The introduction of the HyFlex modality provides students with increased flexibility to choose how they participate in a course. This flexibility extends to guest speakers allowing for synchronous interaction with students to occur across long distances. The following article outlines how instructors can incorporate international guest speakers…

Three online courses at the authors' institution have successfully used an extensive guest lecturer format (N = 22-30) for almost 10 years. The course design facilitates networking within the relatively small but diverse and global field of aquatic animal health. In this study of students' learning experiences, students perceived the courses as…

Retention of students' attention in general chemistry courses stands as one of the main challenges that educators are facing in classes of any size and is especially prevalent with classes composed of mixed majors. Herein, we describe our experience with introducing short, 10 min student lectures ("flash talks") on popular chemistry…

English academic presentation (EAP) is an indispensable skill set of academic communication for university students. With the rapid development of desktop virtual reality (DVR), its application in language learning is worth exploring. The present study aimed to examine whether there is an improvement and difference in students' EAP by learning…

Students wishing to be entrepreneurs have a great need for role models to serve as inspiration and help them envision their future organization. Universities often use guest speakers for this purpose. The author introduces a methodology of using a library of audio tapes as a virtual guest speaker series, larger and more diversified than even the…

Public speaking is considered the most anxiety-provoking speaking activity for English as a foreign language (EFL) learner. While traditional lecture-based classrooms hinder EFL learners' constant practice and frequent interaction due to large class sizes and limited time, recent developments in technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI),…

This paper reports observations and reflections from a pedagogic intervention intended to enhance mathematics students' learning of course content in a course in multivariable calculus. The intervention design required students to structure, practice, and deliver an oral presentation that was a synthesis of the teacher's weekly lectures, for the…

Courses: Large-lecture; public speaking, business, professional, and technical communication; sales and marketing courses; courses with team-based projects. Objectives: To provide opportunities to develop public speaking skills, especially in large-lecture courses; to improve public speaking endurance; to improve students' abilities to give…

Combining traditional classroom instruction and online instruction, or hybrid/blended learning, has emerged as a popular option to mitigate rising enrollments and non-traditional student needs while maintaining the known advantages to the face-to-face learning format. We evaluated the effectiveness of a Fundamentals of Communication course (also…

A unit operations laboratory course was significantly modified to be an open-ended problem-based experience with an emphasis on teamwork and communication skills. Students were surveyed to assess gains in engineering self-efficacy as well as to indicate which course structure components were most beneficial to learning. Students showed significant…

Recent years have witnessed a surge in classroom-based pedagogies aimed at targeting student engagement. This paper seeks to report on the design, delivery and small-scale evaluation of a final year undergraduate module in developmental psychology. Adopting a range of innovative teaching/learning methodologies, the author sought to support student…

Despite the importance of public speaking skills for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students' academic and professional success, few EAP textbooks incorporate authentic, professional speech models. Thus, many EAP instructors have turned to TED talks for dynamic speech models. Yet a single TED talk may be too long for viewing in class and may…

This paper describes the results of a two-semester-long study of the effects of student-centered instruction on Precalculus courses. We also describe our teaching approaches centering around students, which include a mixture of lectures, student presentations, group work, discussion, and guided investigations. Students were taught with either the…

This study examined teaching assistant's immediacy in lecture/laboratory and self-contained classes. Two hundred fifty-six students responded to instruments measuring teachers' immediacy behavior frequency, perceptions of instruction quality, and cognitive learning. No significant difference was identified when comparing lecture/laboratory and…

Lecturing is a common instructional format but poor lecturing skills can detract from students' learning experiences and outcomes. As lecturing is essentially a form of public communication, training in public speaking may improve lecture quality. Twelve university lecturers in Malaysia participated in a six-week public speaking skills training…