Creativity Counts: Why Study Abroad Matters to Technical and Professional Communication

Technical communication programs preparing students to perform as symbolic analytic workers can improve a student's creative problem-solving abilities by offering study-abroad opportunities. Newer research from the field of psychology is used as a conceptual framework for discussing the author's development of curriculum for a study-abroad offering within a professional writing program. Details on the study-abroad curriculum proposal such as course assignments, readings, credit hours, and program destination and logistics are included.     

Training Technical and Professional Communication Educators for Online Internship Courses

ABSTRACT

This article explores how to train educators to teach online internship courses. The article introduces an online internship course focused on workplace communication available to students across the university. Approaches to training educators to teach this course include requiring educators to immerse themselves in experiential learning situations, leveraging innovative uses of contemporary technologies for communication, and reflecting on online teaching processes.     

Developing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Online Technical Communication Programs: Emerging Frameworks at University of Texas at El Paso

ABSTRACT

This article addresses emerging calls for online education and cross-cultural technical communication training, specifically by outlining and reporting on the development and sustainability of two online programs: the graduate online technical and professional writing certificate and the emerging undergraduate bilingual professional writing certificate at the University of Texas at El Paso. Data presented suggest cultural and linguistic diversity should be embedded and streamlined across all aspects of online technical communication programs.     

Technological Literacy: A Framework for Teaching Technical Communication Software Tools

Understanding technological literacy for technical communicators is crucial for effective pedagogy in technical and professional communication. Challenges of teaching technical communication students the functions and concepts of workplace software include the number of rapidly changing applications, a desire to focus on education over training, limited faculty expertise in software, limited resources for teaching software, and a desire to focus on technical communication principles. To address these challenges, the authors explore how to use a four-level framework of technological literacy along with existing resources to design a course to help students use, understand, and evaluate technical communication technology.     

Better science through rhetoric: A new model and pilot program for training graduate student science writers

Graduate programs in the sciences offer minimal support for writing, yet there is an increasing need for scientists to engage with the public and policy makers. To address this need, the authors describe an innovative, cross-disciplinary, National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded training program in rhetoric and writing for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduate students and faculty at the University of Rhode Island. The program offers a theory-driven, flexible, scalable model that could be adopted in a variety of institutional contexts.     

Queering Tactical Technical Communication: DIY HRT

Given the barriers for transgender people to access affordable gender-transition care, online environments have witnessed a rise in user-generated instruction sets providing direction on the self-administration of hormone therapy. These ethical forms of tactical technical communication demonstrate the need to consider a new materialist approach to queer theory, which refuses to align queer agency with stable identities. Drawing directly from these user-generated instructions, this article articulates a theoretical framework for queer, tactical technical communication.     

From Deliberation to Responsibility: Ethics,Invention, and Bonhoeffer in Technical Communication

To make technical communication scholarship more reflective of the complexity of work done by such communicators, a new concept that marries recent parallel turns to ethics and invention is needed. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a stranger to the field, offers such a concept: responsibility. It covers more explanatory ground than the most cited of ethical concepts, deliberation, and most importantly, centers ethics and invention squarely within the technical communicator’s relationship to language.     

Contingent Faculty,Online Writing Instruction,and Professional Development in Technical and Professional Communication

ABSTRACT

Technical and professional communication (TPC) programs rely on contingent faculty to achieve their curricular mission. However, contingent faculty lack professional development opportunities. In this article, the author reports survey results (N = 91) and three cases studies that provide information on contingent faculty and their preparation for online teaching and then provides a three-step approach for TPC program administrators and faculty to follow so that programs can create sustainable professional development opportunities for contingent faculty to teach online.     

Adapting Service-Learning into the Online Technical Communication Classroom: A Framework and Model

Previous research in technical communication indicates service-learning pedagogies can help prepare students for the workplace. The field, however, has only recently and tentatively extended these pedagogies into online environments and has not yet demonstrated how and whether such service-eLearning could as effectively bridge the gap between the classroom and workplace. In this article, the author discusses one such extension and offers a framework and model.     

