Planning for excellence: Using public showcases to motivate students in professional communication courses

Motivating engineering students to invest in their communication activities has long been a challenge for technical communication pedagogy. In Praxis II, a first year design and communication course at the University of Toronto, we achieve that goal by deeply integrating communication into engineering design activities, and by having the course culminate in a highly public, high stakes showcase in which student ability to communicate their design across a varied audience is the key to their success. The presence of a highly invested audience that includes public officials and local media at showcase has demanded, we believe, a deeper commitment in our students to communication, as evidenced by the high quality samples on display at the media showcase at IPCC 2010.