Lisa Bullard

Challenges in Learning Communication Skills in Chemical Engineering.

Communication across the curriculum initiatives face multiple curricular and pedagogical challenges that are especially appropriate for investigation within a scholarship of teaching and learning framework. Using qualitative methodologies, this study examined technical classes that emphasize speaking and writing. Four learning issues emerged in student reflection logs: integrating multidisciplinary information, managing varied audiences and feedback, aligning content and communication tasks, and addressing interpersonal team issues. Data indicated that students were resistant toward the incursion of communication in their engineering classes. Through reflective practice, teachers and cross-curricular consultants came to understand and address that resistance.

Mentoring: A Personal Perspective

Abstract An experienced faculty member and a relatively new one spent a semester in a mentoring partnership in which each taught a section of the same course. The two instructors regularly sat in on each others classes and met for weekly debriefing sessions. In this paper they reflect on what they did, what they learned, and what lessons the experience might hold for other mentor-mentee pairs.