Hmmm

Every time I think I’m a technology guru, I get cut off at the knees. I can’t get my teaching philosophy model to upload or link, so I guess I’ll just bring a hard copy to class. Any hints from you real tech gurus?

Mapping the philosophy

OK. This is really going to be stepping out. I’ve decided to take a heuristics approach to mapping my philosophy. This model is intended to illustrate how I filter a pedagogical task, assignment, or reading through multiple lenses and into what I finally employ, explain, etc. in the classroom. I look at everything rhetorically. It’s just me. But I also recognize that I must add an additional techology lens, i.e., how is something mediated. This technologically mediated “composition” or potential composition is by nature (and can be manipulated as well) also affected by social concerns such as collaboration and multiple discourses. I further realize that composing is naturally a process, but that this process is influenced dramatically by rhetorical, technological, and social realities (and possibilities). Finally, my arrow flowing back and forth between the classroom outcome and the philosophical filters indicates a constanct flow back and forth, indicating the constant change of classroom context. Perhaps this arrow should include a recursive consideration as well. This is most definitely a work in progress. I hope it even shows up here.

Final paper/project

Argh. I just realized that I forgot to post/blog this (and it’s a long one). But the presentation did go extraordinarily well (I’ve been a bit focused there). And, BTW, I couldn’t put together that proposal I discussed in class in time to submit it for ATTW, although I’m still planning on pursuing it. Instead, however, Kelli and I submitted a proposal for a poster session at ATTW on this editing project we’ve been working with. I’ll paste it below.

 

So, as for the final paper and project:

 

I’ve been a little conflicted over this because I have so many good things going on. But a guy in my position also has to recognize good economy of effort and potential. Cheryl, I’m looking for some feedback here. Perhaps I should be further along, but both of these projects are actually developing as we speak.

 

I could have a lot of fun doing an argument-based paper on pedagogy for international professional communication. There could be several different possible pedagogical and theoretical approaches for this. And, the accompanying artifact could be the textbook proposal, along with a fleshed out chapter perhaps. I have a good portion of this work already underway, and its something I’m definitely going to continue pursuing. The downside is that it’s a distant need.

 

A more immediate need is the outgrowth of the poster presentation that I’ve pasted below for ATTW. The poster presentation (and accompanying powerpoint, etc.) would be the artifact. The final class paper would be a paper that I’m writing with Kelli to submit to IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication for a special issue coming out next year. I’ll also past that call at the bottom). The editor has already expressed strong interest in what we’re doing here for this issue. But here are a couple other considerations. The manuscript isn’t due until July, 07. And, I am writing the paper as a co-author, which obviously wouldn’t work for a class I’m taking. Also, all the empirical data may not be entirely tabulated/analyzed by the time the paper for this class is due. I have thought, though, that I might be able to produce the lit review for my paper for this class and maybe begin to explore the arguments based on that and the data that is ready to go. That would also put me well along the way to writing the final manuscript next spring. If this is acceptable, I’m leaning here.

 

 

 

Pasted stuff:

 

ATTW Proposal:

 Promising Partnership: How A Student-run Online Editing Center Helps Engineering Students Improve Their Technical Writing   

Although technical writing is a practice in which engineers engage, the relationship between technical writing and engineering instruction has often been conflicted. In contrast, this poster presentation illustrates how Utah State University’s online editing center cultivates and maintains a mutually beneficial teaching and research partnership.

 

Utah State University’s online editing pilot program was developed in 2003 by Technical Writing Program faculty and the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department in response to an ABET accreditation weakness in the ECE department. The center’s graduate and undergraduate editors now work with nearly one hundred senior engineering students each year in ECE’s Design II and III capstone seminar. The online editing center, however, is not just a proofing service. Because one partnership objective is to prepare engineering students for the reality of workplace editing and technical writing, editors conscientiously teach through their editing.

 

This poster presentation displays empirical research afforded by the project. Recognizing that good research makes knowledge, the presenters will display both quantitative and qualitative data suggesting that instruction given through the online editing center services does indeed improve engineering students’ communication abilities. Finally, the presentation will discuss the center’s tools and continued development into a full-service online editing center also used by graduate students and faculty members across campus.

 

 

  

IEEE Transactions of Professional Communication CFP

 

From:	Marie C. Paretti
To:	Association of Teachers of Technical Writing
CC:
Date:	Friday, October 20, 2006 4:36:51 PM
Subject:	[attw-l] Call for Papers: Communication in Engineering Curricula – July 2007

 

(Sorry for the repost; I included the deadlines this time – late Friday night is the wrong time to send email!)

