Learning the “what?” “how?” and “why?”: A necessary introduction to becoming a reflective practitioner of professional communication

Perhaps no one group of engineering educators is more aware of the differences and therefore the difficulties with making connections between the worlds of the classroom and the workplace than those of us tasked with teaching professional communication. A new approach is needed that will prepare students to learn to learn how to communicate throughout the rest of their professional lives. This paper illustrates such a new approach. Two research methodologies were used to assess this approach: action research and grounded theory. The results suggest that across the team e-portfolios students were learning about the communicative actions of practicing professionals and that they could identify key concepts, describe their relevance, research these concepts in actual, authentic professional situations and assess their importance. In addition, the results of the grounded theory research suggest that the students employed a range of different semiotic resources and designs for communicating their learning and representing themselves as rhetors.