Jennifer Craig

An elderly woman, in need of money, decides to start growing her own marijuana to sell.

Gone to Pot

Neal Lerner

Mya Poe

Case studies and pedagogical strategies to help science and engineering students improve their writing and speaking skills while developing professional identities. To many science and engineering students, the task of writing may seem irrelevant to their future professional careers. At MIT, however, students discover that writing about their technical work is important not only in solving real-world problems but also in developing their professional identities. MIT puts into practice the belief that “engineers who don't write well end up working for engineers who do write well,” requiring all students to take “communications-intensive” classes in which they learn from MIT faculty and writing instructors how to express their ideas in writing and in presentations. Students are challenged not only to think like professional scientists and engineers but also to communicate like them.This book offers in-depth case studies and pedagogical strategies from a range of science and engineering communication-intensive classes at MIT. It traces the progress of seventeen students from diverse backgrounds in seven classes that span five departments. Undergraduates in biology attempt to turn scientific findings into a research article; graduate students learn to define their research for scientific grant writing; undergraduates in biomedical engineering learn to use data as evidence; and students in aeronautic and astronautic engineering learn to communicate collaboratively. Each case study is introduced by a description of its theoretical and curricular context and an outline of the objectives for the students' activities. The studies describe the on-the-ground realities of working with faculty, staff, and students to achieve communication and course goals, offering lessons that can be easily applied to a wide variety of settings and institutions.

Case Studies from MIT

Learning to Communicate in Science and Engineering

Based on the author's own experiences, this is the fascinating story of one young nurse who enters training in 1952 and eventually progresses to become ward sister.

My Life as a Trainee Nurse in 1950s Yorkshire

Yes Sister, No Sister

When Mary Lou stirs up her brew, she spells trouble for the Dean of the Academy of Sophists: just one more problem when the future of the Academy is in jeopardy, faculty members vanish, an assistant causes a unique traffic jam, lab creatures escape, and a disenchanted junior professor tries to alter the Dean’s Gravity Quotient. Rooted in ancient Greek culture, the Dean’s Academy of Sophists contributes to humanity in its own whacky way, using ancient practices similar to witchcraft, but with a scientific basis. Although Sophistry and witchcraft parted ways in the fifteenth century, the Dean must defend the Academy against those who see these goings-on as decidedly witchy—with hilarious results. Mary Lou’s Brew is a humorous social and academic commentary for adults of all ages and is not to be taken seriously. It is written by a Yorkshire woman who knows her science and her brews.

Mary Lou's Brew

Warren Steele

Can art change the world? Or can art produce new knowledge that facilitates radical change in our slowly-evolving communities? If so, then we must ask: How does cultural transformation, whether super or slight, affect our understanding of culture and the world? Operating under the rubric of resistance and reform, R|EVOLUTIONS: Mapping Culture, Community and Change is a unique scholarly collection that seeks to illuminate current understandings of art, aesthetics, and the revolutionary impulse. The resulting work interrogates intersections between culture and community, revolution and evolution. At the same time, it examines how enduring social issues intertwine with current concerns, such as representations of the body or the book. Multidisciplinary in approach, topics run from subversive uses of the body in Renaissance drama to the effect of the atom bomb on postmodern culture. From Mark Wallinger’s Turner Prize-winning performance in a bear suit, to Angela Carter’s concept of sexual multiplicity in The Passion of New Eve. Cutting-edge and politically engaging, R|Evolutions will appeal to general readers as well as the specialist, and it is designed for scholars not only interested in issues of cultural production, but also in the evolution of politics and perception over time.

Jennifer Craig

About

Books

Join the club