MIT requests NSF support to develop and expand a variety of discipline-specific instructional programs that integrate communication instruction and practice into technical and scientific undergraduate programs. The objective of this initiative by MIT's Faculty and Administration is to establish an undergraduate technical curriculum that educates scientists and engineers to become as proficient in communication as in analytical thinking and problem solving. The need for this curricular reform is compelling. Scientists and engineers today assume professional, managerial, and entrepreneurial roles, in which their professional success depends on their ability to communicate effectively to a wide range of audiences and within a variety of contexts. While undergraduate programs in science and engineering are often successful in teaching students key scientific concepts, general problem solving skills, and the knowledge and abilities central to a particular discipline, they have often failed to develop students' abilities to write, speak, and present information effectively. In order to develop these abilities, undergraduates need to write and speak throughout their undergraduate careers and in bodh technical and non-technical classes. However, the continuing explosion of scientific and technical knowledge has created new pressures on science and engineering departments to increase the overall technical content of their undergraduate programs. To educate our students as effective communicators widlin these constraints, MIT has developed several successful pilot programs that integrate substantial instruction in writing and speaking into technical classes without significandy reducing dhe quality of technical instruction. Indeed, these programs offer some preliminary evidence that, at least in some disciplines, integrated exercises in writing and speaking enhance student comprehension of technical material. During the next two years, MIT will build upon existing programs to develop scalable and effectiv e communication-intensive technical classes both within dhe freshman year and within major programs. Departments and faculty committees are also developing mechanisms to integrate communication instruction into non-classroom settings, such as undergraduate research projects and sumrner work cooperatives. Both internal and external review panels will evaluate all phases of this project and assess individual programs in terms of improvement of students' communication skills, the effect of writing and speaking exercises on student comprehension of technical content, the amount of additional time this instruction will add to both student and faculty workloads, and other related issues. MIT plans to share communication-intensive curricula we develop with other educational institutions, and will explore possible partnerships for further collaborative development. We hope that MlT's efforts will serve as a national model for communication-intensive undergraduate programs in science and engineering that will prepare students to be productive team members and leaders by teaching them to write and speak clearly and effectively.
