Engineering Education: A Modernizing Curriculum
Nhi Truong
ENC 1102-0019
within professional content [3].”
Specifically, Davis’s
problem that he states in his article is that despite students
being aware that sometime down the line they will have to
spend a lot of time practicing their communication skills, either
orally or writing, find the exercises to be too academic and
“neither reflect engineering contexts nor integrate well into the
engineering curriculum [3].” To try and solve the problem,
surveys were done on “73 highly rated engineering schools in
the US and Canada, looking at how they have created ways to
improve teaching and learning in technical communication
[3].” The information gathered was used to design an efficient
assessment plan that would integrate into the curriculum.
Not far off from Davis, Robert Baren and Jim Watson ask,
“Are we preparing our students in this area which is every bit
as important to their careers as is their technical training? [1]”
How can we educate these future engineers to a point where
they can better perform tasks when technical and professional
communication come into play? They express the concern that
due to the lack of room in engineering curriculums for any
other classes besides science and engineering ones, “it is
virtually impossible to introduce a group of non-engineering
courses to satisfy a special need such as communication [1].”
One solution which is the WRITETALK COMMUNICATION
SYSTEM was developed by the Engineering Department at
Temple University. This program would provide students with
“the opportunity to practice these skills within the established
engineering curricula and does not require that additional
courses be established [1].”
Robert Bonk, Paul Imhoff, and Alexander Cheng states in
their article that “this need for stronger communication skills
among engineering students, and for evaluation of programs to
foster theses skills, has been formally identified by the
Accreditation Board in Engineering and Technology(ABET) as
one of eleven key attributes [2].” This means that even the
ABET considers communication a vital skill that every
engineering student should try to improve on.
They
interviewed representatives from Ohio State University,
Pennsylvania State University, and the University of South
Carolina to reinforce the direction of focus. Using the findings,
they created a program that integrates communication in the
curriculum and continue evaluate and survey the students each
year to determine the effectiveness of this new program.
Overall, the articles strive to provide assessment strategies
or programs that will ensure the students have effective
evaluations and continuous quality feedback in their
communication training.
ABSTRACT
According to Amy Devitt, genres are responses to
reoccurring situations that people encounter. She says that,
“Genres develop, then, because they respond appropriately to
situations that writers encounter repeatedly. In principle, that is,
writers first respond in fitting ways and hence similarly to
recurring situations.” I have chosen to study the engineering
discipline because I find it fascinating that we can create
anything imaginable. Engineers, much like any other discourse
community, have ways in which they communicate amongst
each other. Communication, whether it be verbally or written,
is important when it comes to working as a team or just getting
others to understand your work. To analyze the appropriate
methods of communication within this group, I will look into
the articles from the field. I will be specifically breaking down
the genre settings, subjects, participants, features, subjects, and
patterns.
SETTING
My articles were found using the UCF database under the
Computer Engineering section. The articles are related to the
technical communication used in the Engineering field and
were located in the IEEE Journals and Magazines.
Specifically, Majorie Davis’s, Assessing Technical
Communication in Engineering Context Tutorial, was found in
the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Journal. Integrating Written Communication within
Engineering Curricula, by Bonk, Imhoff, and Cheng was found
in the, Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education
and Practice. As for Baren and Watson’s, “Communication
Skills Development within the Engineering Curriculum”, it
was found in the publications of the Frontiers in Education
Conference in 1991. Basically, I have three different sources
but they were all connected to IEEE. IEEE covers an
abundance of topics relating to this field. Topics such as the
way engineers interact to current technological advances can be
found. The IEEE Journal and Magazines is a recommended
and accessible source for engineers or non-engineers to gather
reliable information about this field.
SUBJECT
The importance of learning to effectively communicate
within the engineering field is emphasized in the articles I have
chosen. Marjorie Davis says, “Perhaps the most significant
challenge in engineering education in the twenty-first century
is to prepare professionals to communicate well through
writing and speaking, while using appropriate technologies,
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PARTICIPANTS
In the body, research is done to determine the most efficient
method to approach the problem. The body is separated by
different headings and sub headings such as, “Findings from
Targeted Interviews [2]” in Bonk, Imhoff, and Cheng’s article,
or “Designing Curriculum to Meet Engineering Education
Objectives [3]” in Davis’s article. Under these sections, data
and evidence is presented in the form of charts, tables, and
graphs, much like a lab report would contain. Some examples
used by the writers are the varied programs tested at different
engineering schools. Bonk, Imhoff, and Cheng states that “to
reinforce the direction of our efforts, we identified
representatives of three universities also enhancing the writing
components of their engineering programs [2].” They analyze
the successful or unsuccessful results of these schools to
incorporate it into their own program and then come up with a
conclusion.
