple facets of students’ professional lives, from engaging posters to eye-catching résumés.

This work-in-progress paper describes electrical and computer engineering seniors who are completing the first semester of a two-semester capstone design sequence. During their first-semester capstone design course, taught concurrently with a technical writing course, students are tasked with preparing three important presentations—shared deliverables of both the capstone design and the technical writing courses. Notably, the fist-semester capstone design course is now being taught by an engineering professor who also holds a fine arts degree and formerly worked as a graphic designer. Both the capstone design and the technical writing teachers—the former formally trained in design thinking and the visual arts, the latter not—have made a concerted effort to emphasize visual design principles this semester. This paper describes practical, classroom-ready tips, including sample checklists, rubrics, and presentation slides, to make visual communication easier for engineering educators to teach and simpler for engineering students to apply. The authors share samples of “before” and “after” student work and reflections from the students, as well as from the authors themselves as the course instructors. This paper also points to several high-quality resources that serve as good primers for students and educators alike to explore introductory Design Principles. The goal of this paper is to allow engineering educators to incorporate beginner-friendly design tips into their own classrooms quickly and to start enjoying better-designed student presentations immediately. The larger goal is to create stronger scientific communicators with core skills to succeed in industry and to broaden their work’s impact.

AU - Phyllis Beck
AU - Alexis P. Nordin
CY - Mississippi State University, Mississippi
DA - 2025/03/09
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Better Student Presentations: A Mini-Course in Visual Design Principles to Turn Engineering Students Into More Effective Communicators Immediately (Work in Progress)
UR - https://peer.asee.org/54146
DO - 10.18260/1-2--54146
ER -