Experiences of and Improvement of Writing Skills in a Lecture Based Course in Polymeric Materials

This paper aims to describe the development work done regarding the project Topic to Study (TTS) which intends to enforce written communication skills while simultaneously improving student working knowledge. TTS is a part of an ordinary lecture based master level polymer course assessed by a written exam; points earned from TTS are added to exam points and typically constitute 10% of total. It is a learning experience where, early in the course, participants are offered a range of topics to choose from. These are slightly more specialized than the course content and the students are expected to find the relevant information by the use of scientific literature and write a very short academic report. The improvement was made on the basis of faculty experience, course evaluations 2001-2008, programme goals, best practice from within the CDIO initiative as well as pedagogical research.

Firstly, new outcomes for the project were stated. Secondly, assessment criteria were formulated and handed out to students to be brought to bear on the report. The criteria contain aspects of the technical content as well as aspects of academic writing and oral presentation. Thirdly, actions regarding teaching approach necessary for faculty to take on were identified concerning clarity and transparency in assessment and feed-back, specifically in order to strengthen the outcomes regarding critical thinking and judgement.

Finally, the experiences from the development were written in a more generic manner and gathered in a guide, to be used by any faculty member, within the master programme or outside, wanting to perform a writing project in a traditional lecture based “knowledge transfer” course.