Communities of Practice: The Shop Floor of Human Capital Tracy Bridgeford

Collaboration is a staple of technical communication pedagogy. Most of the major textbooks in technical communication emphasize the importance of collaboration by including chapters devoted to the topic (see, e.g., Burnett, 2005; Lannon, 2003). These chapters typically address aspects of collaboration that we teach: challenges of team projects, methods of collaboration, project and time management, communication with group members, development of active listening skills, and management conflict. In introductory technical-communication courses, teaching the collaborative nature of writing typically covers a majority of the course workload. For instance, typically, students create, design, and produce various technical documents as a group.