Areas of Focus

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

Ongoing Projects

• Open-access collection: Keywords in Design Thinking; Keywords in Making & Maker Culture
• Books: Collaborative writing––guides for students and workplace teams; UX writing
• Journal articles: Design thinking in social innovation; multimodal advocacy projects; collaborative research methods

Books

2022 – Keywords in Design Thinking: A Lexical Primer for Technical Communicators and Designers (The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado) Open access

At a time when design thinking is viewed by many as itself a contested term, Keywords in Design Thinking explores keywords and associated practices related to the use of this critical concept in technical and professional communication. The chapters in this edited collection offer definitions stable enough to allow readers to determine the value of design thinking and to apply and examine its usefulness in the design of technical and professional discourse. The contributors to this collection include faculty at research-intensive and comprehensive colleges, graduate students, and industry practitioners. This configuration of contributors is intended to increase the diversity of perspectives and offer a variety of routes to understanding design thinking. This edited collection includes 30 keyword entries pertaining to design thinking activities. Each entry provides contextual background to the key term, sample design applications, pedagogical implications, and recommended resources for further learning.

2021 – Designing Technical and Professional Communication: Strategies for the Global Community (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) Order here

Applying a design thinking framework for solving problems and fostering innovation, this concise and accessible textbook introduces students to the core skills, knowledge, and habits of successful technical communicators who work in the diverse, flexible, and mobile workplaces of the 21st century. Four sections provide concrete guidance for communicating in the global community, managing projects through design, designing content for audiences, and applying design to technical and professional communication. The book presents strategies for communicating professionally and ethically across disciplines, cultures, levels of expertise, and languages, not just internationally but also among diverse populations within a city or region. It integrates advice throughout on communicating in digital spaces and social media as well as exploiting such technologies such as content management systems and workplace messaging apps.

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

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) Order here

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.

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/