This article describes how a collaborative class strategy and an introductory activity were used to develop students' thinking about business and management communication. The article focuses on teachers who want to integrate critical perspectives about business communication into their classes. A course ethos, learning groups, and an introductory…

Teaching students to write persuasive messages is a critical feature of any undergraduate business communications course. For the persuasive writing module in the author's course, students write a persuasive message on the basis of the four-part indirect pattern often used for sales or fund-raising messages. The course text she uses identifies…

The use of PowerPoint (PPT)-based lectures in business classes is prevalent, yet it remains empirically understudied in business education research. The authors investigate whether students in the contemporary business classroom view PPT as a novel stimulus and whether these perceptions of novelty are related to students' self-assessment of…

This study investigates the combined impact of a memory test and subsequent listening practice in enhancing student listening abilities in collegiate business administration courses. The article reviews relevant literature and describes an exploratory study that was undertaken to compare the effectiveness of this technique with traditional…

Compares the effects on perceived listening effectiveness of a self-imposed period of silence versus attending a lecture on listening skills versus a combination of a self-imposed period of silence and attending a lecture. Suggests that the act of self-imposed silence greatly improves awareness of listening effectiveness and the value of…

Shares some surprising results from a business communication program's recent experiment in using a large lecture format to teach an upper-division business communication course: approximately 90-95% of the students liked the large lecture format, and the quality of their communication deliverables was as good as that produced by students who took…

Notes that the manner in which the author was using the incorporation of electronic slides into his lectures allowed students to become disengaged from the learning process. Presents strategies to combat disengagement and strategies to supplement textbook slides. Concludes that student disengagement can be counteracted with limited expenditure of…

In this article, the authors present the results of a survey of students at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands concerning the students' opinions about how PowerPoint should be used in university lectures. The most important outcome of the survey is that a vast majority of the respondents prefer a modest layout. Most students dislike…

The use of PowerPoint (PPT)-based lectures in business classes across universities is ubiquitous yet understudied in empirical pedagogical research. The purpose of this empirical study was to ascertain whether significant differences exist between faculty and student perceptions with regard to PPT's impact on perceived learning, classroom…