Guidelines for communication and engineering problem solving at the basic level

The study assesses the value of including a communications component in engineering courses that concentrate on basic handwritten mathematical analysis. From examination of past material, a tutorial was developed which was presented to students involved in the study. Examples of some pitfalls and "cures" in the communication of basic mathematical analysis are given. Guidelines for structuring mathematical handwritten material are explained and summarized by the mnemonic "VIDEOGRAM". The results of the study are presented in the form of relative frequency charts taken from anonymous student evaluations. These statistics show that there is considerable student support for the approach, A majority indicated that the techniques learned would have value beyond the university.