Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!bingvaxu!sunybcs!oswego!dab
From: dab@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: engineering students and verbal skills
Summary: The central issue revealed!
Message-ID: <1051@oswego.Oswego.EDU>
Date: 27 Jan 89 17:00:23 GMT
References: <19244@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5618@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <19292@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5676@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <19443@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5803@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <5464@pdn.nm.paradyne.com>
Reply-To: dab@oswego.oswego.edu.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak)
Organization: SUNY College @ Oswego, Oswego, NY
Lines: 41

In article <5464@pdn.nm.paradyne.com> reggie@pdn.nm.paradyne.com (George W. Leach) writes:
>
>    Ain't that the truth.  Most undergrads don't really have a clear vision
>of what they want to do, let alone how to get the appropriate education to
>prepare to do it!  Often a couse such as technical writing in an engineering
>curriculum may be overlooked and considered not important.  The skills that
>are taught in such a course need to be stressed and reinforced in future
>courses that involve writing papers, reports, documentation, etc......
>
THIS is the core of the issue.  Students MUST see that there is a need,
that the need is not some artificial "you'll be a better person..." type
of scenario, and that, most importantly, you as an instructor demonstrate
that the skill is important by serving as a role model.

This is the response to the other postings about WWIII proclamations.  If
I start off each class by saying, "learn to write well or burn in hell and
flunk my course to boot", then I am insulting (and will be ignored).  If
a WWIII proclamation is used for emphasis, to get started, and most importantly
is reinforced in this first class and in subsequent classes, then the lesson
is well learned.  And I don't believe that many students have any idea how
much of their professional lives will be spent writing memos, reports, 
reviews, etc.

I see a great deal of math phobia spread throughout this campus, and there
are many anecdotes of students who take a basic stats course 5 or 6 times
before passing.  Too often you will overhear faculty say something like, 
"yeah, you have to take calc.  most students survive it..." when in fact
they make use of that skill in their professional life.  They ought instead
to be illustrating just how that skill plays a role.  Every discipline
has some computational skill requirement, and it should be presented in
a favorable (or at least neutral) manner.

(Please, no flames about how you can design a curriculum in some discipline
that doesn't need a computational skill...you would be wrong... :-)

dave bozak
department of computer science
department of psychology
suny college at oswego
oswego, ny 13126
dab@rocky.oswego.edu