Anita Ford—"Does Current Technical Communication Curriculum Prepare Graduates for the Real Needs of the Job Market?"

Anita addressed that we have two tracks of education in the TC classroom—theory with emphasis on mechanics and design and applied learning with focus on tool training and skills. In the past, academia has struggled with TC:

• Programmatic problems with legitimacy
• TC seen as vocational field
• Teaching TC at one point considered "professional suicide"
• MLA recognition took 50 years
• Some instructors aren't comfortable with the technology themselves

Industry has had some struggles as well:

• Diverse job titles
• Diverse descriptions
• Various fields
• Changing nature of the field

Anita conducted two surveys—of recent grads (5 yrs) in first TC job and of managers of recent grads. Observing topics—Techwr-L, Intercom, ATTW conferences. Use Saldana’s descriptive coding technique.

She found that tasks were various, some TCers did not list writing as a task, and none mentioned collaboration, even though the list of their jobs included collaborative tasks. The respondents listed approximately 50 tools that they used in the workplace.

Anita recommends that we teach tools in the classroom and that we integrate mentorship into our curriculum. Students also requested exposure through workplace environments (internship or job shadowing).

(Anita's survey is still open, so please pass this on to recent graduates of undergraduate programs that are working in TC. Recent graduates can access the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RRPYJ27 and managers can access their survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RFPR7GL)

Jennifer Bay and Patricia Sullivan—"Teaching Writing through Internships outside of the Professional Writing Major"

Jennifer introduced a new course at Purdue. The class is open to any students and teaches "writing on the job." it's an 8-week summer course, online/hybrid, that allows students to participate in an internship and then meet together to share their experiences, gain experience, read skills-related readings, and discuss vignettes. The course gives students credit for unpaid internships, which is important too. The instructor was a TA with workplace experience.

Assessment results from the first summer showed that students felt like they were prepared for communication and writing skills on the job, but they were learning soft skills in the internships and in class. Thos soft skills included integrity, communication, courtesy, social skills, interpersonal, teamwork, work ethic.

Jennifer reported that soft skills are built in context, so they learn in a workplace environment. These students were in real-life settings. Situations were complex and diverse. And the internships provided students to gather immediate feedback and input to cultivate these skills. And students then could share issues and successes with their classmates and get more feedback (crowd sourcing insight).

Kelli Cargile Cook—"Practicing What We Teach: Team Teaching in the Technical Communication Classroom"

Kelli began by asking, "Are there things that we ask students to do that we don’t do?" She focused on collaboration and asked about what we teach our students about collaboration and asked are we collaborating as teachers and then practicing what we teach?

• Why do we teach about collaboration and why is it important?
• What do we teach about collaboration and what costs and benefits do we take away?
• What strategies do we apply?

Teaming: It’s what we do.

So why aren’t we team teaching?

• Economics (two teachers, one classroom)
• Schedules
• Coordinating classwork complicates classwork
• Different teaching styles and philosophies
• (But do we accept these excuses from our students?)

Kelli’s shared some of her collaborative teaching experiences and suggested novel ways to team teach:

• Teaming across the curriculum
• Teaming instructors with grad students
• Teaming new and “old” faculty
• Teaming domestic and international faculty

She addressed some of the benefits of team teaching:

• Learning experiences (risk taking)
• Have multiple perspectives
• Taking new approaches
• Assuring rigor across sections and instructors
• Providing training
• Establishing academic cultural expectations
• Modeling collaboration
• Building trust among faculty and students
• Networking

She also addressed some of the challenges of team teaching:

• Taking time
• Being flexible in classroom management
• Assessing
• Addressing technological knowledge, unexpected glitches
• Identifying gaps in knowledge
• Dealing with disruptions and miscommunications

Kelli finished by challenging us to practice what we teach.