2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 395: Supporting STEM Faculty in Adopting and Adapting Writing Pedagogies

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

While the importance of communication skills is widely recognized in engineering professions and included in accreditation standards, developing such skills is challenging. Evidence-based best practices have been identified in writing studies but are not well known among faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Many of these best practices have been developed in courses capped at 15 to 30 students and do not scale well, which presents additional challenges for STEM faculty teaching large classes. Our Writing Across Engineering and Science team has taken a transdisciplinary action research approach to this problem, engaging across engineering, science, and writing studies to iteratively develop, implement, and assess collaborative solutions. The program we co-created includes a faculty learning community and individualized mentoring, both facilitated by transdisciplinary teams, to support STEM faculty as they adopt and adapt new writing pedagogies. Our analysis of program effectiveness is based primarily on faculty surveys, mentoring records, interviews, and analysis of course materials. In one case, we are also investigating the effects of pedagogical changes on student writing. To date, 54 faculty from 15 different STEM departments at our university have participated. Most participated only in the faculty learning community. Thirteen have participated in both the faculty learning community and the individual mentoring, while 7 participated only as mentees. Data are available for 12 of the faculty who participated only in the faculty learning community; 11 of these faculty reported making pedagogical changes. Of the 20 mentees, we have documented pedagogical changes from all 20. The examples provided illustrate both the types of pedagogical changes participants are making and the concepts that seem to be more difficult to implement. Overall, our analysis suggests that this program effectively promotes pedagogical change and innovation around writing in STEM classes.

Authors

Bruce Kovanen University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Bruce Kovanen is a PhD candidate in the Department of English and the Center for Writing Studies. He works with faculty and teaching assistants across the disciplines to help hone their writing pedagogy. His research and teaching focus on sociocultural perspectives of literacy and learning.
Prof. Paul Prior [biography]

Paul Prior is Professor Emeritus in the Center for Writing Studies and the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research has focused on disciplinary enculturation in university settings and across the lifespan. In addition to leading Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) activities at UIUC since the 1990s, Paul has participated in Writing Across Engineering and Science (WAES) since its inception.
Dr. John R Gallagher University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

I am an assistant professor of English at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Ms. Celia Mathews Elliott http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6973-821X University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Celia Mathews Elliott is a science writer and technical editor in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been teaching technical communications to upper-level undergraduate physics majors since 2000.
Prof. John S Popovics P.E. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3363-140X University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

John Popovics is a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from Drexel University and his Ph.D. in Engineering Science and Mechanic
Prof. S. Lance Cooper University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

S. Lance Cooper is Professor and Associate Head for Graduate Programs in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1982, his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Illinois in 1988, and he was a postdoctoral research associate at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1988-1990. His research interests include optical spectroscopic studies of novel magnetic and superconducting materials at high pressures, high magnetic fields, and low temperatures. Since 2013, he has co-taught (with Celia Elliott) a graduate-level technical writing course each spring to physics and engineering graduate students.
Julie L Zilles http://orcid.org/https://0000-0001-8684-4519 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Dr. Zilles is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She received her B.S. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to research at the intersection of microbiology, agriculture, and environmental engineering, she leads the transdisciplinary Writing Across Engineering and Science (WAES) team, which is focused on promoting and adapting best practices from writing studies for STEM classes and curricula.

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