Peer-Led Professional Development: How One Technical Communication Team Learns on the Job

Abstract

Technical communication practice can change rapidly over time and across organizations. As a result, lifelong learning is an important mind-set, yet few studies explore how technical communicators learn on the job. This study builds on research about technical communication training by reporting on learning practices in one documentation team working at a large, multinational corporate information technology firm. Based on interviews and artifact analysis, the authors report on topics, technologies, and learning purposes that the team discussed, finding that peer-led, collaborative learning enables documentation teams to create and sustain group dynamics, an underexplored facet of on-the-job learning.

On the Current Moment in AI: Introduction to Special Issue on Effects of Artificial Intelligence Tools in Technical Communication Pedagogy, Practice, and Research, Part 1

“…As workplaces take up these new tools, TPC educators inside and outside university settings may need to respond to and train students on these tools in order to prepare them for a changing workplace (Berger & Pigg, 2023; Hocutt et al, 2022; Luo et al, 2022). Thus, as guest editor of this special issue, I invited authors to contribute short pieces about the effects of AI tools in TPC pedagogy, practice, and research.…”