Learning Design & Teaching

  • Syllabus for Software Documentation course (Carnegie Mellon University): This syllabus reflects the course that I designed and have been teaching since 2009. I have created all of the course materials and assignments based on my own research and experiences in the industry. Each year, I iterate based on what worked and what didn't, as well as on the needs of the students. This syllabus illustrates the minimum set of skills and concepts I feel are necessary to send new technical writers into the world, given the time constraints of a 12-unit course.

 

  • Mid-Semester Software Documentation Project (Carnegie Mellon University): I like this assignment because it requires students to approach user assistance holistically and truly implement a strategy of progressive disclosure. They have the opportunity to create an excellent user experience through a combination of embedded assistance (information within the UI itself), contextual help, and a supporting information center. Students have the opportunity to acquire some prototyping skills (low fidelity, wireframes) in addition to writing skills, which helps drive home the point that the more writers contribute to intuitive UI design, the less they need to try to explain in documentation.

 

  • Final Software Documentation Project (Carnegie Mellon University): This assignment allows students to pull together everything they've learned in the semester -- user and task analysis, style and quality attributes, topic-based, structured authoring in DITA, and task orientation -- to create a strong set of user assistance for a popular mind mapping tool.

 

  • Syllabi & Assignments for Communication for Software Engineers (Carnegie Mellon University): These are for the two-semester, required course for the Masters in Software Engineering program. The course structure, content, and assignments are primarily my own, with some input from a co-instructor. Because I work as a technical writer, I interact daily with software engineers. This course is a reflection of the skills that I have noticed are in short supply in many software development organizations. Because the MSE students are 99% international (and thus non-native English speakers), the class incorporates aspects of intercultural communication. [Samples to be added]

 

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