What is the EDC Repository?

 Repository of Teaching Tools and Guidelines

for EDC Faculty

 

Kathleen Carmichael and Deborah Wood

The Writing Program

2006

About the repository  

Several EDC communication instructors (sponsored by a grant from the WCAS Writing Program) are developing an online repository to which EDC instructors can contribute class guidelines and rubrics for different assignments.  These contributions will be especially helpful for new faculty and useful also for faculty who wish to try new teaching strategies.  The repository will allow us to share the excellent materials that many of us have shared informally in the past and, we hope, encourage innovation and efficiency.

In addition to faculty-authored guidelines, the Writing Program faculty are compiling a file of select student-authored reports and proposals for faculty to use in class.  This cache of sample documents will allow communication instructors to use real examples of student work to show how specific presentation tactics affect reader responses. The sample reports and proposals are not intended to be models for students to follow; they are simply another teaching tool. 

Background and rationale

 

In 2005, the National Academy of Engineering issued a challenge to engineering educators:  Re-imagine the traditional engineering curriculum in such a way as to

(1) stem attrition in engineering programs and (2) produce graduates who are not merely qualified technicians or engineers, but also responsible global citizens. This means they will have the interdisciplinary expertise, wide-ranging analytical skills, and ingenuity required of policy makers, industry leaders, and innovators.[1]

Northwestern University’s Engineering, Design and Education Program (EDC), a sequence of courses taken by all freshmen in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is among top programs already meeting these challenges through curricular innovation and community involvement.  Taught by faculty with wide-ranging academic, business, and industry backgrounds, EDC implements the following NAE-recommended best practices:

  • Introduction of the iterative process of designing, predicting performance, building, and testing at the earliest stages of undergraduate work
  • Incorporation of interdisciplinary training and teamwork in the engineering curriculum, with an emphasis on communications, ethics, leadership, and management skills
  • Individualized instruction that plays to student and faculty strengths and promotes development of innovative educational strategies

EDC also implements best teaching practices, as recommended by current communication theory, tailored to an engineering and design context.[2] Key strategies include the following:

  • Context-sensitive instruction in the “socially constructed” nature of communication genres and the range of approaches writers can use to communicate effectively with different audiences
  • Small-group training in collaborative writing techniques as practiced in research and industry
  • One-on-one student coaching designed to teach students about the “rhetorical” nature of all communication; i.e. that all writing must deploy the conventions of a specific genre and meet the standards of a specific profession so as to persuade a designated audience of the writer’s and document’s credibility

Such instructional strategies have been designed to give the students the training they need to work effectively with real-world clients, now and in the future.  This repository represents yet one more step in Northwestern University’s efforts to stay ahead of the curve by continually re-evaluating the EDC curriculum in light of student needs, faculty experience, and the ever-shifting terrain of industry and academic practice.

Goals of the Repository

As a final recommendation, the National Academy of Engineering calls for institutions continually to re-evaluate and refine their instructional strategies and practices.  The EDC repository is intended to help the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences accomplish this goal, and aid departments undergoing ABET review, by promoting thoughtful discussion of EDC standards, goals, and future plans. 

Even more broadly, however, the repository is designed to capture the innovations and best practices of individual instructors and serve as a reminder that the practice of teaching engineering and design, at its best, incorporates “the iterative process of designing, predicting performance, building, and testing” recommended by the National Academy of Engineering.[3] 

Finally, the repository is expected to contribute to our research into the effectiveness of different pedagogical strategies and support Northwestern University’s ongoing quest to foster the development of the next generation of engineering leaders.

How to access and contribute to the EDC repository

 

EDC materials are currently available for review in a folder titled “EDC Repository” in the MEAS directory on Depot.  Faculty are encouraged to contribute guidelines by sending them to Deborah Wood (dlw425@sbcglobal.net) or Kathleen Carmichael (k-carmichael@northwestern.edu) who will sort them and name them in accord with file naming conventions established for the repository.  The documents themselves will not be edited in any way.  These guidelines will then be made available to all faculty for download from Depot.

 

Faculty wishing to contribute sample reports and proposals may upload them directly to “Sample Reports” and “Sample Proposals” folders (located respectively in the WQ and SQ subdirectories of the EDC Repository).  Hard copies of these reports will also be made available and kept in the shared EDC offices in Ford.  These may be checked out and copied for faculty (not student) use. They will also, of course, be available to all EDC faculty in electronic form through Depot.


[1] Committee on the Engineer of 2020 (CB). Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century. Washington, DC, USA: National Academies Press, 2005.

[2] For an excellent overview of genre theory and pedagogy, see Freedman and Medway’s “New Views of Genre and Their Implications for Education” (pp. 1-22; Learning and Teaching Genre.  New Hampshire:  Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1994).  For a more discipline-specific approach, see Dorothy A. Winsor’s Writing Like an Engineer:  A Rhetorical Approach (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996).

[3] P. 53.  The report acknowledges that the development of new curricula should itself be conducted as a series of experiments with curriculum design: “Engineering schools should more vigorously exploit the flexibilities inherent in the outcomes-based accreditation approach to experiment with novel models for baccalaureate education.  ABET should ensure that evaluators look for innovation and experimentation in the curriculum and not just hold institutions to a strict interpretation of the guidelines as they see them.”