This article reports on a study about design thinking pedagogy in technical communication courses taken by engineering students. The study suggests that design thinking pedagogy can foster engineering students' empathy for users, particularly their ability to recognize the feelings, knowledge, and perspectives of others. However, its findings reinforce the difficulty faced when encouraging students' societal-level empathy and the limitations of empathy. While engineering students may struggle to transfer user empathy to courses in their major, this study found that engineering students believe design thinking has relevance to their future careers. This article offers teaching strategies and project ideas for technical and professional communication instructors to facilitate students' ability to transfer user empathy to their disciplines.

Background: Computer programming faces persistent problems of inequity. In response, bootcamps and workshops have rapidly responded by offering an introduction to coding literacy intended to increase access and representation in the tech industry. Literature review: Prior research on software development focuses primarily on workplace contexts. This study considers bootcamps and workshops outside the workplace for minoritized and marginalized software developers to better understand the institutional contexts in which programming is taught and made. In so doing, it contributes to ongoing conversations on strategies for social justice in technical communication. Research questions: 1. How do bootcamps and workshops function as sites of coding education? 2. What strategies do activist programmers use in bootcamps and workshops to work towards social justice goals? Methodology: For this research, I interviewed organizers, instructors, and participants at three coding workshops and bootcamps for marginalized communities. I also conducted participant observation of the workshops, collected educational materials, and analyzed the interview transcripts using a grounded theory approach. Results and discussion: This analysis revealed how coding workshops and bootcamps operate as literacy sponsors, contributing to a transformative access for participants. More specifically, my research describes how activist programmers craft open, inclusive, and culturally aware pedagogies by attending to access, representation, community, and active learning, ultimately facilitating an affective coding literacy.