Courses: Public Speaking. Objectives: This unit aims to (1) illustrate the classical and contemporary utility of "ekphrasis" ("description") as a genre of civic communication; and (2) introduce students to essential skills in public speaking, including invention, arrangement, and, in particular, style

Ahmedabad University has evolved a framework "ENABLE." Through ENABLE, concepts are taught from the context of real world. Industry projects are assigned to groups of students where they get engaged in real scenarios. Theoretical concepts are introduced as and when needed during the project implementation. Faculty serve as facilitators…

An original integrated course called "Chemistry: Magical Science" at Montpellier University (France) is presented. This approach mixes tutorials and practical work by using the pretext of high-tech materials synthesis to teach students knowledge, skills, and practical techniques. It also educates students about chemical risks and…

In recent decades, nationalism has emerged from the distant purview of history to become the primary driver of some of the world's biggest news. Given the prominence of nationalist conflict, students in political science increasingly study the subject with modern references in mind. This article describes the design for a timely undergraduate…

Courses: Argumentation, Public Speaking, Political Communication. Objectives: After completing this unit activity, students should be able to (1) demonstrate comprehension of Burke's (1941) concept of terministic screens; (2) apply the concept of terministic screens to write a brief political autobiography of themselves that analyzes the history…

This article addresses the importance of oral communication and many of its fundamental underlying principles. Emphasis is placed on oral presentations, particularly those used in science and engineering. Following this, the author provides a brief outline of an elective graduate level oral communications course that was developed and utilized to…

As most college-level instructors would agree, teaching aspiring teachers is no easy task. However, an added challenge presents itself when instructors must "enact" that which they are teaching. Each time public speaking and education professors stand before their college students, they are faced with the task of not only "teaching" the required…

The Honors Speech course at Florida A&M University, which is a special section of the Public Speaking course, is designed to develop appreciation of and skills in the preparation, delivery, and criticism of speeches. The honors course is different from the regular course in (1) the smaller enrollment in the course; (2) the topics of the…

A long-standing aspect of collegiate culture at many advanced-degree-granting universities is the use of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) to teach an introductory course. This practice presents a serious pedagogical challenge--namely, how to train inexperienced GTAs to teach the course. Too often new GTAs are merely supplied with the textbook…

One of the frustrations with the basic public-speaking course is that there is an inevitable tendency to teach the old sender-message-context-receiver model of communication. Many of the basic texts use it, and the typical assignments--one speaker in front of an audience--certainly reinforce it. Feminists have envisioned an alternative way of…

This paper provides a unit of instructional design for teaching an undergraduate public speaking course at Southern Arkansas University. According to the paper, the unit, consisting of 6 lessons, is designed to be taught in a 50-minute period 3 times each week. The paper points out that students are given many opportunities to practice the…

A program was developed at the University of Puget Sound (Washington) to meet the needs of students "at-risk" for poor academic performance or attrition because of inadequate pre-college preparation. Advising sections (small--15 or 20 students--sections of regularly-offered courses, whose instructor serves as the student's academic…

Advanced Communication for Group Presentation is a public speaking course offered for deaf students at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID). The objective of the course is that upon completion, a student will demonstrate competence and confidence in presenting factual information, responding to questions, and expressing feelings…

In this article, the author describes how she changed her process for the oral presentation, which involved looking at its placement in the course, the pace, and the preparation. By moving the team oral presentation earlier in the course, the author hoped to solve two problems. One problem was the increased stress both students and the author…

Describes a course developed by a speech instructor and instructional librarian at Spoon River College, Illinois, to foster the students' ability to orally present information in a coherent and understandable fashion and their ability to access information effectively. (CBC)