July 16, 2018 at 12:28 pm

Rice Talks about ‘Synergy’ Between English, Engineering Courses

Dr. Linda J. Rice

Dr. Linda Rice, Professor and Chair of English at Ohio University, was quoted in an Instructional Innovation story headlined “AIA-Supported Projects: Synergies in Teaching and Learning.”

Vouzianas is a lecturer of engineering and technology fundamentals in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology. His students in the “Overview of Engineering and Technology” class complete engineering discussions, calculations, and reflections, but when it comes to putting those ideas down in writing, they struggle. At the same time, Vouzianas’s students are taking a “Writing and Rhetoric” English class in which they work on projects and papers. “I wondered, what if we marry the two classes?” said Vouzianas. “We could ask the students to write something that’s meaningful to them because it helps them in their discipline. It’s such a win-win situation.” He calls this idea Synergies in Teaching and Learning.

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Linda Rice, professor and chair of the English Department in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Master of Arts in English online for high school teachers, has been an instrumental partner in Vouzianas’s project. They currently are co-creating a “synergy” between their two courses: ET 2800, “Overview of Engineering and Technology,” and ENG 1510, “Writing and Rhetoric I.”

The synergy will be approached like a learning community: There will be a set number of students designated to take both courses simultaneously; the engineering course will have specific homework, projects, and assignments that bridge with writing assignments in the English course. “We still will be working on all the writing fundamentals—argument, idea development, perspective, logos pathos ethos, these kinds of crucial things in writing courses,” said Rice, “but there also will be a draw-in of specific content that engineers might realize is synchronous with what they’re learning in engineering.”