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U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
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A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
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U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
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A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
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Engineering and English collaboration serves as model for improving outcomesStudents who choose to major in engineering are generally more attuned to scientific and mathematics disciplines than to courses that demand verbal skills. As a result, each fall many of the University’s 400 freshman engineering majors are initially dismayed to learn that they will be writing a number of significant papers as part of their fall term Engineering Analysis course, as well as writing a major research and analysis paper for the spring term’s Freshman Engineering Conference on Sustainability in the New Millennium. According to Dan Budny, director of freshman programs in Civil Engineering, “They complain at first; however, by their junior year they say this was the best experience of their lives.” Upper-level course instructors affirm that the quality of written reports has improved dramatically since writing has become a significant part of the freshman cur- Engineering and English collaboration serves as model for improving outcomes riculum. “As important as excellence in upper-level and professional report-writing is,” says Beth Bateman Newborg, the director for the English/Freshman Engineering Writing project, “Our mission for the project takes students’ experience with writing into many realms. With this project, students are not only learning about writing, they are writing to learn.”
Two events merged to spawn this integration of writing with freshman engineering. First, in the late 1990s, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) instituted a “total outcome based accreditation” system for undergraduate engineering schools. ABET’s aim was to require engineering curricula to more closely meet the needs of practicing engineers and of the community. At the same time, Pitt’s School of Engineering was instituting an Integrated Freshman Curriculum based on the interaction of skills, techniques, and logic in engineering problem formulation and solving. Missing from this innovative integrated curriculum, however, were substantial student encounters with social issues, ethical responsibilities, global impacts, and with written communication—all areas mandated as essential in the new ABET requirements. According to Budny, “One of the goals of the Integrated Freshman Curriculum was to educate students in creative thinking and problem solving. To achieve this, we needed to add specific experience with research and writing to the mix.”
By spring 2000, Dave Bartholomae, English department chair, Larry Shuman, School of Engineering associate dean for academic affairs, Budny, Bateman Newborg and Kate Thomes, head of the Bevier Engineering Library, began discussing a joint English/Engineering project that would require freshman engineers to have the same substantial writing experience that is required of most other freshman across University programs and schools. Central to this collaboration of English and Engineering is Pitt’s Composition Program’s objective that students “experience writing as essential to understanding how they and others interpret experience, affect behavior and position themselves in the world.” To this end, Budny, Bateman Newborg, Thomes and their staffs have continued to work closely on research methodologies and writing assignments that have students completing projects on everything from the ethics of current engineering trends to the experiences that led to a student’s investment in an engineering education to analyses of engineering feats from the Roman aqueducts to nanobots. Bateman Newborg and her staff of English department faculty and Thomes and her staff of engineering librarians enter engineering students’ fall term Engineering Analysis classes and spring term Engineering Problem Solving classes to provide ongoing, hands-on instruction on how to approach a writing project; how to imagine and address particular audiences; how to draft, revise and present a paper; and how to use the University Library System to tackle research of increasing complexity and sophistication. Engineering faculty for these courses reinforce the integral significance of writing in becoming an engineer who thinks, writes and speaks with professionalism and integrity. Every step of the students’ writing process is evaluated by the project’s English faculty, with an emphasis on intellectual rigor and excellence in academic writing. By the last half of spring term, freshman engineering students are well prepared for the process of submitting a major research and analysis paper to the annual Freshman Engineering Conference on Sustainability in the New Millennium. Prior to presenting this paper to the conference, students have multiple drafts evaluated by the English faculty, working in close partnership with Budny and Thomes to establish criteria for top-notch presentation of research and technology. In addition to this input, students review one another’s papers according to intensive peer-review rubrics, and students’ research and writing is given close attention from practicing Pitt alumni engineers who meet with students several times over spring term as an essential part of conference preparation and facilitation. While the conference, attended by alumni and educators from across the country, publicly showcases students’ skills in research and writing, the collaboration between the Department of English and the School of Engineering provides students with other vital academic and personal insights and outcomes. Surveys of Pitt engineering students indicate that, with the project in full swing, students’ attitudes about their educational experience are more positive and student retention is up. As junior industrial engineering student and member of the Freshman Engineering Leadership Team, Sarah Sabol says of her experience with the writing project, “the kinds of papers you write in your freshman year give you an opportunity to explore so many topics and issues. Doing research and writing the papers allows you to understand what all ‘engineering’ can mean. It makes you more secure about the choices you are making.”
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A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
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for Instructional Development & Distance Education |
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