The "write" touch in physics and engineering education

Summary form only given as follows. Writing has long been established to be an effective means of expressing one's ideas, thoughts, and understanding about nature and the world. Through this interactive workshop we report on an ongoing research study designed to address the role of writing in terms of the assessment of student learning. To this end, a new instructional technique for incorporating writing into the introductory curriculum is described. This technique was first developed to bring science and engineering topics to the forefront in a new introductory physics course designed exclusively for nonmajors at American University in Washington, DC. The technique employed required students to write and present a scientific paper for their peers using guidelines very similar to those required for authors of FIE conference papers. Through this process, students were exposed to all aspects of preparing a paper for publication including the submission of an abstract, the preparation of a draft of their paper for a formal review process, and finally, the preparation of a revised, camera-ready copy for publication in the conference proceedings. Students were also required to present their final papers at a "conference" at the end of the semester. A summary of the curriculum devised for this writing technique is presented. Based on the success of this technique in the introductory physics class, a similar strategy was employed on a larger scale in an introductory Freshman Engineering course at the University of Pittsburgh. Throughout this workshop we share our experiences with adopting the "write" touch in our own classes as well as provide participants with the tools needed to adapt a similar approach for use in their own classes. Links are also made to the importance of making science and engineering topics accessible to majors as well as nonmajors through the active process of writing. Additional applications of writing in the classroom are presented and discussed, particularly as they relate to the, assessment of student learning. Samples of students' writing are shared along with a summary of the students' overall perceptions of this process.