For example, Davis concludes that, “The
assessment model used by Mercer to evaluate the engineering
program consists of a series of different instruments, completed
by different constituents and focusing on specific and overall
program goals [3].”
Surprisingly, these articles don’t contain the kind of jargon
that engineers would typically use because the overall content
is not very technical. It is a little dry, straight forward, and to
the point because it is after all similar to a lab report.
The genre features reveal that engineers write these
articles in order to reach out to other engineers and pass on the
information they have obtained to one another. This also
reveals that in the field, it is important for everyone to work
together in order to move forward or progress. It’s an ongoing
cycle of new information being found, then published, and later
used to find even newer information. This is a glimpse of how
the engineering field functions day in and day out.
The IEEE or otherwise known as, Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, is an association for undergraduate or
graduate engineers. These are the people that would typically
read articles in the IEEE journals. The types of people that
find this genre interesting are the ones who are career minded
and or want to keep up with the latest advances in the industry.
These journals provide career strategies, the latest in research,
and important technical developments in the world. Usually
the writers of this genre are the professionals in the field
themselves. They usually are the ones that have enough
experience in the industry to know exactly what they’re talking
about. The authors of my three articles all hold PhDs in
Engineering or Communications and are professors at
universities. With this fact, we can assume that individuals,
who have PhDs in the Engineering field, are the ones who are
trusted and well respected enough to be given the power to
write for others to read and take in new information. This is
how information is circulated in the engineering world.
FEATURES AND PATTERNS
One reoccurring feature I’ve noticed in all three articles is
the acknowledgments section in the ending. It’s safe to say
that it’s important for engineers to give credit to where it’s due,
aside from the references of course. Every source used in the
articles is cited throughout and also in the references section at
the very end. For example, in the acknowledgements section,
Baren and Watson writes, “The authors acknowledge Mr.
Frank Sullivan, Director of Temple University’s Writing
Center, for his contributions to this paper and for his continued
support of the communications program in the Engineering
Departments. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Robert
Yantomo, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and
Director of the College’s Communication Center for his
leadership and boundless energy in helping to implement the
communication programs presented in this paper [1].”
The content is treated much like one would treat a science
experiment. The layout of the three articles is fairly similar to
a research lab report. First, the writer gives facts and
background information that led to the experiment in the
introductory paragraphs and proposes the problem. Davis
writes in his introduction, “These challenges for engineering
educators have evolved and intensified throughout the past two
decades, leading the following questions:
 How can we educate engineers to better perform
their technical and professional communication
tasks within demanding, complex work
environments?
 How can we develop integrated assessment
strategies to ensure effective evaluation of
learning outcomes and continuous quality
feedback?
 How can those teaching technical communication
collaborate to design, deliver, and assess
meaningful instruction that directly relates to
Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology, Inc. (ABET) competencies? [3]”
FROM GENRES TO ARGUMENTS: COMPONENTS OF
ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Education is important to any field and it is especially
important to the engineering field. In order to be a good
engineer, one must not only have strong communication skills,
but also strong math and science skills. I decided to cover this
particular topic because at first, I was curious as to what levels
of communication skills engineers are supposed to achieve
before entering the industry. As I have always struggled with
communication myself, I was wondering how important it was
to the field of engineering. I took this opportunity to read
articles about how the professionals, as in the engineers
themselves, see communication and how they would approach
the problem of improving this vital skill. I chose three articles
and proceeded to write about communication in engineering
curriculums in my genre analysis. When writing the annotated
bibliography though, I realized that it was best to expand from
communication to the overall engineering education, due to the
lack of resources. By exploring this issue, I have learned that
because math, science, and communication skills are so
important to engineering education, professionals are trying to
develop new programs that will improve the curriculum. The
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Education”, claim that the heavily loaded math prerequisites
with little engineering in the curriculum for first year students
is a turn off for many. They present the WSU Model, a new
reconstructed curriculum that will allow students to advance to
other engineering courses without having to through the
traditional calculus sequence first. They believe there is a
“drastic need for a proven model which eliminates the mathrelated constraints of the traditional engineering curriculum
[8]”. Even though math is important, too much time is spent
on trying to complete the prerequisites and not on other equally
important engineering courses. Similarly enough, Lloyd R.