Playable Case Studies: A New Educational Genre for Technical Writing Instruction

ABSTRACT

A Playable Case Study (PCS) is a hybrid learning experience where students (1) participate in a fictional narrative that unfolds through an immersive, simulated environment and (2) engage in classroom activities and lessons that provide educational scaffolding and promote metacognition through in-game and out-of-game experiences. We present the Microcore PCS to illustrate the potential of this new type of experiential simulation that incorporates aspects of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) to increase immersion and teach workplace literacies in the technical communication classroom. We explore results from a pilot test of Microcore with an undergraduate technical communication course, identifying design strategies that worked well and others that led to improvements that are currently being incorporated. We also provide questions to prompt future research of playable case studies and discuss our findings in a broader context of technical communication pedagogy.     

Live-action Communication Design: A Technical How-To Video Case Study

This case study is based on a research through design project (RTD) that focuses on a technical communication video of the live-action format. It investigates the usability and design-implications of a live-action how-to video, by means of analyzing user-centered data such as YouTube analytics data, usability, and comprehension assessments. In the study, four key live-action video affordances are identified: verifiability, comparability, recordability, and visibility. The identification of these affordances when related to the users’ assessments resulted in several design implementations that would warrant sought-for communication efficacies. Findings show that some assumed efficacies appear to be mitigated by the complexity and the density of the video information. One implication of this is that the implementation of conventional video editing techniques and the addition of on-screen text that serve to make content briefer and more concise into instructional live-action videos requires the technical communicator’s careful consideration.     

数字媒体专业培养目标和培养规格的分析与设计

文章通过对我国102所院校数字媒体专业人才培养方案的调查分析,发现数字媒体专业的人才培养存在脱离学生实际、"万金油"式的职业定位、专业不专的学生能力等问题。针对以上问题提出了数字媒体专业培养目标的设计应坚持"面向数字媒体行业"、"技术或艺术取向"等两个原则,在培养规格中应强调"基本素质"和"专业素质"两类素质的培养,并设计与确定了数字媒体专业的培养目标与培养规格,为数字媒体专业人才培养提供参考。     

Making Social Work Count: A Curriculum Innovation to Teach Quantitative Research Methods and Statistical Analysis to Undergraduate Social Work Students in the United Kingdom

Students in the United Kingdom (UK) are found to lack knowledge and skills in quantitative research methods. To address this gap, a quantitative research method and statistical analysis curriculum comprising 10 individual lessons was developed, piloted, and evaluated at two universities The evaluation found that BSW students’ (N = 81) self-efficacy improved significantly from pre- to posttest, but statistical knowledge improved only slightly and the improvement was not statistically significant. The findings point to recommendations for social work educators in the UK and beyond to consider when integrating the 10-input quantitative method curriculum and when teaching research methods and statistics to undergraduate social work students.     

Using Standardized Clients in the Classroom: An Evaluation of a Training Module to Teach Active Listening Skills to Social Work Students

This article describes the implementation of a module that utilizes drama students to teach social work students how to use active listening skills in an interview environment. The module was implemented during a semester‐long micro skills practice course taught to 13 undergraduate social work seniors in a western liberal arts university. Four drama students attending the same university served as clients. Clients evaluated the social work students' active listening skills at the end of the interview, and social work students completed self evaluations and evaluations on the module. Results indicated that the module was effective in helping students to learn interviewing skills and identify strengths and weakness regarding use of skills. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Social Network Analysis and Professional Practice: Exploring New Methods for Researching Technical Communication

This article provides background on social network analysis, an innovative research paradigm that focuses on the importance of social networks. The article begins by giving background on the development of social network analysis and different methods used by social network analysis researchers. The article then examines how these methods can be used in the field of technical communication by focusing on how technical communicators form social networks and connect diverse audiences.     

