Communication as Design: How a Multimodal Assignment Establishes Communication’s Role in Engineering Design and Provides Stability to a Large Course System

Abstract

This teaching practice paper describes and reflects on the Engineering Observation, a multimodal communication assignment in a first-year engineering communication and design course. The assignment is designed to accomplish two major goals. First, it fills a pedagogical gap by establishing multimodality and engineering discourse as the foundations of communications instruction and practice in the course, while also establishing communication as an integral part of—and not separate from—design practice. Second, it helps solve problems stemming from the complexity and scale common to large design courses by contributing to the systematic stability of the course. This second goal depends on framing such a course as a system, from the “ecological perspective.” These dual goals are found to be inherently connected, and deliberate care has been given to ensure that they are aligned, mutually supportive, and as effective as possible while ensuring that the assignment supports, and does not negatively impact, connected aspects of the course. Finally, I assess the assignment in its current iteration and consider future directions for the assignment itself as well as this research.