Kelli Cargile Cook

Layered Literacies: A Theoretical Frame for Technical Communication Pedagogy.

This article proposes a theoretical frame for technical communication peda- gogy based on six layered literacies: basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical. The layered literacies frame advocates diverse instruction in technical communication programs, ranging from the ancient art of rhetoric to the most contemporary of technologies, from basic reading and writing skills to ethical and critical situational analyses. The article also suggests how the frame can be applied to a program of study or individual course in order to establish teaching objectives; develop course and lesson activities; and assess pedagogical materials, students, and programs.

Online Professional Communication: Pedagogy, Instructional Design, and Student Preference in Internet-based Distance Education

would be of interest to members of ABC, please contact me. I also appreciate suggestions about interesting research projects being conducted by established scholars that could be profiled in BCQ. My e-mail address is mzachry@english.usu.edu. The e-mail addresses for both researchers featured in this column are included in the following descriptions in case you have questions or comments about their individual projects, and the authors welcome your queries.

Immersion in a Digital Pool: Training Prospective Online Instructors in Online Environments

This article argues that the online environment is optimal for teaching prospective instructors how to develop and implement online courses. To support this claim, the author draws on hypertext theories to define the online course archive as a constructive hypertext and to describe the work the course archive is able to do when used to instruct prospective online instructors. The claim is further supported through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a course archive.

The changing face of technical communication: new directions for the field in a new millennium

In this panel session, the authors identify four different factors shaping the future of technical communication: user-centered design, corporate universities, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and knowledge management. The authors each address how factors once considered external to the field of technical communication are now becoming thoroughly integrated with it. These four studies, in conjunction, suggest how the field of technical communication is becoming increasingly complex and how participants (practitioners, researchers, and educators) will need to adapt to this new terrain.

Failing Forward: Training Graduate Students for Research—An Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue began as a personal conversation between Becky and a colleague about how they had learned to conduct research as graduate students (often from failing miserably, they laughingly agreed). Since that conversation about research failures, the two of us have had many similar conversations with each other, our colleagues, and our graduate students. From these conversations, we have begun to challenge the very infrastructure in our research culture by suggesting we be more transparent in our representation of research and our methods for teaching graduate students to conduct it. What do we mean by ‘‘transparent’’? We all know from conducting research that research is messy, particularly research involving human subjects. Such research rarely goes according to plan (and we are not discouraging planning; planning is vital!). But sometimes we figure out what it is we need to be focusing on in the middle of our research; sometimes our participants do not follow our well-articulated plan; sometimes we have ‘‘equipment malfunctions’’ or environmental issues; and so forth. The list is endless. Frankly, we are amazed that any research gets done. The fact that it does get done is a testament to the investment and care (and yes, planning!) of researchers. Yet, when we look at virtually any published research, something is missing: Where is the mess? Empirical articles are usually neatly organized (often in an IMRaD [Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion] format, even when Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 2017, Vol. 47(2) 119–129 ! The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0047281617692074 journals.sagepub.com/home/jtw

Guest Editors' Column Scouts, Trailblazers, Pioneers: Settling the Computer Classroom

When we proposed this special issue on computer classrooms and pedagogy for Technical Communication Quarterly, we expected to receive article proposals that illustrated key pedagogical issues and concerns present in computer classrooms as well as suggestions for good teaching practices within these spaces. While the five articles contained within this special issue met this expectation, they exceeded it, too, by providing us with something we did not expect: snapshots of junior faculty in technical, scientific, and professional communication teaching in and directing computer classrooms. These snapshots, we think, provide us with a unique view of the settling of the computer classroom as a territorial teaching and learning space.

Coordinating Distributed Memory: An Environmental Engineer’s Proposal-Writing Process Using a Product Calculator

This case study of an environmental engineer’s proposal-writing process reveals how the engineer (Beatrice) reifies, archives, and accesses her distributed memory across physical and digital sources in order to write proposals. Based on the authors’ observations of Beatrice’s proposal-writing process and their interviews with her, they arrived at three key conclusions: Beatrice distributes her memory across multiple physical and digital sources, the (spreadsheet) product calculator helps Beatrice to manage her cognitive load and relieve her working memory, and the product calculator allows Beatrice to reassemble her distributed memory and coordinate her cognition.

Immersion, Reflection, Failure: Teaching Graduate Students to Teach Writing Online

ABSTRACT A common challenge facing those who prepare graduate students to teach writing online is the need to help those students connect online writing instruction (OWI) theory with their classroom practice. The authors present how graduate students are prepared to teach writing online at three universities and then synthesize those approaches to highlight three principles that can guide effective OWI preparation for graduate students in any program: immersion, reflection, and failure.

Book Review: Introduction to Reviews on Distance Education Books

T echnical communication educators and trainers are increasingly involved in developing instructional and training programs on the Internet, yet research on and guidelines for developing such World Wide Web-based distance education programs can be difficult to find. Educators and trainers, consequently, continue to look for sound answers to the following questions: What should we know before we begin to develop Web-based distance education courses in technical communication? Where can we find guidance regarding pedagogical, technological, and institutional decisions that must be considered? To whom and in what ways should we market these courses? Although more books are responding to these questions, their treatments can be uneven, increasing the difficulty of locating relevant and valuable sources. The diverse audiences, ranging from novices to experts in Web-based instruction, who are addressed in these texts add to this difficulty. To help potential developers identify useful current texts, the book reviews in this issue cover broad topics related to distance education—Internet-based course development, suggested guidelines for pedagogical and technological decisions, and descriptions of distance learners and their needs. In addition, each review describes the text’s intended audience to assist interested developers in more easily identifying books that meet their particular information and development needs. Four detailed book reviews