Asee peer logo

Writing education examples throughout a first-year engineering course

Download Paper |

Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

LEES 6: Writing & Communication

Page Count

18

DOI

10.18260/1-2--40704

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/40704

Download Count

257

Paper Authors

biography

Rebecca Essig Purdue University Fort Wayne

visit author page

Rebecca R. Essig, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Engineering and the First-Year Engineering program coordinator at Purdue University Fort Wayne. She earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D from the Lyles School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

A common misconception held by our new engineering students is that engineers do not have to write. The truth is that communication skills are widely acknowledged within the profession as an essential skill for engineers. ABET has consistently listed “an ability to communicate effectively” as a foundational student outcome [1] , and surveys indicate that engineering faculty recognize the importance of students being able to communicate solutions and designs successfully [2]. However, writing education is often only addressed within courses like senior capstone and general education English courses because engineering faculty run up against roadblocks such as the time commitment required to set up a new writing assignment, the time needed to provide valuable feedback, and students’ lack of foundational technical writing skills [2]. In this paper, we share examples of how we incorporated writing throughout a first-year engineering course. Four different writing activities are detailed: a description and analysis of calculation results from a weekly problem set, a technical memo that reports results of a group experiment, a student success activity about time management, and a self-reflection activity about the student’s path into the engineering profession. All the writing activities address instructor observed course content knowledge gaps. These activities are selected to illustrate a range of examples showing how instructors can incorporate writing into engineering courses from a short activity added to an existing weekly assignment through a full-length technical memo.

Essig, R. (2022, August), Writing education examples throughout a first-year engineering course Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40704

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2022 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015