Extension has a role to play in workforce development by preparing the next generation to be successful communicators. While Extension 4-H youth programs have contributed to public speaking development since their inception, there has not been a validated instrument to assess young people's public speaking self-efficacy. We utilized an…

Public speaking creates discomfort for many students. Instead of seeking to avoid this inevitable discomfort, six speech-variation activities explained in this paper are intentionally designed for, a little bit at a time, embracing momentary discomfort in public speaking. By embracing the inevitable discomfort of public speaking head-on in a fun…

Digital communication and digital oratory have become an integral part of today's workplace. This research discusses an innovative assessment tool that uses digital oratory and digital video along with YouTube to create opportunities for the students to develop self-efficacy in digital oratory and public speaking. The measurement of the…

Traditionally, informative speeches are relegated to be passive. The classic scope of informative speeches does not consider "live" or "lived" rhetoric. After teaching public speaking for most of my career, there are times when one needs to reinvigorate assignments. This assignment challenges how we utilize memory and place to…

This activity aims to assist students with persuasive tactics for argumentative speeches. The activity involves students creating an argumentative speech to defend a hot-take assertion chosen from a list provided by the instructor. In small groups, students will craft an argument supporting their hot-take assertion and present it to the class.…

Public speaking is a skill used in many professions. This study examined the impact of awareness training (AT) and competing response training (CRT), two components of habit reversal training, on the use of filled pauses during public speaking. Following baseline, these components were administered remotely to reduce the occurrence of filled…

This unit activity describes a series of lessons designed to enhance STEM students' technical communication abilities. The lessons culminate in two separate yet interconnected projects: (1) the development of a children's book explaining a complex topic and (2) presentations of those books to members of the local community. Students learn the…

This original teaching idea is designed for a course unit on protest communication. It consists of a performed protest speech, dubbed the "fantastical speech," and a post-speech reflective analysis. Students utilize the subversive genre of fanfiction to compose a protest speech in which, as a fictional character, they convince their…

Skilled orators and their public speaking skills have been held in high esteem since antiquity. Artificial intelligence-powered presentation platforms (AI-PPPs) are an emerging educational technology that provides a virtual venue and AI audience for users to practice a presentation or pitch and receive feedback to improve their public speaking…

This article presents a curated collection of nine teaching innovations presented at the Association for Business Communication 89th conference in the "oil capital of the world," Tulsa, Oklahoma, as well as online, in October 2024. Many of the MFA presenters demonstrated how AI can be used, integrated, and analyzed in business…

Previous work suggested that sharing personal stories is effective for knowledge translation (KT) of the neuroscience of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for a teacher audience. In the current study, we experimentally evaluated the impact of personal story and lived experience on a similar KT activity. We measured knowledge and…

As social, racial, and environmental justice topics dominate national conversations, STEM teachers must provide learning opportunities that support students to make sense of these problems and co-construct hope for their futures (Calabrese-Barton et al., 2020; Ojala, 2012). Thinking about how teachers can begin to transform their classrooms into…

In this collaborative autoethnographic piece, we present voices through critical incident technique replaying the same event at an academic conference, all seeking to understand how and why the disruption of voice occurs and what to do to counter it. We contextualize these experiences in the ideal of "sustainability of qualitative…

Because strong oral communication skills have well-known academic, social, and professional benefits, they are increasingly targeted and reinforced throughout general education programs in higher education. In these efforts, public speaking assignments most often ask students to discuss information they have previously written about (e.g., theses…

This paper explores crisis communication during the pandemic in multilingual Indonesia. Crisis communication during the pandemic is a discursive act of sense-making in responding to the pandemic. As Asia's pandemic epicentre, Indonesia provides a fascinating setting to enhance the discussion between crisis communication and multilingualism because…