2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Refining Instructional Modules for Engineering Lab Writing Using a Community of Practice Approach

Presented at Committee on Effective Teaching Presents: Evaluation, Assessment, & Performance

Laboratory report writing instructional modules have been developed and refined using a community of practice (CoP) approach. Supported by the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education initiative, researchers at three institutions have refined and reorganized a series of scaffolded laboratory writing modules based on the work of faculty and graduate students at a CoP meeting. This paper documents the process used at the CoP meeting where draft modules were made available and a model laboratory session was considered. Other published laboratory report writing resources were evaluated alongside the draft modules to determine areas of overlap and novelty and to ensure the completeness of the revised modules.

The modules are now organized into two resources, published on a website. One resource, An Instructor’s Guide to Engineering Lab Writing, targets instructors and provides model lab writing and data analysis learning outcomes for consideration when planning a laboratory session, as well as approaches for course organization and teaching to support lab writing outcomes. A library of lab report types and a model rubric for lab report scoring complete the instructor-oriented resource. A second resource, A Student’s Guide to Engineering Lab Writing, supports students who are learning lab report writing for the first time or are advancing as technical writers. It is organized according to traditional lab report format and is aligned with the learning outcomes in the instructor modules. The content in the student-oriented modules is scaffolded to support continuous development. The modules are arranged in order of increasing cognitive difficulty, first addressing formatting conventions and arrangement, then section contents and methods of data analysis, and finally effective methods of interpretation, reasoning, and conclusion writing.

Authors

Dr. Charles Riley http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7993-437X Oregon Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Riley has been teaching mechanics concepts for over 15 years and has been honored with both the ASCE ExCEEd New Faculty Excellence in Civil Engineering Education Award (2012) and the Beer and Johnston Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award (2013). While he teaches freshman to graduate-level courses across the civil engineering curriculum, his focus is on engineering mechanics. He implements classroom demonstrations at every opportunity as part of a complete instructional strategy that seeks to address student conceptual understanding.
Dr. Dave Kim http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-1640-9030 Washington State University, Vancouver [biography]

Dr. Dave Kim is Professor and Mechanical Engineering Program Coordinator in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University Vancouver. His teaching and research have been in the areas of engineering materials, fracture mechanics, and manufacturing processes. In particular, he has been very active in pedagogical research in the area of writing pedagogy in engineering laboratory courses. Dr. Kim and his collaborators attracted close to $1M in research grants to study writing transfer of engineering undergraduates. For technical research, he has a long-standing involvement in research concerned with the manufacturing of advanced composite materials (CFRP/titanium stack, GFRP, nanocomposites, etc.) for marine and aerospace applications. His recent research efforts have also included the fatigue behavior of manufactured products, with a focus on fatigue strength improvement of aerospace, automotive, and rail structures. He has been the author or co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed papers in these areas.
Dr. Ken Lulay, P.E. University of Portland [biography]

BSME, University of Portland, 1984
MSME, University of Portland, 1987
PhD, University of Washington, 1990
Hyster Co., 1984-1987
Boeing 1990-1998
Associate Prof, University of Portland, Current
Dr. John D. Lynch Washington State University, Vancouver [biography]

John D. Lynch received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Cum Laude, from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in 1979. From 1979 to 1995 he worked in the high-tech industry in California and Oregon as a computer engineer, including positions at Floating Point Systems, Intel, AMD, Pyramid Technology, and Adaptive Solutions. From 1995 to 1998 he managed ASIC Design Engineering for InFocus Corporation. From 1998 to 2002 he was Director of IC Design Engineering at Pixelworks, Inc. In 2002 he joined the School of Science and Engineering (formerly the Oregon Graduate Institute) of Oregon Health & Science University as an Instructor, where he developed and taught courses in a variety of computer engineering subjects. In 2007 he was appointed Director of OHSU's Computer Engineering and Design Education Program. In 2009, after completing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at OHSU, he joined the engineering faculty at Washington State University Vancouver. Since 2012 he has served as Coordinator of the electrical engineering program at WSU Vancouver.
Dr. Sean St. Clair, P.E. Oregon Institute of Technology [biography]

Sean St.Clair is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Civil Engineering Department at Oregon Tech, where he teaches structural engineering courses and conducts research in engineering education. He is also a registered Professional Engineer.

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