Teaching problem-solving strategies in the technical communication classroom

By asking our students to solve open-ended technical problems in the technical communication class, we help them sharpen their problem-solving strategies at the same time they improve their communication abilities. Technical communication faculty cannot afford to ignore the content of student reports nor the quality of the evidence students produce in support of a conclusion or recommendation. The writing process is a key tool in the students' attempts to produce effective and persuasive problem solutions. Too often, students fail to use writing to help solve problems because they are accustomed to working with fully defined and closed academic problems that have single, context-free solutions. Only through attempting to solve open and undefined professional problems do they have to bring their full problem-solving skills to bear. Unfortunately, we often discover that they have not developed intellectually enough to deal with complex problems and higher-order reasoning. Through the EPICS program at the Colorado School of Mines, we developed a curriculum that teaches problem solving and communication as one, a process that we believe encourages the students' intellectual growth.