Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Family Communication, Relational Communication. Objectives: Students reflect on and discuss how personal objects are connected to their identity and relationships with others. This activity illustrates the ways course concepts such as relational metaphors, stories, rules, rituals, and other patterns of…

As an emerging interest area, positive communication scholarship focuses on issues of happiness and well-being in a variety of social contexts. Borrowing from positive psychology and happiness literature (Lyubomirsky, 2008), positive communication research explores expressions of gratitude, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, as well as issues…

As a language teacher, Bricklin Zeff has long realized that knowing the words of a language is only part of speaking it. Knowing how to interpret a communicative act is equally important, and it needs to be taught explicitly. Therefore, he makes this learning a regular part of the class experience. Greetings are one of the few speech acts that…

This article, the first of a two-part series, presents teaching 10 innovations from the 2015 Association for Business Communication's 80th annual conference. The creative new assignments offered here include building listening skills by journaling, oral interpretation, positive message framing, storytelling, delivering bad news, persuasive…

The roles of dialogue, collaborative writing, and authentic communication have been explored as effective strategies in second language writing classrooms. In this article, the stages of an innovative, multi-skill writing method, which embeds students' personal voices into the writing process, are explored. A 10-step ESL Audio Script Writing Model…

Three elementary teachers share how they engaged in active listening with the families of children in their classrooms by using home-school journals. Their use spans pre-Kindergarten to fifth grade, and the techniques and responses by each teacher vary based on need and intended purpose. The authors share explanations of process, findings, and…

According to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA), school systems must ensure that the individualized education program (IEP) team includes the parent of the child with a disability. Teachers often report the challenges of getting parents to attend IEP meetings often assuming parents' lack of interest with involvement…

There is a problem with blogs in the classroom--a problem that has many educators looking at blogging and not understanding why one would want to blog, how it benefits students, or how it engages them in the learning process. In this article, the author discusses how blogs enhance learning. Blogs are not about writing, they are about a…

This article describes implementation of a Sharing Chair as part of literacy program in a third and fourth grade special education learning disabilities class. Following free writing in their personal journals, students could share and receive feedback from a peer/teacher audience. The article presents results of analysis of videotape recordings…

This article explores the responsibility of teacher education programs for creating effective dialogue among the educators they train and certify in the profession of education. This article details: (1) the manners in which dialogue occurs across race and the significant need to open this dialogue; (2) the need to close the gap between the…

Blogs are currently receiving a great deal of attention in the popular media. In some cases blogs are being called "the next killer application," and "a replacement for email." While a portion of this attention is warranted, in the end a blog is simply a website. But blogs may also represent an empowering technology ? a step toward "leveling the…

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions. EI theory provides another venue for business communication faculty in presenting the importance of how students can…

Recounts a collaboration between an early childhood teacher educator and a kindergarten teacher in team-teaching an undergraduate early childhood education course. Discusses course activities initiated by the collaboration, including having the students keep journals of their learning experiences, a technique that allowed the instructors and…

Three courses in the adult education division of Loyola University (Louisiana) combined religious studies and literature appreciation using an interdisciplinary, team-taught approach. Instruction was guided by the metaphor of conversation, first through collegial discussion of the ideas underlying the courses and later, in the classroom, in the…

This article illustrates procedures for using e-journals as a creative and adjunctive approach in group work. Incorporating e-mail based journaling as an ancillary form of group interaction allows members to communicate via written channels, and creates new ways for clients to relate in the group. This article outlines how leaders can use…