In this senior capstone course, students participate in a semester-long project to observe an organization while applying communication theories and concepts that they have learned throughout their time in the program. After observing the organization and conducting informal interviews with some of its members, students identify a…

This article offers an example of how to use embodied learning effectively in online education. The discussed assignment is designed for classes in rhetoric, visual communication, or public memory, and places pedagogical research in conversation with scholarship in visual, aesthetic, and rhetorical communication. This type of digital aesthetic…

Inspired by "choose your own adventure" books, this unit activity helps students differentiate between ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology, and method. While completing the activity over two weeks, students apply these concepts to the study of a topic of the instructor's choosing (illustrated here through the lens of family…

Recent analyses of common public-speaking rubrics, grading practices, and course content have found widespread bias and inequities. This article contributes to the efforts to remedy some of the causes of these biases. It begins with a discussion of the disciplinary biases and institutional pressures that reinforce discriminatory assessment…

This semester-long original teaching activity is a scaffolded writing assignment with accompanying rubrics that utilize an adapted academic publishing model (i.e. accept, revise and resubmit with minor revisions, or revise and resubmit with major revisions) to facilitate a growth mindset. This revise-and-resubmit approach to teaching and assessing…

The curriculum review and transformation project reported in this paper represents an intentional and collaborative effort of faculty and administrators in one academic department to implement meaningful changes in undergraduate curricula. Supported by two internal grants from the university, this three-year project included all faculty and…

Assessment has become increasingly integral to college and university accreditation. While formal assessment has become more of a responsibility for instructors as related to their individual classes and assignments, program assessment is also at the center of these conversations. However, few guidelines and resources are being shared with regard…

When we spend the first class period focusing on the syllabus and letting students leave early, we miss an opportunity to expose them to the course content. What happens to those who drop that day? By spending the first day illustrating expectancy violations theory, both instructors and students can explicate anticipated behaviors and use them to…

In our semester original teaching idea, we detail possibilities of resistance to the neoliberal university by considering tribal critical race theory and postsocialist feminism as frames for decolonization. The semester takes shape by focusing on foundational readings to bridge decolonial and postsocialist thought as the basis for dialogue about…

Courses: Basic communication course. Objectives: Using the Ally, Advocate, Activist framework in a basic communication course will help students apply course concepts to their lives and communities. This framework helps students practice civic engagement while mastering the skills that are typically tested for assessment purposes in the basic…

Courses: Storytelling, persuasion, gender and communication, argumentation and debate. Objectives: In this essay, I map a unit-specific activity for an undergraduate class in argumentation and debate. I argue for the integration of a trans-affirming pedagogy as a key rhetorical frame in communication studies courses. Such pedagogical commitments…

Course: Online or mediated communication courses. Objectives: The purpose of this activity is to provide students with a more engaging way of immersing themselves in the course material through an interactive "Easter egg" syllabus. An Easter egg is an "undocumented function hidden in software … [they are] secret 'goodies' … used in…

A common observation on college campuses today is "students do not look up when walking on campus." It is often thought that such attachment to communication devices demonstrates a lack of connection to the "real world." This perspective exemplifies the need for faculty to connect with the "digital generation" and do…

The authors describe an assignment in which first-year university students develop a sense of community by discussing personally relevant topics via the shared experience enabled by the social media tools Twitter and Paper.li. A list of references and suggested readings is included.

More research is needed that examines textbooks intended for the entry level college classroom. This study offers valuable information to academics that adopt a public speaking textbook for instruction as well as objective feedback to the collective authors. Readability levels of 22 nationally published textbooks, based on McGlaughlin's (1969)…