Heize, James M. Gregory, and John Rivera, professors at Texas
Tech University, in their 2003 article, “Math Readiness: The
Implications for Engineering Majors”, assert that since math is
so critical in engineering, they wanted to identify problems and
develop recommendations for improving their math placement
system at the Texas Tech University. They proceeded to
produce an overview of the math placement system to try and
track the progress of this system and see if any improvements
could be made for a bigger percentage of students to complete
the math sequence. They said, “Math is foundation for success
in science courses and is critical for solving engineering
problems [5]”. Engineers are problem solvers and math is a
critical tool that is almost always used.
road to being a successful engineer is rough, but there are many
useful resources out there to help along the way.
After exploring genres common to the field of engineering
through a preliminary genre analysis, I decided write about
engineering education itself by gathering articles that were
related to the main subjects that are covered throughout a
traditional engineering curriculum. Through my research I
found that while communication skills deem important, the
engineering curriculum leave little to no room for development
[1, 2, 3]. I have also found that many students are intimidated
by the math sequence in the curriculum, therefore a high
percentage of them never graduate as engineers [5, 7, 8, 9].
Another claim I found was that a large number of incoming
students start without a solid science foundation [4, 6, 10]. By
analyzing these sources, I now know how vital the components
of math, science, and communication are to the engineering
education as well as the overall field.
COMMUNICATION
While communication skills are important, the engineering
curriculum leaves little room for development. Some sources
suggest that communication is the key to success in the
engineering field [1, 2, 3]. Majorie T. Davis, a senior member
of the IEEE, in his 2010 article, “Assessing Technical
Communication within Engineering Contents Tutorial”, claims
that the biggest challenge in the twenty first century is to
prepare engineering students to communicate by both writing
and speaking.
He attempts to integrate technical
communication into engineering education. He explains that,
“beyond the classroom, working engineers communicate
constantly in many modes: collaborating in cross-functional
teams, often virtually; documenting their design and testing
processes for internal and external review; presenting business
cases to managers or funding agencies; and explaining their
work to member of the public [3]”. These are some of the
many examples of when communication skills are used as an
engineer. Similarly, Robert Baren and Jim Watson, both
engineering professors, in their 2002 article, “Integrating
Written Communication within Engineering Curricula”, claim
that the engineering curriculum does not leave enough room
for students to practice their communication skills, even though
they estimated that “up to fifty percent of the time was spent on
some form of written or oral communication [1]”. This just
shows how demanding the industry is when it comes to
communication. Baren and Watson, like Davis, try to enhance
the curriculum in order to prepare students for when they are
face with real world problems in the industry.
SCIENCE
Math and science will always come hand in hand as an
engineer. One skill simply will not progress without the other.
A good solid science foundation is important for engineers to
problem solve. Many sources suggest that a large number of
incoming students start without a solid science foundation and
that some graduate without knowledge of quality science [4, 6,
10].
David E. Nickles, a professor at the University of
Alabama, in his 1996 article, “General Chemistry for an
Integrated Freshman Engineering Curriculum”, asserts that one
of the university’s missions is to develop a new engineering
curriculum that provides incoming students with a basic
foundation in math and science. Many wonder, “Why must
engineering students take general chemistry? [10]”. The answer
will always be “that the Accreditation Board for Engineering
and Technology requires it [10]”. The ABET knows that a
basic understanding of chemistry is important in order to
proceed to other engineering courses. Likewise, Jerald R.
Izatt, James W. Harrell, and David E. Nickles, professors at the
University of Alabama, in their 1996 article, “Experiments
with the Integration of Physics and Chemistry in the Freshman
Engineering Curriculum”, claim that the little integration
among the courses taken by students resulted in students
having difficulty solving problems. They present the freshman
curriculum being developed by the University of Alabama that
emphasizes the three areas of Curriculum Integration,
Technology-enable Education, and Human Interface
Development. It is important for students to learn as much as
they can and the integration of courses can enhance the
curriculum, so the “little integration among the subjects taken
by freshman engineering students [6]” is a problem that they
stress upon.
MATH
One form of communication between engineers is math.
