Unfamiliar courses can be nerve-wrecking for students and teachers alike. I know this because I was nervous when I started teaching Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) writing courses. I was worried that I didn’t have enough disciplinary expertise to teach students with specialized disciplinary knowledge; however, that nervousness evolved into a strength for both me and students when discussing course materials and course learning outcomes. Out of the first and subsequent several TPC courses that I have taught, three guiding principles emerged and summarized my pedagogical practices in TPC:

Knowledge-making is Collaborative

I believe that knowledge-making is most productive when it’s collaborative in nature. I say this because collaboration is becoming increasingly important in an age where writing moves beyond traditional writing platforms and modalities.This type of writing is important to the writing process as collaborative writing becomes more vital in academic, workplace, and civic contexts. Learning and transfer occurs more frequently and improves over time when an educator encourages social and collaborative activities that mimic the workplace. In this way, students create shared and situated collective knowledge which are highly sought out in workplace settings.

For example, I teach about three collaborative goals: between me and students, their work with each other and international collaboration. When first completing a group project, I used to require specific group work based on student performance in class. I wanted to give students more agency in their learning but found this practice ineffective. So, I asked students what they preferred and asked them to cite collaboration strategies they use. Then, we discussed setting group roles in collaborative work as a strategy in the workplace that plays to individual strengths andweaknesses. Teaching collaborative strategies such as these in the classroom is something that is often overlooked and will assist students in their applied workplace writing.

Principled and Meaningful Pedagogy

Teaching for the past eight years has taught me that meaningful assignments are imperative for student learning success. One way to create meaningful assignments in TPC courses is to include problem-based learning (PBL) scenarios. Articulating the goals of PBL scenarios is imperative to student success as it incorporates concepts such as purpose, audience, and design for applied research in workplaces. Additionally, PBL scenarios allow students to connect industry experiences with their goals.

As an illustration, students in the Professional and Technical Writing for Health Science Majors write about PBL scenarios that task them with thinking and writing about rhetorical concepts such as organizational authorship, authority, professional conventions, genre inculcation, and working through how to approach interdisciplinary workplace research. Creating PBL scenarios and rubrics with students encourages conversations about valued medical workplace practice. To this end, students understand how PBLscenarios and workplace scenarios assist in their eventual STEM job. PBL scenarios have also fostered discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion in workplace environments.

Students are interested in issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion and their circulation in workplaces. PBL scenarios, atthe programmatic level, encourage students to consider how DEI imperatives can be helpful, or controlling, in workplace situations. Discussing ways that DEI writing organizes authorship allows students to invest in their thinking about difficult and complex DEI scenarios. The discussion of rhetorical nuance allows me to speak honestly with students about corporate experience and empowering them to be part of the workforce.

Reflexivity is Key to Successful Teaching

I hold that cultivating a successful learning environment starts with reflexive educators who consider students’ needsand teacher engagement. Unfortunately, it seems that many teachers don’t rhetorically listen to students. To me, constant consideration is paramount, particularly from one institution to another. For example, I had to vary my teaching style moving from a large R1 institution that taught primarily white students to a different university where approximately 49 percent of students are BIPOC. Now, I currently teach at a university where around 51 percent of students are first generation. 

One way that I engage students with reflexive learning is to ask them to bring in any type of important writing in a workplace environment, either personal workplace or frequent places. Using real life experiences as a first-generation student and analyzing situations from my previous corporate job, I invite students to write about workplace writing. After they have written for a few minutes, as a class we discuss the ways that reflexivity can help improve workplacewriting. They then revise the texts, and we discuss our writing processes.

These pedagogical principles guide my teaching practices, and I intend to continuously draw from these goals and principled values to expand my pedagogical training and skills to better structure a socially just and inclusive classroom that values workplace writing. All these strengths start with the nervousness of trying something new and collaborative.This teaching philosophy helps me realize that TPC courses can truly engage students in meaningful transfer practices after they graduate.