TACO Lab -- Increasing Technical Communication Awareness, Building Partnerships, Helping Students
The Tech Comm and Community Outreach (TACO) Research Lab aims to increase awareness of technical communication in our academic community (both higher ed and K-12), our North Texas community, and our industry. The TACO Research Lab is uniquely positioned to implement field-based interventions, develop pedagogical experiments to identify best practices, and foster community and corporate partnerships.
Our main goal is to spread awareness about technical communication, help students and teachers to understand what this field is and what it can do for them, show students how to build a career in this industry, and help teachers to teach their students tech comm skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.
Help for High School Teachers and Students
The TACO Research Lab helps high school teachers by demonstrating tech comm skills in virtual and face-to-face classrooms. All of our lessons are tied to the Texas TEKS, and we are more than happy to come to your classroom to teach them.
We also encourage teachers to bring their classes to our main campus in Denton to give high school students a taste of a college education.
We also help high school students by demonstrating either in person or through online tools how tech comm skills can be leveraged for all kinds of communication strategies, including real-world communication (like reports and resumes) and academic communication (like the college application essay and synthesis essays).
Help for Businesses, Industry Partners, and Our Community
We also work with our community partners to identify reciprocal ways that the TACO Research Lab can assist members of our community with tech-comm-based obstacles while also enabling our community partners to share their expertise with UNT students. If you represent a business, non-profit, or other entity who needs help with tech-comm-related issues, wants to talk to our students about job opportunities, or just wants to learn more, we'd love to talk.
Want to Connect? Let's Talk
If you are a high school teacher, a high school student, or a member of our community who wants to learn more about how the TACO Research Lab could partner with you or your organization, please contact Dr. Erin Friess (erin.friess@unt.edu), Director of the TACO Research Lab.