Conversing cooperatively: Using “mini-conversations” to develop conversational knowledge and skill

Courses: Interpersonal communication, relational communication, language and social interaction, professional communication, interviewing practices

Objectives: This single class activity enables students to understand the theoretical foundations of conversation and to develop their conversational skills by talking in dyads with classmates. Upon completion of this activity, students will be able to:

• Understand the importance of conversational skill across communication contexts;

• Identify the four maxims of Grice’s cooperative principle within their conversations;

• Recognize the factors that affect language use (gender, intimacy, and power) within their conversations; and

• Produce communication strategies for furthering conversation in future face-to-face and mediated interactions.

     

4Ps: A purposeful introduction

The 4Ps activity provides a unique approach to first-day class introductions and creates a positive classroom climate that encourages student engagement. The assignment generates initial self-disclosure that facilitates interpersonal and group communication throughout the semester. Additionally, the activity can be used as a unit activity with a follow-up assignment that introduces foundational public speaking concepts.

Courses: Public Speaking, Interpersonal, and other communication courses.

Objectives:

• To promote connectedness within the class from the first meeting forward

• To extend the usual “icebreaker” in a meaningful way by incorporating a public-speaking assignment

• To provide a basis for discussion of key communication concepts such as self-disclosure, relational development, and stereotyping.

  Materials: 4×6 note cards

     

Encouraging participation in face-to-face lectures: The index card technique

Courses: This activity will work in any face-to-face communication lecture course.

Objectives: By the end of the semester in a face-to-face lecture class, every student will have engaged in verbal discussion.     

Social media listening and Title IX training crisis: Implications for discourse of renewal

Courses: Undergraduate or graduate organizational/crisis communication or public relations courses

Objective: The goal for this single class activity is for students to apply discourse of renewal to an organizational crisis fueled through social media.     

COMS Day as a communication senior capstone team project

Courses: Senior Seminar

Objectives: (1) To provide graduating students a semester-long capstone experience where they can apply communication theories/skills in a professional context. (2) To create a capstone project that contributes to programmatic assessment.     

Persuasion GO: An activity for increasing students’ awareness of approaches to social influence

Courses: Persuasion, Compliance Gaining

Objectives: In this single-class activity, based loosely on the video-game sensation Pokémon GO, students learn about, enact, and “capture” a variety of compliance-gaining tactics. Along the way, they gain awareness of various approaches to persuasion, the implications of using such approaches, habitual persuasion, and the goals-plans-action model.     

Teaching qualitative research methods using Undercover Boss

Course(s): Research Methods, Qualitative Research Methods, Organizational Communication, Business Communication

Objectives: After completing this class exercise, students should be able to identify the major components of a qualitative research study, along with the ethical dilemmas that come with doing qualitative research.     

“Nobody puts baby in a binder”: Using memes to teach visual reason

Courses: Visual Rhetoric, Political Communication, Media and Society, Argumentation

Objective: Students trace a social hierarchy created through the visual reason of memes.     

Enhancing negotiation skills using foreign service simulations

Courses: Conflict communication, negotiation, small group

Objective: This activity will enhance students’ awareness and critique of their own negotiation behaviors.     

Stunning statistics for persuasive speaking

Courses: Advanced Public Speaking, Argumentation Theory

Objectives: This activity aims to enhance students’ ability to make statistics compelling and persuasive.     

Using the “wife-beater” shirt to teach about hegemony and counterhegemony

Courses: Media Criticism, Media and Society, and Media and Gender

Objectives: Students will gain a better understanding of how hegemony operates through culturally accepted norms that allow oppressive practices to endure in society. Students will then develop their own “culture jam” campaign to show them how counterhegemonic discourse can operate within the same contested spaces of popular culture to sometimes reform the status quo.     

The Zen Scavenger Hunt: Constructing and presenting persuasive messages

Courses: Persuasion; Persuasive Speaking

Objectives: Students will demonstrate the ability to apply persuasive concepts in constructing persuasive messages creatively, and students will present and analyze their persuasive messages.     

Teaching audience adaptation using connected presentations and teamwork

Courses: Introduction to Communication, Public Speaking, Persuasion, Business Communication.

Objective: This activity increases students’ understanding of audience adaptation and improves their ability to adapt presentations to specific audiences.     

Rube Goldberg salad system: Teaching systems theory in communication

Courses: Undergraduate Organizational Communication, Communication Theory, and Small Group Communication courses.

Objectives: This single-class activity aims to engage students actively in explaining and applying systems components, processes, and properties.     

Narrative learning using podcasts in interpersonal communication

Course: Interpersonal Communication

Objective: This semester-long approach utilizes weekly podcasts to engage students in narrative learning. Students evaluate podcast narratives and apply interpersonal communication concepts and theories through structured and unstructured learning activities.     

Exploring cultural diversity with business students

Courses: Business Communication, Intercultural Communication

Objectives: Students will demonstrate understanding of some of the effects of culture on business communication. Students will explore cultural diversity in customer–seller relationships.     

Amazing race: Finding and correctly citing credible sources

Courses: Public Speaking and courses familiarizing students with finding/citing sources.

Objective(s): After completing the activity, students will understand how to find and cite information in print, online, and personal communication formats.     

Using the Pecha Kucha speech to analyze and train humor skills

Courses: Public speaking; communication courses requiring speeches.

Objective: Students will learn how to apply humor principles to speeches through a slideshow method supportive of this goal, and to become more discerning about the possibilities and pitfalls of humorous communication.