(49d) Incorporating an Industry Role-Playing Experience in Laboratory Classes to Improve the Technical Communications of Students

Professional skills, including problem-solving, project management, team management, and communication, are highly valued in industry and yet difficult to incorporate effectively into the curriculum. In particular, written and oral communications skills are lacking, which leads to less career advancement opportunities for students that have lower abilities. Starting in 2017, changes were made to a senior-level laboratory course to mimic an internship experience in order to motivate students to become better technical communicators. Changes included making lectures “workshops.” incorporating the University’s Writing Center, creating memorandum-style homework, and making the lab objectives industrially relevant. These relatively small changes to the course made big impacts to the students’ writing, and student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Instructors from the second lab course noticed a large difference in the quality of writing due to the changes made and students have emailed with compliments they have received on their communications after graduation. This work was awarded the 2022 Innovation in Teaching award at MSU due to the transformation of this senior lab course and an NSF IUSE grant was awarded to study the effects of further incorporating industry aspects into laboratory course. This presentation will outline the recent improvements in the senior lab I course at MSU and how it helps motivate students to improve their technical communications.