Comparatively Mapping Genres in Academic and Workplace Engineering Environments Vukica Jovanovic, PhD, Megan McKittrick, Daniel Richards, PhD; Pilar Pazos-Lago, PhD; Julia Romberger, PhD

Acknowledgements Old Dominion University Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Improving Disciplinary Writing (IDW) Action Project Proposal Improving Student Writing in the STEM Disciplines: A Faculty Learning Community

Participants

Introduction In the Engineering workplace, one must be able to negotiate many genres of writing: he or she must – deliver updates – understand technical requirements – weigh project priorities – develop and carry out problem- solving techniques all while using different forms of technical communication.

Multitasking Engineering work relies on the ability to flexibly transition between a variety of technical writing genres, while also navigating the broad array of technologies required to effectively complete these projects.

Identified Problem However, the genres and types of writing present in the workplace do not always reflect the genres and types of writing undergraduate Engineering students complete during coursework. Questions: What kinds of genres do engineering students have in their hw & projects? What kinds of genres do engineers have in they day to day job?

Identified Disconnect From a Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) perspective, this is a problem because genres are not preset templates but rather forms of social action and as such embody a community’s way of knowing, being, and acting; therefore, a disconnect between genres indicates a disconnect between academic and workplace communities of practice, leaving undergraduates underprepared to meet the expectations of workplace communities.

3 overarching, conceptual phases in this study: 1) Discovery. Driving question: What are the main communicative practices needed by STEM students in the workplace? This phase will focus on the identification (through workplace-based research and faculty consulting of workplace “best practices”) of the main communicative practices that STEM students will use in their future careers. 2) Mapping. Driving question: What are the main communicative practices currently used by STEM students in upper division courses? A conceptual map will be created (based off uploaded student work) of the strategies and practices currently being employed in upper-division UG courses. 3) Development. Driving question: What are the writing-based activities that could be embedded into STEM courses to address this gap, if identified, in the current practices?

Research Questions RQ#1: What are the main communicative practices employed by practitioners in STEM-related industries? RQ#2: What are the main communicative practices currently used by STEM students in upper-division courses? RQ#3: What are the activities that could be embedded into STEM courses to fill this gap, if identified, in current practices? RQ#4: When these activities are embedded into STEM courses, what impact do they have on student writing and student learning outcomes, as articulated by the ODU QEP IDW initiative?

Data Collection To assess STEM communicative practices in and out of the classroom, we will collect the following during the Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 workshop series: – In-workshop materials such as notes and freewrites; – Surveys, used to prompt discussion that ask faculty to share their course objectives, program objectives, assignment criteria and capstone project criteria as well as their perceptions about the nature of writing in their field; and – Secondary research conducted by faculty on genres and conventions.

Data Collection Cont. To assess SLOs and the impact of our workshop on the students, we will collect the following at the end of the Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 semesters: – Syllabus, prompts, and rubrics for major writing assignments in their courses; and – One sample deliverable from each grade level given (A, B, C, D, F) with instructor feedback and assess it according to the QEP Writing Rubric. Student writing samples will be uploaded into Blackboard after the project is completed, and they will be assessed by the QEP IDW Writing Rubric. – Students will participate in confidential surveys that will be used for assessment purposes.

Fall Workshop (October 2014) 8-10amDiscussion and development of literature review to help articulate disciplinary genre conventions and access Digital.odu accounts 10-12:30pmGuest Speaker Patrick Bahls conducts a prepared morning workshop of his own design with all FLC grant participants 12:30- 1:30pm Lunch and refreshments provided 1:30-4:00pmDr. Patrick Bahls will present to an ODU-wide audience (with specific emphasis on the QEP community) on his research in successfully integrated writing into quantitative disciplines. In conducting a workshop, he will share his research, expertise, and advice to faculty in attendance. Participants will have read Patrick Bahls’s Student Writing in the Quantitative Disciplines prior

Mapping Genres

Genres in academic and workplace engineering contexts

Spring Workshop Prior to Spring Workshop, FLC participants will complete and upload Literature Review data and save student documents from the Fall semester (2 per grade; e.g. 2 papers that earned an “A” etc.) 12-12:30pmLunch, refreshments, socializing 12:30-1:30pmGuest speaker from the QEP IDW presents on SLOs and IDW rubric 1:30-2:30pmFLC participants adapt IDW rubric based on disciplinary genre conventions. 2:30-3:30pmFLC participants apply their adapted rubric to a piece of disciplinary writing. Share results and discuss in Bb Professional Community. 3:30-4:00pmFLC participants apply their adapted rubric to student writing

Summer Workshop 2015 Prior to Summer Workshop, FLC participants will complete save student documents from the Spring semester (2 per grade; e.g. 2 papers that earned an “A” etc.) 12-12:30pmLunch, refreshments, socializing. 1:30-2pmFLC participants apply their adapted rubric to student writing and discuss 1:30-3pmFLC participants design and articulate a refined assignment prompt based on reflections (post online in Digital.odu) 3-4pmFLC participants present their developments, discuss what has succeeded, what they have changed, and the rationales for the changes.

Conclusion One of the key tenets of RGS is exploring how texts manifest out of social interactions. Mapping was chosen as a technique because visuals have been shown to better articulate the relationships between and among genres of writing. Mapping these genres enabled us to explore the range of practices in workplace contexts as a means of evaluating how our current curricula and assignments aligned with -- or failed to align with -- these practices.

Future Directions The mapping of workplace genres was based upon personal knowledge and experience from faculty. In the future, it would be beneficial to conduct surveys of local employers and have them identify which genres are used most often and for which purposes. Schools and programs might also consider reviewing and adopting research in “writing across the curriculum” (WAC), an approach that can be “used to increase the number of writing activities within the tight guidelines that are driving engineering curriculum