Engineering and Communications Integrated Learning: Collaboration Strategies for Skills and Subject Experts

This paper focuses on the integrated learning of communication and communication skills within engineering education, and on the respective roles of the communication expert and the subject expert in courses and throughout the curriculum.

Approaches to the function of communication in an overall engineering curriculum and to the learning activities are here referred to as learning-to-communicate and communicating-to-learn. These concepts are further merged into the term communicating-to-engineer. This means that all communication aspects are intrinsic components in engineering education and that factors such as learning activities, ambition, maturity, and resources together contribute to deciding how and to what extent communication can be effectively learnt and taught.

This paper then suggests two distinct roles of the communication expert: the direct and the indirect where the direct approach implies an active classroom role, and the indirect approach being more focused on course and staff development. These roles are then placed on a continuum where the role may change over time, in accordance to the learning objectives and staff development ambition. By categorizing the role of the communication expert into these functionally and strategically different functions, the corresponding role of the subject expert is also changed.