Math is considered a vital component in engineering and is
heavily regarded in the curriculum. Sources suggest that many
students are intimidated by the math sequence in the
curriculum, therefore a high percentage of them never graduate
as engineers [5, 7, 8 ,9]. Nathan Klinbeil et al., professors at
Wright State University, in their 2005 article, “Work in
Progress – The WSU Model for Engineering Mathematics
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On the contrary, Robert English, a professor at Purdue
University, in his 1988 article, “Where Do We Fit Quality
Science in Engineering Courses?”, argues that a very low
percentage of graduates from engineering and technology
schools have exposure to quality science education. English
supports his argument by quoting excuses made by various
engineering schools as to why the lack the interest to provide
quality science education. He believes the “industry needs
engineers knowledgeable in the quality sciences [4]”. Being
able to learn quality science can come in handy when one
enters the working world, especially when employers are in
need of engineers that are accurate, yet efficient because they
are solid in science.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/sta
mp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=187517
[2] R. J. Bonk, P.T. Imhoff, and A. H.-D. Cheng. (2002,
October). “Integrating Written Communication
within Engineering Curricula”. Journal of
Professional Issues in Engineering Education and
Practice.[Online]. 128(4), pp. 152-159. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/sta
mp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=18751
[3] M. T. Davis. (2010, March). “Assessing Technical
Communication within Engineering Contexts
Tutorial”. IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication.[Online]. 53(1), pp.33-45.Available:
THE MISSING PIECE
My sources have covered the issue of engineering
education. However, these articles are in the perspective of the
professionals. What about the engineering students? What do
they have to say about this issue or what are their opinions
about the curriculum? All we have are data on their test scores,
which will only track their progress, not if they think that this
course or program is beneficial to them. If I were to continue
exploring this topic, I would look more into the student’s
perspectives and any suggestions they have on the modernizing
of traditional engineering curriculums.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/sta
mp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5419151
[4] R. English. “Where Do We Fit Quality Science in
Engineering Courses?”. Presented at 18th Annual
Proceedings Frontiers in Education Conference.
[Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/sta
mp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=34943
[5] L. R. Heize, J. M. Gregory, J. Rivera. “Math
Readiness: The Implications for Engineering
Majors”. Presented at 33rd Annual Proceedings
Frontiers in Education
Conference.[Online].Available:
CONCLUSION
Through this genre research I have learned a great deal
about the engineering field. I’ve learned that most engineering
articles are located in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) journals and this journal specifically targets
current engineers or aspiring engineering students. The usual
writers of these articles are the engineering professionals, all of
which have PhDs. They are the ones who are trusted and well
respected enough to help circulate new information throughout
the industry. While reading all the articles, I’ve discovered that
engineers write using the IEEE style. Every article included an
abstract section in the beginning and an acknowledgments
section at the end. It’s important for engineers to give credit
where credit is due. I have also noticed that evidence from
research is presented in the form of charts, tables, and graphs in
the articles.
When it comes to engineering education, I have learned
that good communication skills along with strong math and
science skills, makes a successful engineer. Although the path
of an engineer doesn’t always run smoothly, there are many
new programs being developed out there to help students adjust
accordingly.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/sta
mp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1265915
[6] J. R. Izatt, J. W. Harrell, D. E. Nickles.
“Experiments with the Integration of Physics and
Chemistry in the Freshman Engineering Curriculum”.
Presented at 26th Annual Proceedings Frontiers in
Education Conference. [Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/s
tamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=567803
[7] S. Jeschke, O. Pfeiffer, E. Zorn. “Work in Progress –
Engineering Math with Early Bird”. Presented at 41st
Annual Proceedings Frontiers in Education
Conference. [Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/s
tamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6143122
[8] N. Klingbeil et al. “Work in Progress – The WSU
Model for Engineering Mathematics Education”.
Presented at 35th Annual Proceedings Frontiers in
Education Conference. [Online].Available:
REFERENCES
[1] R. Baren, J. Watson. “Communication Skills
Development within the Engineering Curriculum”.
Presented at 21st Annual Proceedings Frontiers in
Education Conference. [Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/s
tamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1612074
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[9] R. Manseur, A. Ieta, Z. Manseur. “Panel – Reforming
Mathematics Requirements for a Modern
Engineering Education”. Presented at 39th Annual
Frontiers in Education Conference. [Online].
Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/s
tamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5350792
[10] D.E. Nickles. “General Chemistry for an Integrated
Freshman Engineering Curriculum”. Presented at
26th Annual Proceedings Frontiers in Education
Conference. [Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/s
tamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=567857
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