"Developing Curriculum for a Multi-Course Interdepartmental Learning Community to Promote Retention and Learning for Underprepared Engineering Students"
About the AuthorsRachel A. Milloy is a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric and Professional Communication program at New Mexico State University where she teaches first-year writing and technical communication courses. She serves as a writing program assistant and as a co-writer for the English department’s first-year composition textbook, Paideia 14. Her research interests include online pedagogy, composition pedagogy, writing technologies, writing program administration, and student success. When not teaching, she enjoys reading, running, and spending time outdoors. Matthew Moberly is a doctoral student in Rhetoric and Professional Communication at New Mexico State University where he has taught first-year composition and technical communication. His current research interests include writing center administration, incorporating information literacy into first-year writing curriculum, and assessment in higher education. Outside of teaching and research, he enjoys cooking, watching reality television, and figuring out ways to design productive classroom activities based on the reality television he watches. Rebecca Powell is a Ph.D. student in Rhetoric and Professional Communication at New Mexico State University. She revised this article with a baby in her lap. When the baby is not in her lap, she teaches, writes, gardens, runs, and bikes. Her publications include chapters and articles on the intersections of literacy and place, expressivism pedagogy, discourses surrounding motherhood, online instructor identity, and teacher inquiry. Her research interests include writing-across-the-curriculum, literacy, place studies, and composition pedagogy. ContentsThe ILC: Interdisciplinary Collaboration The ILC: Interdisciplinary Collaboration (cont.) Collaborative Curriculum Design for Learner Independence Dependent Learners Become Active Participants Active Learners Gain Confidence Confident Learners Collaboratively Investigate Real World Issues Self-Directed Learners Take on Complex Tasks Formative and Summative Assessment: Gathering Stories and Numbers In Their Own Words: Assessment Outcomes |
Dependent Learners Become Active ParticipantsUnit 1: Application to a Research Track When we meet our ILC students, we ask them why they want to become engineers. Many students admit that they chose engineering because they know an engineer, because someone said they should become an engineer, or because engineers earn higher-paying salaries. They are less familiar with the kind of work engineers actually do and how writing functions as an important part of an engineer’s job. To acquaint students with the work and concerns of engineers, students complete their first assignment, an Application to a Research Track Memo (Unit 1). For this assignment, students choose one of the following engineering challenges to explore during the semester: expanding world population, pollution, energy, transportation, infrastructure, or aerospace. After selecting a challenge, students investigate the issue by rhetorically analyzing an argument about a facet of the challenge (Unit 2: Rhetorical Analysis), interview a specialist and design a website about the kinds of writing engineers do (Unit 3: Writing as an Engineer Website Project), and finally, write a Documented Argument Essay concerning one aspect of the challenge (Unit 4). In addition to Unit 1 serving as the foundation for the other learning units, the Application to a Research Track Memo assignment encourages students to explore engineering-specific discourse communities to which they hope to belong. Reading assignments aid students in better understanding how writing, rhetoric, and engineering intersect and how engineers use writing through various genres to “routinely communicate their discoveries and progress to peers, managers, other engineers, and the community” (Oakes, Leone, and Gunn 363). During Unit 1, students are dependent on the instructor to introduce them to important course terms and concepts and to lead them through the reading assignments with task-specific instructions; however, students participate actively in their own learning by selecting an engineering challenge based on their own interests. In addition, they begin to develop community with peers by working with others in their research tracks, and they develop a sense of pre-professional identity as an “engineer in training.” Once choosing a research track to explore, students become more invested in the course: they begin to see writing as a way to investigate topics that interest them and that apply to their lives as college students and future professionals. |