ELEC ENG 7057 - Engineering Communication & Critical Thinking

North Terrace Campus - Semester 1 - 2014

Engineering Communication and Critical Thinking provides strategies and practice in developing skills to enable students with English as a second language to maximize their capacity to learn and to interact effectively in an English speaking academic and professional environment. This course explores communication in a cross cultural setting, and provides strategies for effective academic and professional writing and seminar presentations. Seminars provide information about and practice in locating, analysing and evaluating appropriate sources of information, and consider differences in style and format of documents written for different purposes. The course provides the opportunity to develop skills for professional speaking in a variety of settings.

  • General Course Information
    Course Details
    Course Code ELEC ENG 7057
    Course Engineering Communication & Critical Thinking
    Coordinating Unit School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
    Term Semester 1
    Level Postgraduate Coursework
    Location/s North Terrace Campus
    Units 3
    Course Description Engineering Communication and Critical Thinking provides strategies and practice in developing skills to enable students with English as a second language to maximize their capacity to learn and to interact effectively in an English speaking academic and professional environment. This course explores communication in a cross cultural setting, and provides strategies for effective academic and professional writing and seminar presentations. Seminars provide information about and practice in locating, analysing and evaluating appropriate sources of information, and consider differences in style and format of documents written for different purposes. The course provides the opportunity to develop skills for professional speaking in a variety of settings.
    Course Staff

    Course Coordinator: Professor Lincoln Wood

    Course Timetable

    The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from Course Planner.

  • Learning Outcomes
    Course Learning Outcomes

    No information currently available.

    University Graduate Attributes

    No information currently available.

  • Learning Resources
    Required Resources
    References
    Students are expected to own and use a dictionary and a grammar book suitable for their level. If you do not already have these, some options follow. Check for more recent editions.

    Dictionaries
    Macquarie Dictionary, 2005, Yallop, C (ed), 4thedn, Macquarie Library, North Ryde, N.S.W

    Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2005, 7thedn, OUP, Oxford.

    Grammar Books
    Alexander, LG 1990, Longman English Grammar Practice, Longman, Harlow.
    Hewings, M 2005, Advanced Grammar in Use, 2ndedn, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
    Murphy, R. 2007, Essential Grammar in Use, 3rdedn, Cambridge University Press Melbourne.
    Murphy, R 2004, English Grammar in Use, 3rdedn, Cambridge University Press, Sydney.
    Peters, P 1995, The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
    Swan, M 1995, Practical English Usage, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
    Recommended Resources
    Beer, D &McMurrey, D 2005, A Guide to Writing as an Engineer, 2ndedn,John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken.
    Cargill, M O'Connor, P 2009, Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategy and Steps, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester,
    Chaffee, J, McMahan & Stout, B 2008, Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing: A Rhetoric with Readings, 4th edn, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
    Copi, IM & Cohen C, 1998, Introduction to Logic, 10th edn, Prentice-Hall International, London.
    Eunson, B 2005 or 2006, Communicating in the 21st Century, John Wiley and Sons, Milton.
    Girle, RA, 2008, Introduction to Logic, 2nd edn, Pearson Education, Rosedale.
    Hart, H 2005, Introduction to Engineering Communication, Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River.
    Huckin, T & Olsen, LA 1991, Technical Writing and Professional Communication for Nonnative Speakers of English, (2nd ed.), McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York.
    Ingre, D 2008, Engineering Communication: a practical guide to workplace communications for engineers, Thompson, Toronto.
    Mohan, T McGregor, H Saunders, S &Archee, R., 2008, Communicating as Professionals,Thomson, Southbank.
    Munson, R and Black, A 2007, The Elements of reasoning, 5thedn, Thomson, Belmont.
    Penrose, AM & Katz SB 2004, Writing in the Sciences: Exploring Conventions of Scientific Discourse (2nd ed.) Pearson Education, New York
    Rudinow, J & Barry V E,1994, Invitation to critical thinking, 3rd ed.Holt, Rinehart & Winston,Fort Worth,
    Swales, J &Feak, C 1994, Academic Writing for Graduate Students, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
    Weissberg, R &Buker, S 1990 Writing up Research, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
    Online Learning
    An extensive range of resources are available through MyUni. Students are expected to check their email and MyUni dailyfor information, announcements, resources and learning tasks.
  • Learning & Teaching Activities
    Learning & Teaching Modes
    Lectures and workshops are the primary means of delivery in this task-based course.To learn successfully in this course students need to interact with each other in English in workshops and listen to and absorb material in lectures. Thus, students are required to attend and actively participate in both workshops and lectures. Through discussion, negotiation and other formative tasks during workshopsstudents will have the opportunity to develop and hone their English language and critical thinking skills. Written and oral assessment tasks and assignments will provide opportunities for students to expand and refine their communication skills in English.
    Workload

