Commonly, assignments of technical reports and proposals focus students' attention on four types of learning tasks:

• • analyzing and organizing information for ones' self,

  • communicating information to an audience in writing, including visual aids,

  • generating an entire document in a prescribed format, and

  • perhaps, designing and delivering a related oral presentation.

The list below includes variations on these traditional themes: tasks designed to focus students' attention on specific mental processes involved in preparing a report or proposal.

Ideas for Learning Tasks (i.e., Assignments) that Support Assessment

• • Write a complete technical report

  • Write a complete proposal

  • Write one or more sections of a technical report or proposal:

    • • Research question or hypothesis

      • Thesis sentence (One sentence -- the author's main point.)

      • Outline including the main ideas of each section

      • Abstract

      • Introduction

      • Statement of Assumptions

      • Literature Review

      • Method Section (or Materials & Methods Plan)

      • Results & Discussion

      • Annotated Bibliography

Making Scoring/Grading Useful for Assessment

• • General principles for making scoring/grading useful for assessment (rubrics)

  • Attributes of engineering writing that could be used to construct a rubric #1

  • Attributes of engineering writing that could be used to construct a rubric #2

  • Attributes of formal, written reports that could be used to construct a rubric (p. 40-41 of the pdf)

  • Example rubrics

    • For a writing assignment #1

    • For a writing assignment #2

    • For a writing assignment #3