Institute:	RMIT
Discipline:	Engineering
Title:	"Written and Oral Communication"
Year addressed:	1st Year
Phase:	Identifying Attributes, Curriculum, Learning Experiences and Assessment
Generic Attributes:	-Teamwork -Communication, oral, written, personal, professional (public) and technical -Reflective learning abilities -Conceptual abilities

Issues Revealed:
-The development of the subject "Written and Oral Communication" as a core first year subject was a direct response to concerns about the development of communication attributes in engineering students.

Actions Taken:
-Identification of attributes at the subject level were identified by teaching staff and industry advisers.
-The attributes were developed through learning experiences such as:

Preparing, collating and structuring a formal report
Presenting material (developed by themselves) to a large group of their peers;
Exploring team dynamics and the roles that individuals can play in ensuring that the team achieves its goals
Developing a successful approach to researching and collecting data through effective listening and note taking
Understanding the personal, social and professional issues involved in communicating with a team that is multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural

-The classes were often taught in workshop style with students forming small core groups.
-Some examples of Assessment tasks were:

Team projects
Peer and self assessment
Job application and resume writing
Formal class meeting
Journal writing

Lessons Learned/Reflections:
-Small class sizes encouraged participation and interaction of students.
-The teaching team must be committed to a student centred teaching/learning approach.
-Assessment tasks need to be spread over the semester evenly.
-The material taught in the subject needs to be linked to other aspects of the course as this would enable skills to be reinforced in other areas. In this sense, continuity is important.