Areas of Focus

• Design thinking approaches
• Digital literacy
• Multimodal design
• Collaboration and emergent learning

Ongoing Projects

• Open-access collection: Keywords in Design Thinking
• Books: Collaborative writing (guides for students and workplace teams); technical communication in the global community––a textbook for international communicators
• Journal articles: Design thinking in writing social change; multimodal advocacy design; collaborative research methods; digital/connectivist learning approaches

Books

2021 – Design Thinking in Technical Communication: Solving Problems through Making and Collaboration (Routledge/Taylor & Francis — ATTW Book Series) Pre-order now

This book modernizes technical communication pedagogy and practice by highlighting the connections and overlaps between design thinking, making, and technical communication. It takes advantage of the recently popularized technology-powered DIY culture called “the Maker Movement” to forward the argument that novice invention can facilitate cutting-edge innovation through user-centered design and collaboration. This book examines the underlying design thinking principles in maker culture that enable social innovation while offering opportunities to cultivate empathy and creative confidence in technical communication students and practitioners. The author draws from expert interviews and three case studies of makerspace development, pedagogical deployment of design thinking, and collaboration in technical communication. These investigations reveal the values of design thinking methodologies for teaching and practicing user-centered design. The author argues for a future of technical communication that sees its constituents as leaders in radical innovation to solve complex problems. This book provides pedagogical as well as practical frameworks to achieving this goal.

2021 – Collaborative Writing Playbook: An Instructor’s Guide to Designing Writing Projects for Student Teams (with Joe Moses) (Parlor Press)

Designed to meet demand for tools that help instructors infuse more writing into their courses without increasing their paper workload, the Playbook takes collaborative writing to a new level of productivity and learning. It provides a flexible model for collaborative writing that can be adapted for student projects of any scale. Instructors of composition and technical writing may find this book to be a resource for designing writing and scaffolding activities that help students build confidence in team projects. This book is based on research funded by the Writing Across the Curriculum program and supported by the Center for Educational Innovation at the University of Minnesota.

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Recent Publications

• Tham, J., Burnham, K., Hocutt, D., Ranade, N., Misak, J., Duin, A.H., Pedersen, I., & Campbell, J.L. (2021). Metaphors, mental models, and multiplicity: Understanding student perception of digital literacy. Computers and Composition, 59. Online first.
• Tham, J., Rosselot-Merritt, J., Veeramoothoo, S., Bollig, N.W., & Duin, A.H. (2020). Toward a Radical Collaboratory Model for Graduate Research Education: A Collaborative Autoethnography. Technical Communication Quarterly. Online first.
• Tham, J. & Smiles, D. (2019). Rhetorical augmentation: Public play, place, and persuasion in Pokemon GO. In J. Henthorn, A. Kulak, K. Purzycki, and S. Vie (Eds.),  The Pokemon GO phenomenon: Essays on public play in contested places (pp. 80-102). Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company. 
• Tham, J. (2018). Interactivity in an age of immersive media: Seven dimensions for wearable technology, internet of things, and technical communication. Technical Communication, 65(1), 46-65.
• Tham, J. (2017). Wearable writing: Enriching student peer reviews through point-of-view video feedback using Google Glass. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 47(1), 22-55.
• Duin, A.H., Moses, J. McGrath, M., & Tham, J. (2016). Wearable computing, wearable composing: New dimensions in composition pedagogy. Computers and Composition Online. n.p.
• Tham, J., McGrath, M., Moses, J., & Duin, A.H. (2016). Glass in class: Writing with Google Glass. Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. Assignments Section, n. p.
• Tham, J. (2015). Through Glass: Reframing technical communication practices via Google Glass. Intercom, 62(2), 32-34.

Theses & Dissertation

Tham, J. (2019). Multimodality, makerspaces, and the making of a maker pedagogy (Doctoral dissertation). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. PDF available upon request.  

Tham, J. (2014). Power and the platform: A phenomenological approach to understanding rhetoric and politics in composition massive open online courses (Master’s thesis). Culminating Projects in English, #47. Retrieved from http://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/47/ 

Tham, J. (2014). Personality and advertising appeals: A new look on the utility of need for cognition (Master’s thesis). Culminating Projects in English, #48. Retrieved from http://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/48/