Integrating Writing and Engineering Instruction to build a foundation for student success in their engineering disciplines

Abstract

The importance of communication skills cannot be over-emphasized in the context of 21st-century global engineering. Writing is an important skill to learn, but it can be difficult to make the writing assignment meaningful and relevant for engineering students. To meet the challenge of global demand for engineering education and increase in enrollment and to motivate students to learn communication and writing skills, writing instruction is integrated with engineering courses in various UBC engineering programs. Integration helps students to transform their technical knowledge into problem-solving solutions for case studies grounded in their discipline. The ongoing research project’s theoretical framework includes principles from genre theory, situated learning, case-study approach and student-centred learning. Three models of integration have emerged: project-based full integration, course-based partial integration, and topic-based thematic integration. The pedagogical experiment on integration moves from disciplinary-specific and situated writing to “open” and “global” learning of writing where knowledge of the discipline is learned, applied, created, and transformed across disciplines and cultures.