Colleagues,

Please consider submitting an article for the following call; you can contact Lisa and I with any questions you might have.

IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Special Issue: Integrating and Assessing Communication within Engineering Curricula
 
In recent years, engineering programs have moved toward supplementing traditional first-year composition and technical writing courses with communication instruction embedded within engineering courses. This trend emerges out of several factors. First, within engineering, in 2000, ABET made “the ability to communicate effectively” a key outcome for graduating engineers – one that programs must be able to assess and document. More recently, the National Academy of Engineering’s The Engineer of 2020 cites communication as a critical characteristic for future professionals. At the same time, the rise of Communication Across the Curriculum (CXC) and Communication in the Disciplines (CID) programs have encouraged more faculty to incorporate writing, speaking, and visual representation into their courses. In response to these and related issues, papers presented at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference, the ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, and the International Professional Communication Conference demonstrate that engineering faculty across the country are taking seriously the challenge to educate engineers who can communicate successfully.
 
With the exponential growth of such initiatives in recent years, this special issue seeks to bring together innovative approaches to teaching and assessing communication skills within engineering, particularly those skills most relevant to the global workplace. Topics may include:
 
- Models for effectively integrating communication and engineering
- Methods of quantitatively and qualitatively assessing the development of engineering students’ communication skills
- Approaches to developing engineering students’ ability to communicate across cultural and/or disciplinary boundaries
- The impact of emerging communication technologies on the skills required of today’s graduates
- Innovative cross-curricular partnerships, particularly those that integrate engineering communication with general education curricula
- Learning outcomes associated with “the ability to communicate effectively” that are grounded in the practices of the contemporary workplace
 
Since engineering communication practices and outcomes align with a wide range of fields and university-wide initiatives, we welcome contributions from all disciplines.

Important dates:
July 1, 2007: All submissions due to guest editor.
September 15, 2007: Decisions and review comments are sent to authors.
January 1, 2008: Revised and resubmitted manuscripts are sent back out for review.
March 1, 2008: Final decision letters are sent to authors.
April 1, 2008: Final manuscripts are due

 
Submission guidelines:
All submissions must be in English, and should represent the original work of the authors. Improved versions of papers previously published in conference proceedings are welcome, provided that no copyright limitations exist. Submissions must be made electronically via e-mail to Marie C. Paretti, Guest Editor (mparetti@vt.edu). The manuscript should be included as an attachment in MS Word or RTF format. Complete information for authors regarding IEEE editorial policies and other information is available in the Information for Authors section at http://ieeepcs.org/activities_publications_transactions_authors.php

IEEE Special Issue Guest Editors:
Marie C. Paretti
mparetti@vt.edu

Lisa D. McNair
lmcnair@vt.edu

Co-Directors, Virginia Tech Engineering Communication Center
Department of Engineering Education
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-7520
 

Dr. Marie C. Paretti
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Engineering Education
Co-Director, Virginia Tech Center for Engineering Communication
14 Holden Hall, Materials Science & Engineering (0237)
 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-7520
http://www.enge.vt.edu/paretti
———————————————————————————
Materials Science and Engineering at Virginia Tech
A University Exemplary Department —
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Happening

It’s well past 5:00, but at least it is still Monday. It’s been one of those days (weeks actually).

So, it’s not that I don’t plan on teaching plenty of composition courses throughout my career (at least along the lines of freshman and sophomore composition classes like Cirq’s talking about), but as I’ve been reading this book I’ve tried to think of Happenings I might prompt in a technical communication class (since that’s where my current focus is). That challenge, I think, is a bit more difficult for me because it seems that the foundation of a tech comm class is in direct opposition to the Happening philosophy espoused by Cirq and his idols. Having said that, however, I still think it can be done, and I think it can have some positive impact.

One of the well-known introductory exercises in intro to tech comm classes is to have students build something out of Legos and then write a procedural document for other students to put together their creation. Though I think this exercise serves a valuable purpose, and I’ve used a variation of it in my own teaching, I’ve wondered if it doesn’t really address the importance of understanding rhetorical purpose–of understanding the end user. Sure students get a feel for the process of building an object with the Legos, and they gain an understanding of how to create clear, concise instructions; but, do they capture the rhetorical context of the nine year old child–opening the box, dumping out the brightly colored toys, smiling big, opening the instructions (or just putting things together to see whatever they can make), gnawing on tongue and lips when a step is misunderstood or skipped, showing it to Mom or Dad or a big brother or friend, savoring the satisfaction of admiring the creation, suffering the pain of baby sister stepping on it or eating the parts . . .

