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STC Education Committee
Goals and Objectives for 2000-2001 (and Beyond)
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Overall Goals |
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- Organize the Education Committee into focused specialty teams to increase
efficiency and equalize workshare in pursuitof objectives
- Expand the high school technical writing competition and add an online category
- Support the local educational community in improving classroom instruction of writing
- Support the Society's strategic goals and objectives on educational outreach
- Preserve and expand a robust scholarship and excellence award program
- Supporteducational and professional development for Orlando Chapter members
- Continue to provide and expand professional and academic mentoring
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Specific Objectives |
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Organization of Committee into Focused Specialty Teams
- Establish teams to focus on the high school
competition, the scholarship program, the educational outreach program, mentoring,
professional development, and publicity.
- Have focus teams assume primary
responsibility for the specific objectives within their areas.
- Maintain full-committee participation
in face meetings, e-mail communication, planning goals and objectives, budget
decisions, judging the high school competition, visiting high schools, participating
in mentoring partnerships, selecting scholarship recipients, and pursuing corporate
sponsorships.
Scholarships |
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- Continue long-term capital investment
to maintain and build the Melissa Pellegrin Memorial Scholarship Fund as a
self-sustaining endowment that will pay for scholarships in the future.
- Distribute an informational flyer
to honor Melissa's memory and to support fund-raising for the endowment fund that
bears her name at UCF.
- Develop an informational flyer
specific to the competition for distribution at UCF.
- Continue to provide undergraduate
and graduate Pellegrin scholarships to outstanding technical communication
majors at UCF.
- Research the status of technical
communication programs and courses (or the equivalent) at other Central Florida
colleges and universities as well as community colleges and study the possibility
of establishing a new competitive scholarship program separate from the Pellegrin
scholarships at UCF.If the results so indicate, define the program, make a
recommendation to the Administrative Council, and, if approved, implement it.
High School Competition |
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- Continue the high school technical writing
competition in Central Florida, further increasing the number of entries
- Increase classroom visitations, both to
promote the competition and in conjunction with our instructional outreach
initiative (below).
- Hold and augment the existing base in
Seminole County, reestablish our base in Orange County, and establish beach-heads in
Volusia and Osceola.
- Coordinate with the SpaceTech Chapter,
to increase involvement by Brevard County schools.
- Extend the competition to ninth grade students.
- Expand involvement of private schools.
- Open the competition to all high school
students in Florida (phased growth over multiyear period) by working with other
STC Chapters in Florida.
- Include Florida High School's online students statewide.
- Work with the Suncoast Chapter to
extend the competition into the Tampa area in 2001-2002.
- Develop guidelines and judging criteria
to support addition of an online category to the competition in 2001-2002.
- Sustain and augment industry patronage of the competition.
- Apply for a Society grant in Spring
'01 to support further growth of the high school competition in 2001-02.
- Increase the level of publicity on
the high school competition, especially within the chapter membership.
Instructional Outreach to Support Local Educational Community in Teaching Writing |
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- Provide expert assistance to the area
high school English teachers as they implement secondary-level technical communication
courses, on a demand basis.
- Visit area middle schools, high schools,
and colleges in response to instructor requests to make presentations on technical
communication to students.
- Given the opportunity, reenergize our
support to the Orange County Schools initiative to improve writing instruction in
vocational programs by providing inservice training in technical writing to instructors.
- Make contact with the Orange County
Chapter of the National Council of Teachers of English regarding its next annual
conference and, if appropriate, participate.
- Expand the teacher training effort
into other counties (e.g., Seminole, Volusia, Osceola).
Support to the Society's Educational Outreach Initiative |
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- Given grant support from the Society,
develop an online "turnkey" PowerPoint briefing on the basic principles and
applications of technical communication (which will also serve as a briefing
package for high school visits).
- Beta test the briefing in high
school visits, refine, and share with the Practical Communication Committee in
accordance with Society's 5-Year Strategic Plan, Tactic 3.2.4.
- Leveraging the online briefing,
establish a Web-based tutorial for high school instructors, including an annotated
online bibliography of Web-based resources on technical communication.
- Support STC's Practical Communication
Committee in its outreach to secondary school instructors.
- Publish an in-depth, fully researched
article in Technical Communication detailing how a chapter-level education committee
can provide educational outreach to its community and support the professional
development of its membership (follow-up to progression sponsored by Education
Committee at the 47th International Conference in Orlando).
- Work with the Society's Strategic
Planning and Vision Committee to develop/refine specific objectives, strategies,
and tactics in support of the goal area on educational outreach.
Supporting Educational and Professional Development of Chapter Members |
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- Continue the tradition of potpourri-style,
panel-forum chapter meetings ("Washlines VI") presenting lessons learned at the
47th Annual Conference in Orlando, in August 2000.
- Post notes from the 47th Conference
on the Education Committee Web page.
- Post professional development materials
periodically on the Orlando Chapter listserv.
- Continue to sponsor and, if necessary,
financially subsidize special skills training sessions for chapter members, such as
the JoAnn Hackos presentation in July '99.
- Investigate the acquisition of reusable
assets for the chapter (e.g., building a library of books, CD ROMs, videotapes,
shareware). Report results and make recommendations to the Administrative Council.
If so directed, implement.
- Publicize the annual undergraduate and
graduate scholarships from the Society for which Chapter members may apply.
Mentoring |
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- Work with UCF and within the Chapter to
establish a formal mentoring program pairing UCF students, as well as entry-level
technical communicators, with expert practitioners within the Chapter membership.
- Continue to promote the academic growth
of technical writing students(e.g., granting interviews for technical writing projects,
addressing technical writing classes, critiquing student portfolios).
- Work towards a career forum for a select
audience of high school students with an aptitude and interest in technical
communication (use above items to leverage this objective).
- Continue to assist other STC chapters
concerning the roles, objectives, and strategies of the Education Committee.
Communications and Publicity |
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- Work jointly with the Administrative
Council, the newsletter editor, and the Chapter Web site administrator to publicize
and promote committee activities (e.g., awards and scholarship presentations, the
high school competition, fund-raising for the scholarship fund) within the Chapter
and the Society.Provide regular news updates and periodic in-depth articles on
committee activities to Tech Trends.
- Assume administrator responsibility
for the Education Committee portion of the Chapter Web site, in anticipation of
rapidly increasing requirements and throughput rate as well as tight schedules.
- Send out press releases on scholarships
and high school contest awards to the Orlando Sentinel, to college and high school
newspapers, and to other media as appropriate.
- Distribute STC literature in response
to requests from interested parties and follow up as appropriate to help build our
chapter membership.
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