Black matters, according to Black feminist geographer Katherine McKittrick (2006), are always already spatial matters. As Black academics, we are intimately familiar with hostile environments and unwelcoming spaces (Dade et al., 2015; Griffin, 2013; Misawa, 2015). Embracing the sacred principle of nommo, which is to conjure images of biological…

General chemistry courses serve as foundational curriculum within most STEM undergraduate curricula, and hence, it is essential to assess student knowledge and application of learning outcomes for courses such as Introduction to Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. Within the United States, paper-and-pencil examinations are typical for measuring…

This article focuses on listening not as cognition and comprehension but as a way of being attuned to self and others. The author follows Patrick Sullivan's (2014) pedagogy of listening, which establishes "listening, empathy, and reflection as the primary values in the classroom" (p. 7). These values promote "embracing respect for…

The rapid shift towards online learning in higher education has transformed the landscape of essential academic skills, with presentation abilities emerging as a crucial competency for student success. This paper addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with teaching presentation skills in a distance education context. Traditional…

The project "Making voice and Presence a Virtual Realistic Experience" is funded by "HessenHub - Network digital university teaching Hessen". At the Center for Foreign Language and Occupational Competencies (German: ZfbK) at the University of Giessen, a teaching concept for student teacher training was developed that includes…

Connecting assessment with teaching through faculty capacity building can be a design principle in any assessment project aimed at improving student learning. This design principle is supported by the evaluation capacity-building literature, backward design curriculum approach, research on learning, and inquiry-driven assessment-for-learning…

Academic criticism is a fundamental feature of scholarly discourse. It plays a key role in scientific theory building, whereby ideas are iteratively challenged and redrafted (Kuhn, 1962, 1970). It is also how individual scholars create a research space (see the CARS model, Swales, 1990) and establish themselves as members of the research…

Contribution: In this article, an experience applying three role-playing games in the context of an Entrepreneurship final project is presented, discussing the challenges, and the lessons learned. Background: Soft skills have been expounded repeatedly as a crucial factor to thrive in the workplace, as opposed to mere knowledge of content only,…

Using a dialogic framework as the backdrop to course curriculum, I developed an Oral Communication course for pre-med students with the goal to enhance students' public speaking skills while also incorporating health communication and applied communication research and activities to create opportunities for engagement. I propose best practices for…

Given the unconscious nature of many micro-invalidations, conversations about them easily devolve into cycles of accusation, defensiveness, and recrimination. To better understand the specific effects of micro-invalidations, this interactive exercise emphasizes listening, hearing, and empathizing with use of the statement, "You are so…

Public speaking is a concern for many students. Research has pointed to the professional benefits of honing oral communication skills despite the potential aversion to it. This article highlights how college students' speech apprehension and their need to communicate with audiences effectively have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In…

This approach article describes the structure of the new Composition and Speech Program at Delaware State University, particularly in light of the use of discourse-based interview (DBI) methodology in the development process of the program. The program includes a 4-course sequence--three 2-credit hour composition courses and one 3-credit hour…

US college and university administrators are reluctant to regulate racialized assaultive speech by members of their campus communities, even when the effect and objective of such speech is to demean, degrade, ostracize, and threaten Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. My critical race theory analysis reveals how two US Supreme Court…

We have written this article as performative co-autoethnography in which we focus on a crisis of communication we experienced as deaf/nondeaf collaborators. We bring together Deleuze's concept of 'becoming-other' with Guattari's concept of 'a-signifying semiotics' to demonstrate how a focus on the affective dynamics of a-signification allows us to…

This article is an initial imagining of what an anti-racist pronunciation pedagogy (APP) might look like in ELT contexts such as immigrant employment training and international students studying in North American higher-education institutions. Three possible foci of an APP are briefly explored. First, this pedagogy helps students refuse the idea…