It seems that an important element in Happenings is the absence of as much structure as possible, while still maintaining enough structure to facilitate the essence of discovery. So here’s my plan. I’ll remove any tables, desks, or chairs from the classroom space and have students sit on the floor. I might even bring caramel popcorn and Kool-aid. Then I’ll dump several hundred pieces of Legos out onto the floor and tell them simply to PLAY; HAVE FUN. I think I’ll have a couple different movies playing, Disney, maybe Freaky Friday. Or, I’ll have some good, brain empowering Baroque on, the Brandenburg Concertos. And then I’ll sit down with them and play myself.

Only after students are really playing–really playing like a kid plays–for a while, I’ll then ask them to briefly write about their playing, not necessarily the process or what they built. If they need prompts, I could ask them what it feels like, tastes like, smells like, reminds them of, makes them forget.

I think most students would get into playing enough to discover the experience desired and usually realized by that primary audience nine year old kid. That seems to me to be employing a Happenings-like experience to teach rhetorical context in a tech comm class.

Transitions in Theory (Passions to Multiliteracies)

Transitions? Well, we’re in one. I mean our global society. As much as some things stay the same in some contexts, the very idea that I can refer to a global society indicates a transition.

Case in point: A couple weeks ago, I presented a brief PowerPoint in my 3080 class entitled “Basic Rhetoric.” The last slide of the presentation illustrated how written/textual/visual rhetorical tools have evolved over the millennia up until the most recent heading: Digital Age. Throughout all those prior millennia, there was no common, global literacy. Even the advent of the printing press barely (and relatively recently) 500 years ago didn’t dramatically change the global nature of human society until within the past century’s harnessing of electricity. But the single most monumental and expediting factor in creating a global society is the technology of the Digital Age (which I suggest we alternately call the Digital Adolescence, since as an “Age”—a span of time—it’s younger than I am).

So, in transitioning between theoretical points of view, Passions looks at how this most recent technological boom has affected how and effected what we teach. Perhaps looking at the same subject but from a different perspective, however, Multiliteracies  seems to examine how the changes wrought by the technology affect how and what we teach in the context of those changes. Though that distinction seems quite nuanced, it is nevertheless a clear distinction. And both perspectives should prove valuable.

Transitions in Theory (Passions to Multiliteracies)

Transitions? Well, we’re in one. I mean our global society. As much as some things stay the same in some contexts, the very idea that I can refer to a global society indicates a transition.

Case in point: A couple weeks ago, I presented a brief PowerPoint in my 3080 class entitled “Basic Rhetoric.” The last slide of the presentation illustrated how written/textual/visual rhetorical tools have evolved over the millennia up until the most recent heading: Digital Age. Throughout all those prior millennia, there was no common, global literacy. Even the advent of the printing press barely (and relatively recently) 500 years ago didn’t dramatically change the global nature of human society until within the past century’s harnessing of electricity. But the single most monumental and expediting factor in creating a global society is the technology of the Digital Age (which I suggest we alternately call the Digital Adolescence, since as an “Age”—a span of time—it’s younger than I am).

So, in transitioning between theoretical points of view, Passions looks at how this most recent technological boom has affected how and effected what we teach. Perhaps looking at the same subject but from a different perspective, however, Multiliteracies  seems to examine how the changes wrought by the technology affect how and what we teach in the context of those changes. Though that distinction seems quite nuanced, it is nevertheless a clear distinction. And both perspectives should prove valuable.

Taking stock

The class is great. I’m enjoying its every aspect, from the reading to the class discussions. I appreciate the class only meeting once a week, but because of my other schedule concerns, I often don’t post my responses about the reading until Tuesday or Wednesday before class. I’m hoping that this works OK. I’m sure I’ll hear if it’s not.

I’m going to review the quarterly journal IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. Though I have found that I can access the past five years online and I’ve bookmarked the page, I have not yet started reading.

I haven’t yet decided on my final argument-based paper yet, though I thought it might be interesting to take an historical aspect of the field (much like Baron did or like Yates & Orlikowski have done) and make some arguments about trends, developments, etc. The challenge would be to not make it merely an historical narrative. I dunno. Any thoughts from the gallery? I’ve also though to further pursue a project I proposed for Christine Hult’s publishing class from the summer. I proposed a textbook for tech comm. that focused on the international reality of the field rather than just mentioning global aspects as sidebars. I’d have to think further about how to frame this as an argument, though that could be done easily enough I think. But the artifact would be reasonably straight forward. In addition tweaking the proposal, I could flesh out a couple chapters. Finally, I’ve also thought that I should further some of my current research somehow. One track is on using participatory design as a pedagogy heuristic for designing experiential learning classes. Hmmm.

