Collaborative Writing to Solve Real-World Problems

Communication Spotlights

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Patrick P. Hong is a National Science Foundation-funded startup CEO and a communications professor at the University of California, Irvine, in the Samueli School of Engineering. With over three decades of experience in media and more than a decade each in academia and company building, he is passionate about leveraging artificial intelligence ethically to foster student success. His work emphasizes a growth mindset, grit, and agency in education. An engineer by training and an entrepreneur at heart, Patrick firmly believes in lifelong learning, fostering critical thinking and innovation. Learn more about Patrick Hong’s work here.

What is the assignment? 

Collaborative Technical Proposal The students collaborate as a team across different engineering disciplines to produce a technical proposal (written paper and verbal presentation) to solve a real-world problem. The proposed technology should be new (never seen before) or improve an existing product. Think about this as a problem in search of a technology solution, NOT a technology in search of a problem to solve. The proposal should address the solution’s technical feasibility and provide credible evidence to validate the problem, target customer, competition, development timeline, cost estimations, and user risk management, all critical issues that need to be addressed to bring any idea into fruition in the industry.

How does it work?

I like this assignment because it asks students to learn and practice multifaceted skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving, and team collaboration. The assignment challenges students to identify real-world problems and develop innovative solutions by applying technical knowledge in practical scenarios. The students practice iterative critical thinking (evidence-based research) during the outlining process to validate and organize their points of view before any drafting should begin. The writing then focuses on self-reflection, iterative peer editing, and feedback for improvements. The students’ learning outcome is the ability to communicate a technical solution to a real problem effectively and with credibility, both in written and oral forms. The goal is to persuade a broad audience, such as senior executives and investors, to invest in their ideas. Additionally, the structured feedback process and collaborative environment foster professional growth, leadership skills, and ethical considerations in a workplace-like setting. This comprehensive learning experience is designed to prepare students academically and professionally, equipping them with a growth mindset, grit, and agency needed to succeed in ever-changing future workforce demands.

What do students say?

Aside from technical knowledge, I believe it’s also essential for engineers to demonstrate strong communication skills. These skills will help clearly and effectively present complicated ideas and technical plans or create technical reports for company leaders or academic peers. Additionally, I find communication very beneficial for productive collaboration and valuable for engineers when working with others across different projects and disciplines. – Student A

Communication is essential in engineering; ideas could never become reality without communication. It takes clear communication and teamwork to manufacture new products and explain them to others. Engineers must be able to discuss their creations with a diverse audience, most unfamiliar with their area of expertise. – Student B 

Being able to communicate with others effectively is essential for engineers. This is especially true in work environments where engineers must collaborate and pitch proposals to managers and directors. The ability to communicate is a skill that all engineers should continuously work on to express their ideas more clearly and effectively. – Student C 

Communication is essential for engineers because every calculation or design we create would linger on paper without it. Ideas would not be able to come to fruition, and nothing would be built. Communicating thoughts or ideas may be complex for engineers because we spend most of the time designing and understanding how things work. However, practicing delivering presentations and preparing articles or documents allows us to learn how to explain our thoughts and ideas. – Student D

Student Artifact: 

Proposal Excerpt:

“The proposed EzBreathe inhaler attachment, along with the integrated smartphone app, is designed to help people manage their asthma more effectively. By integrating a spirometer and nitric oxide level measurements, patients will be able to assess their lung function and any indication of airway swelling on a regular basis using the corresponding user-friendly app. The app will also include features such as clear and concise results, tips for correct breathing techniques to properly inhale the prescribed amount of medicine, and reminders to help patients stay consistent with treatment and assessment. The Asthma Therapy Assessment Questionnaire (ATAQ) will also be integrated into the app to evaluate patients’ asthma control and management. Based on this, patients will be notified when they need more intense treatment and what areas of management they can improve on.”

Read the Full Proposal Here The 2021-2022 UCI Writing Award-winning technical proposal EzBreathe demonstrated exemplary mastery of all learning outcomes. The proposal showed excellence in critical thinking and analysis, use of evidence and research, development and structure, and language and style conventions. The added challenge for this proposal is its goal, where the team needed not only to address the technical feasibility of their solution to solve a real-world problem, but also had to go beyond their engineering studies to address business value questions such as customer and competitive analysis, critical for product development in the professional world. Moreover, since the proposal’s target audience is not just engineers, the team explained all the topics convincingly with appropriate background and context so that even a non-technical audience can follow and easily understand. While the technical proposal demonstrated writing excellence, it is even more remarkable considering this project was completed by a team, and each member is from a different engineering discipline: biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, and material science engineering. To produce one technical proposal of such detail where every part of the content is cohesively aligned from the beginning to the end is already challenging for one person, let alone a group of students with different majors and time commitments. Each member in this project has demonstrated their respective substantive contributions and excellence in teamwork, as well as additional learning outcomes assessed for the course needed for success in the professional world. 

Why does this work?

This collaborative writing assignment provides students with the opportunity to think critically about a real-world technical program with their classmates and practice developing their writing processes as a team. This assignment also underscores the importance of providing students with a specific audience – in this case, potential investors – to write for.   Check out these resources for developing collaborative and audience-aware assignments in your communication classes:

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