This project aims to overhaul the core writing assignments in ME 354 (Mechanical Behavior of Materials) from the current formulaic mechanical test reports to assignments that force students to think critically about material properties via open-ended design prompts. This will consist of a progressive set of assignments where students will explore a design challenge (e.g. lightweighting an aircraft, repairing or replacing failing infrastructure, creating durable medical implants, etc.) by writing a series of papers exploring sound engineering approaches to their chosen problem.
In the process of revising this course, I had to review my learning outcomes for the class and see how the current assignments did and did not achieve those. While I did know the current iteration of the course didn’t help students to meet my learning goals, systematically rethinking the assignment structure and student learning processes was crucial to designing these new materials.
This fellowship has enabled me to fundamentally rethink not only how I teach writing to engineers but also how I use writing in my own work.
There were many concepts that I had not seen in a formal setting and this experience helped me to identify them and recognize how I already used many of them. For example, the notion of writing as a dialogic tool to think critically about a problem, the powerful ways that language (in my case engineering terminology) enables that dialogue but can create exclusionary spaces, and the myriad ways that we express that language in our work were all concepts that I resonated strongly with.
Further, seeing how colleagues think about writing, student engagement, and structuring assignments and evaluation has been fascinating, and I’ve picked up many valuable tricks and tips that I will undoubtedly repurpose in my own classes. This fellowship has been an invaluable experience that will undoubtedly shape both my teaching and my own research work going forward.