Understanding the Theoretical Framework of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A collaborative self-study to understand teaching practice and aspects of knowledge

This paper describes a self-study research project that focused on our experiences when planning, teaching, and evaluating a course in initial teacher education. The theoretical framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) was used as a conceptual structure for the self-study. Our understanding of the framework in relation to our teaching practice was in focus. The principal educational goal of the course was to develop the pedagogical use of web 2.0 resources to support learning in the preschool/school context. As a result, the focus, content, form of distribution, teaching, and assessment of the course went beyond what is common in initial teacher training in Sweden. The potential of the different digital tools was explored by situated use in the design and teaching of the course. Analysis highlights the challenges and opportunities that teacher educators and student teachers may encounter while working with, and learning about, information and communication technologies to support learning. Some of the findings discussed are related to the identified challenges and opportunities for both teachers and students to integrate content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge into a TPACK. Taken-for-granted organizational and institutional assumptions about teaching, learning, and assessment in teacher education were identified in the study.     

A theoretically driven teaching and research framework: learning technologies and educational practice

The emphasis of this paper is on the derivation of design principles from qualitative analysis of student reflections based on their participation in authentic, collaborative and technology-mediated activities. This paper reports on the initial phases of a design-based research project at a comprehensive university in South Africa where the authentic nature of the activities contributed to the depth of student reflections and ultimately led to meaningful design principles based entirely on the experiences of students. Students’ reflective reports were analysed for their content using simple inductive coding techniques leading to the identification of themes and the derivation of design principles from further refinement of these themes. These design principles, therefore, have their origins in the specific theories underpinning the learning activities that were used in the teaching and learning process, and contribute once again in an innovative way to this same body of knowledge. This theory-driven praxis thus makes a contribution to both educational theory and teaching practice which is applicable across a variety of contexts and sectors worldwide. More importantly, this can be seen as meaningful research that is socially responsible, with a high theoretical and practical value, and of relevance to a wider international audience.     

Arts‐Based Educational Research: The Challenges of Social Media and Video‐Based Research Methods in Communication Design Education

This article discusses the practical and ethical challenges and benefits of using social media and video‐based research methods – also known as Photovoice – to investigate contemporary Communication Design education. The two visual research methods discussed include the social media mobile application Snapchat^® and participant‐generated GoPro^® video filming. The investigation focused on understanding students’ on‐the‐ground, lived experiences of studio learning within two distinctive higher education case study settings in the United Kingdom and Australia. This study employed Participatory Action Research (PAR) as an inquiry process and incorporated a methodological framework involving a combination of narrative inquiry, visual Participatory Design (PD) and visual ethnography. The findings of this study revealed the impact of specialised studio and classroom‐based Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) on student learning and engagement as the participants expressed differing responses to their own learning and community of practice at each site. The choice of arts‐based educational research methods used for this study allowed the relationships between place, lived experience, and community to be explored. Students, in effect, became investigators of their own practice through engagement in a rigorous set of visual methods, which placed the tools directly into their hands.     

Evaluating the Social Validity of Project TEAM: A Problem-Solving Intervention to Teach Transition Age Youth with Developmental Disabilities to Resolve Environmental Barriers

Project TEAM teaches transition-age youth with developmental disabilities (DD) to identify physical and social environmental barriers and supports, generate solutions to barriers, and request modifications to increase participation. Establishing the social validity of this environment focused intervention with youth and their parents is critical, given the significant shift the intervention represents from rehabilitation’s more traditional focus on body structures and function. University researchers and youth research collaborators conducted a participatory evaluation of the purpose, procedures, and perceived benefits of Project TEAM. Youth with DD (n = 42) provided feedback using three methods: activity voting, a survey, and a focus group. Parents (n = 37) also provided feedback. Results suggest that both youth and parents find Project TEAM acceptable and relevant to youth’s current and future lives. The majority of youth and parents felt Project TEAM fostered independence and empowerment, although some youth and parents reported challenges with the unique environment-focused approach.     

Personal and Professional Growth Realized: A Self-Study of Curriculum Design and Implementation in a Secondary Science Classroom

This study focuses on the experience of designing and implementing an action research-based curriculum in a secondary science classroom. By systematically examining ourselves and our practices, we brought to light beliefs and values that were realized through this process, came to a deeper understanding of our own learning, and developed new awareness as teachers and researchers. Here, we provide our perspective on how the process of curriculum design and implementation facilitated our personal and professional growth, and we share this as an example of how teacher educators and kindergarten through grade 12 teachers can position one another as generators and disseminators of knowledge through collaborative self-study to inform their own and others' teaching practices.