Teaching Teamwork: Online Technical Writing Courses with Engineering Students

Year 2023, Volume: 40-2 Issue: 3, 49 - 64, 31.12.2023

Bernadette Longo Neslihan Onder-ozdemır

https://doi.org/10.52597/buje.1186437

Abstract

Using a pragmatic approach, this case study aims to incorporate communication skills in team teaching in light of the literature, describes how communication and teamwork principles play out in online third-year technical writing courses with ethnically diverse international students and faculty from engineering and other STEM majors at an institute of technology in the USA (n = 48). The data were collected using weekly assignments for the semester-long course; and student evaluations of course outcomes. The findings showed that because students wrote weekly short analyses and received weekly feedback, they most often improved their writing skills, such as editing their writings according to American English rules, and transferred learning of rhetorical principles from one setting (analyzing other people’s writing) into another setting as they learnt to work as a team of productive writers.

Keywords

computer-based learning, team dynamics, professional communication, engineering students, writing.

Takım Çalışmasını Öğretmek: Mühendislik Öğrencileri ile Online Teknik Yazma Dersleri

Abstract

Pragmatik bir yaklaşım kullanan bu çalışma, literatür ışığında çevrimiçi sınıflarda takım öğretiminde iletişim becerilerini birleştirmeyi amaçlamış olup iletişim ve takım çalışması ilkelerinin, ABD'deki bir teknoloji enstitüsünde mühendislik ve diğer STEM alanlarında eğitim alan, etnik çeşitliliğe sahip uluslararası öğrencilerin yer aldığı çevrimiçi üçüncü yıl teknik yazma dersinde nasıl rol oynadığını açıklamaktadır. Bu çalışmada veriler, yarıyıl boyu süren teknik yazma dersi için haftalık ödevler ve dersin öğrenim çıktılarına ilişkin öğrenci değerlendirmeleri kullanılarak toplanmıştır. Bulgular, öğrencilerin haftalık yazdıkları yazılar üzerinde kısa analizler yazmaları ve haftalık geri bildirim almaları nedeniyle yazma becerilerini büyük oranda geliştirdiklerini ve retorik ilkelerini öğrendiklerini, bir ortamdan (diğer insanların yazdıklarını analiz ederek) başka bir ortama aktardıklarını ve öğrencilerden oluşan bir üretken yazarlar ekibi olarak çalışmayı öğrendiklerini gösterdi.

Keywords

bilgisayar destekli öğretim, takım dinamiği, mühendislik öğrencileri, teknik yazı

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