Improving communication skills through project-based learning

In 2006, a program geared towards integrating technical communication and teamwork within engineering at the University of Utah was initiated. The program's aim was to improve communication education using technical course assignments, thereby avoiding the addition of a technical elective to an already full engineering schedule, and taking advantage of teaching communication in a direct application to the students' engineering experience. As part of this project, the Center for Engineering Leadership (CLEAR) provided graduate students from the Department of Communication and University Writing Program to instruct engineering students a few times during the semester. These sessions were used to teach specific communication concepts that could be directly applied to engineering tasks they were working on in the course (such as engineering documentation or system design papers). These writing assignments provided students with a higher level understanding of technical material as they practiced explaining it to peers and other audiences [1].