Education Commons^™

Board 121: Using Tutor-Led Support To Enhance Engineering Student Writing For All, Johanna Bodenhamer, Robert Weissbach, Ruth Camille Pflueger, Corinne C. Renguette, Brandon Sorge, Annwesa Dasgupta, Immanuel A. Edinbarough

Informatics and Engineering Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Writing Assignment Tutor Training in STEM (WATTS) is part of a three-year NSF IUSE grant with participants at three institutions. This research project seeks to determine to what extent students in the WATTS project show greater writing improvement than students using writing tutors not trained in WATTS. The team collected baseline, control, and experimental data. Baseline data included reports written by engineering and engineering technology students with no intervention to determine if there were variations in written communication related to student demographics and institutions. Control data included reports written by students who visited tutors with no WATTS training, and experimental …

Board 317: Improving Undergraduate Stem Writing: A Collaboration Between Instructors And Writing Center Directors To Improve Peer-Writing Tutor Feedback, Robert Weissbach, Ruth Camille Pflueger, Immanuel A. Edinbarough, Corinne C. Renguette, Brandon Sorge, Gamini P. Mendis, Matthew Rothrock, Annwesa Dasgupta, Johanna Bodenhamer

Informatics and Engineering Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Undergraduate STEM writing skills, especially in engineering fields, need improvement. Yet students in engineering fields often do not value writing skills and underestimate the amount of writing they will do in their careers. University writing centers can be a helpful resource, but peer writing tutors need to be prepared for the differences between writing for the humanities and writing in STEM fields.

The Writing Assignment Tutor Training in STEM (WATTS) model is designed to improve tutor confidence and student writing. In this innovative training, the writing center supervisor collaborates with the STEM instructor to create a one-hour tutor-training where the …

Comparison Of Undergraduate Student Writing In Engineering Disciplines At Campuses With Varying Demographics, Immanuel Edinbarough, Jesus Gonzalez, Ruth Pflueger, Robert Weissbach, Johanna Bodenhamer

Informatics and Engineering Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Writing is generally recognized as fundamental to the formation and communication of scientific and technical knowledge to peer groups and general audiences. Often, persuasive writing is an essential attribute emphasized by industries and businesses for a successful career in STEM fields. Nevertheless, the current scenario is that students in STEM fields, with their increased demand for more specialized skills in fewer credit hours combined with a lack of emphasis on writing from engineering faculty members, make addressing this need difficult. In addition, students in engineering fields often do not value writing skills and underestimate the amount of writing they will …

Enhancing Engagement And Qualitative Output Of Technical Projects Through Competing Team Assignments, Immanuel Edinbarough, Jaime Taha-Tijerina, Aditya Akundi

Informatics and Engineering Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper discusses the benefits of engaging engineering student teams through competition in technical development projects. The University of XXX is a minority serving institution situated in the developing region of the XXX state, where recently, there has been a great expansion of advanced manufacturing industries, including innovative aerospace companies. These industries look for engineering and technology students who are creative thinkers and capable of addressing complex engineering problems. The best of student output often comes out with a friendly competition. Hence, two student teams were assigned with the same sponsored project to come out with innovative solutions. The project …