(499c) Communicating with Both Engineers and Non-Engineers: Incorporating Multi-Disciplinary Communication Strategies in the Unit Operations Laboratory

One of the expected student outcomes for ABET accredited chemical engineering programs is the "ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences." It can be challenging to design assignments that give students the opportunity to demonstrate this ability, but the Unit Operations Laboratory courses provide a good framework in which to do this. Often, the laboratory courses require some sort of writing, presentations, or other assignments to report results. This paper presents several methods that have been used in a junior-level Unit Operations Laboratory course to practice communication skills. In these assignments, several various audiences had to be considered, from freshman undergraduate students to faculty in chemical engineering. In addition, the assignments are a part of a learning community in which the students have joint enrollment in a technical writing course while they take the lab course, and they must consider the needs of a non-technical audience as well. The assignments will be described and evaluated in light of the desired ABET outcome, and ideas for increasing the opportunities to learn these skills will be discussed.