What to do? These are my questions. Maybe all will reveal itself to me as we continue our map!

Passions and “The Map”

I thought at first that plugging Passions into the map wouldn’t be a big deal—it’s obviously dealing with technology pedagogies. But, as I’ve realized, these pedagogies often overlap; and, several of them will often overlap each other. I mentioned in my post about the book that it addresses process, expressive, rhetorical, cultural and political inquiry, feminist, and collaborative pedagogies. And there may be others in the chapters we didn’t read. I think that it is important to recognize that many of these play upon each other, but I think it is critical today to recognize how technology undeniably and unavoidably affects them.

Passions post

I sat down several times to write my impressions of the readings, but found each time, as I continued reading, that I needed more information to complete the picture. Clearly, the book focuses on the advent and influence of technology on composition pedagogy/pedagogies, but the chapters addressed so many different topics in so many ways that I came to realize that I needed to read through the “whole” to understand its parts. The most brilliant recognition in all the Passions reading actually came four pages into Hawisher and Selfe’s introduction. “Prefigurative” learning culture was the prophetic phrase cited from anthropologist Margaret Mead’s Culture and Commitment.  Such a culture, according to Hawisher and Selfe, “occurs in a society where change is so rapid that adults are trying to prepare children for experiences the adults themselves have never had. The book’s chapters from this point serve merely to detail the particulars of the prefigurative truth of teaching composition (and arguably many other subjects in academia) in a technology age.

            Though some of the chapters’ information was outdated (another testament to a prefigurative curve), insightful treatment was given to several pedagogies and literacies relative to how technology, particularly the internet, has affected them. Collaborative pedagogies have flourished as students are able to work together and learn from each other both in local classrooms as well as across the globe. Process, expressive, and cultural/political inquiry pedagogies have seen themselves become both truncated and accelerated, which, perhaps ironically, has helped effect their ubiquity. Students’ and teachers’ access to faster and more intuitive writing, revising, publishing, and information gathering technologies has presented new opportunities to composition classrooms; however, though access to these technologies has certainly improved over the past seven years, the reality that all students and even teachers still do not have complete access reflects both social inequity and the future educational agenda. I found Faigley’s references to international composition instruction especially helpful (no longer can academics approach teaching from a North American-centric location). Consistent with Baron’s recognition that writing literacy has historically favored wealthier classes, the idea of literacy through technology now goes way beyond the simple ability to read and write.

Though Passions’ chapters rarely mention technology’s effects on now well-recognized pedagogical literacies, the implications are obvious. Basic and critical literacies have been affected dramatically by the past quarter century’s technology boom as illustrated by several chapters questioning the basic composition tool/format or the essay. How can “essay,” for example, not be defined as including electronically composed thought (both text and visual) when such communication (just like “traditional” essays) often serves to inform, expand, conjecture. Technology has had similarly profound effects on other pedagogical literacies. Rhetorical literacy is both challenged and defined by the ease with which communication is created and published. Social literacy is expanded by communication ease as well as, and perhaps more importantly, the ease of access to information. Both communication (textual, oral, and visual) and access to freedom/democracy principles now available through technology have served, and will continue to serve (projecting continued access improvement), to effect social literacy across the globe. In the end, the message in Passions is that technology not only has changed (and continues to change) the way we compose communication and the way we express that communication, but that without a technology literacy, students and teachers will presently enjoy only limited participation in academic communication, and in the future may be entirely closed off from it.

Textbook review

I don’t know that Donald M. Murray’s The Craft of Revision is really a textbook, not any more really than, say Readers’ Digest. Though he says it is a textbook, it’s really more a collection of writing maxims and examples of those maxims at work. Ultimately, it’s a very easy read for use by both writing students and teachers, about rewriting process. Murray illustrates, ultimately, how rewriting dominates process writing. Writing, according to Murray, is what happens once the initial thoughts are on the screen. And that writing proceeds most effectively through rewriting to discover, rewriting to focus, rewriting to order, to develop, to edit, to find voice, to find order. What Readers’ Digest doesn’t do is how Murray shows, and even walks writers through, his process (which, of course, is why this really is a textbook–and in its third edition). He includes several anecdotes about pieces he has written, how they developed, and how he rewrote them to find out what he was really trying to say. He even includes prior drafts and outlines where and why he made changes. One of the most endearing is the essay he wrote, and then rewrote, for the Boston Globe about learning how to swim (93-103). Consistent with the process school of composition thinking, Murray preaches not to be so overly concerned with what goes on the screen first. “All writers write badly–at first. Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners . . . Then they rewrite” (1). Murray, the Pulitzer winner, ought to know.