    The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

    Contact time per week:
    Lecture: 1 hour
    Workshop: 2 hours
    Students are expected to spend a minimum of four hours per week actively following up material and tasks presented in lectures,workshops and online through MyUni and or email.
    Learning Activities Summary
    Content:
    This course consists of a series of lectures and workshops.The teaching topics will be drawn from the following:
    o Overview of engineering communication and critical thinking
    o Complex systems in everyday language
    o Professional practice and communication
    o Managing engineering information
    o Review of information sources
    o The language of business
    o Social responsibility and regulations
    o Risk and safety management
    o Ethical thinking in professional practice
    o Requirements and synthetic languages
    o Formal engineering reviews
    o Requested topics on professional practice

    Communication and critical thinking competencies will be developed from these contextually-based teaching topics.
  • Assessment

    The University's policy on Assessment for Coursework Programs is based on the following four principles:

    1. Assessment must encourage and reinforce learning.
    2. Assessment must enable robust and fair judgements about student performance.
    3. Assessment practices must be fair and equitable to students and give them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.
    4. Assessment must maintain academic standards.

    Assessment Summary
    Assessment Activity Weighting Due Learning Objective
    Assignments (4) 70% TBA All
    Continuous assessment 10% Continuous All
    Seminar 20% TBA All
    Assessment Related Requirements
    Students must obtain at least 40% in the seminar
    Assessment Detail
    Details of assessment tasks will be provided during the course. There will be a mix of group and individual assessment.
    Submission
    Written assignments are submitted electronically. Selected assignments may be submitted electronically to Turnitin or other plagiarism software.All assignments must have a signed student declaration. Late submissions are not accepted.
    Course Grading

    Grades for your performance in this course will be awarded in accordance with the following scheme:

    M10 (Coursework Mark Scheme)
    Grade Mark Description
    FNS   Fail No Submission
    F 1-49 Fail
    P 50-64 Pass
    C 65-74 Credit
    D 75-84 Distinction
    HD 85-100 High Distinction
    CN   Continuing
    NFE   No Formal Examination
    RP   Result Pending

    Further details of the grades/results can be obtained from Examinations.

    Grade Descriptors are available which provide a general guide to the standard of work that is expected at each grade level. More information at Assessment for Coursework Programs.

    Final results for this course will be made available through Access Adelaide.

  • Student Feedback

    The University places a high priority on approaches to learning and teaching that enhance the student experience. Feedback is sought from students in a variety of ways including on-going engagement with staff, the use of online discussion boards and the use of Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) surveys as well as GOS surveys and Program reviews.

    SELTs are an important source of information to inform individual teaching practice, decisions about teaching duties, and course and program curriculum design. They enable the University to assess how effectively its learning environments and teaching practices facilitate student engagement and learning outcomes. Under the current SELT Policy (http://www.adelaide.edu.au/policies/101/) course SELTs are mandated and must be conducted at the conclusion of each term/semester/trimester for every course offering. Feedback on issues raised through course SELT surveys is made available to enrolled students through various resources (e.g. MyUni). In addition aggregated course SELT data is available.

  • Student Support
  • Policies & Guidelines
  • Fraud Awareness

    Students are reminded that in order to maintain the academic integrity of all programs and courses, the university has a zero-tolerance approach to students offering money or significant value goods or services to any staff member who is involved in their teaching or assessment. Students offering lecturers or tutors or professional staff anything more than a small token of appreciation is totally unacceptable, in any circumstances. Staff members are obliged to report all such incidents to their supervisor/manager, who will refer them for action under the university's student’s disciplinary procedures.

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