It is important to engage students in lecture and assessment with new media while helping them build new media literacy skills. The blog and podcast are two forms of new media being widely used by organizations, businesses, and corporations that students also appreciate in the learning environment. The following unit activity asks students to work…

This activity helps students examine key elements of truth-default theory. Specifically, by participating in a deception detection game, which secretly prompts different teams to be more or less suspicious, students learn that people's tendency to be "truth biased" leads to lower accuracy when judging actual lies and higher accuracy when…

The proliferation of deepfakes and visual misinformation coupled with the fast-paced nature of social media has prompted an increased need for media literacy skills among emerging citizens. The unit activity detailed in this article overviews a media literacy framework for engaged citizenship and presents media literacy strategies that emerging…

In this activity, we present Latina/x critical communication theory, a model of theorizing that argues for centralizing Latina/xs into communication studies in an empowering, liberatory approach that promotes awareness of social justice and critical thinking. We then feature a pedagogical activity that allows students a foundation for…

Public speaking creates discomfort for many students. Instead of seeking to avoid this inevitable discomfort, six speech-variation activities explained in this paper are intentionally designed for, a little bit at a time, embracing momentary discomfort in public speaking. By embracing the inevitable discomfort of public speaking head-on in a fun…

This unit teaches students how to perform racial rhetorical criticism and positions them to engage in discussions of race through experiential learning, namely through exploring the links between rhetoric, public memory, and campus history projects. Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Rhetorical Theory, Communication Theory. Objective: Students will…

This activity aims to assist students with persuasive tactics for argumentative speeches. The activity involves students creating an argumentative speech to defend a hot-take assertion chosen from a list provided by the instructor. In small groups, students will craft an argument supporting their hot-take assertion and present it to the class.…

In our globalized interconnected world, intercultural and interpersonal communication competencies are essential. Virtual reality (VR) narrative-based scenarios offer a unique opportunity to foster these competencies by simulating quality contact with people of different races, religions, and other identities. This activity had students meet and…

Courses: Introduction to Communication (within a unit on culture), Intercultural Communication, Race and Communication, Gender and Communication, Media and Diversity, Dance Appreciation, and Introduction to Dance Studies (within a unit on culture). Objectives: This activity merges dance and communication to invite intercultural learning. Through…

In this activity, students will create a flag that symbolizes their perceived identity. Each student will create and use a legend to define their perceived meaning behind the selected elements and how they came to associate that meaning with their identity. Finally, they will share their flag, its associated legend, and what they learned by…

Students will analyze article excerpts that demonstrate how the opioid crisis was fueled by a five-sentence "letter to the editor" that was uncritically cited as "evidence" that opioid addiction was rare. Indirectly this activity demonstrates why ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence platforms should never be…

Higher education has witnessed a paradigm shift from the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence (genAI). Basing its name on the television show, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, this single- class activity was designed to foster media literacy students' understanding of popular genAI tools. To compare and contrast the capabilities of…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally reshaping classroom experiences. In this activity, students in a graduate-level project management class engaged in real-time conversations with AI- powered chatbots as though they were actual people. Students were required to perform a stakeholder analysis on the key stakeholders involved in their…

Courses: Theories of Organizational Communication; Communication Theory. Theories of Organizational Communication; Communication Theory. Objectives: The proposed activity utilizes a digitally interactive global positioning system--based augmented reality game to help students (a) gain a richer learning experience through immersion and engagement…

Storytelling plays a central role in human communication and in conflict. This activity can be used to teach students the importance of telling stories to better understand conflict or simply to practice storytelling. By engaging in mediations, students simulate the process of resolving conflict, practice storytelling, and improve their active…