Critical communication pedagogy as a response to the petroleum industry’s neoliberal communicative practices

Courses: Professional Speaking, Business and Professional Communication, Environmental Communication, or any course covering topics related to neoliberalism and the environment.

Objectives: In this single-class activity, students will first examine the possible environmental effects of fracking near the Bakken Oil Formation in North Dakota. Second, students will evaluate how the petroleum industry obscures the effects of fracking through the use of corporate ventriloquism. Third, students will respond to the petroleum industry’s power by utilizing critical communication pedagogy.     

Creating critical objectives and assessments using a critical communication pedagogical framework

ABSTRACT

Courses: Instructional Communication, Graduate Teaching Assistant Training Programs

Objectives: Students will (1) understand critical communication pedagogy (CCP); (2) evaluate traditional and critical objectives and assessment procedures; and (3) create critical objectives and assessment procedures.     

Electronic Portfolios: A Demonstration of Multi-level Communication Skills and Professional Accomplishments

Courses: Business and Professional Communication; Organizational Communication; any capstone or service-learning course

Objectives: Students will demonstrate their communication abilities and skills to future employers and to graduate school programs by creating an electronic portfolio and will learn how to present their work to an audience while reflecting on course concepts     

A critical examination of communication textbooks

ABSTRACT

Courses: This single-class teaching activity was designed for courses on critical communication pedagogy (CCP), gender and race, communication education, research methods, and visual communication.

Objectives: By completing this activity, students should be able to (1) describe the principles of CCP, (2) examine critically how race and gender are represented in communication textbooks, and (3) identify how textbooks reproduce and reflect dominant assumptions about the study of communication, race, and gender.     

Addressing the challenges of critical communication pedagogy scholarship: moving toward an applied agenda

Critical communication pedagogy (CCP) scholarship is a relatively new and important area of research that evaluates how language is used to both empower and marginalize. It faces challenges in terms of recognition and publication outlets. In this essay, I argue that scholars face obstacles when attempting to publish pedagogical work that is critical in nature. I make the case that a major reason that CCP scholarship is not as widely recognized is that it is largely not considered to be applied work. By sharing my experiences, I argue that scholars working in CCP can help to overcome these barriers to recognition and publication by developing an applied language and focus for CCP, demonstrating how CCP can be used to recognize and respond to hegemony in the classroom and in society.     

Picture This: Exploring Nonverbal Communication Through Self-Portraiture

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, Basic Course, Business and Professional Speaking, Group Communication, Organizational Communication

Objectives: Students will understand the relationship between nonverbal behaviors and perception formation in the communication process. Students will synthesize communication information while working in varying contexts ranging from individual to class settings.     

“Listening is an act of love”: Learning listening through StoryCorps

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Basic Survey Course, Group Communication, Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication, Listening, Family Communication, Interviewing, Business and Professional Communication.

Objectives: After completing this single class activity, students will be able to: (a) define listening; (b) identify listening as a top skill employers desire; (c) explain how listening may be perceived as an act of love; and (d) critically assess ways in which their listening behaviors may be improved.     

Object lessons: Using trans porn in class to explore gender fluidity

Gender categories and gender fluidity can be explicitly performed and demonstrated in sexually explicit media such as pornography. In this class lesson, a rhetoric/performance studies class on pornography focuses on trans* performers in scenes. A critical communication pedagogical approach is used to encourage dialogue and intersectional analyses of trans* identities and erotics in the scenes.

Courses: Media Studies, Porn Studies, Popular Culture, Critical/Cultural Communication, Gender in Communication, LGBTQ Studies in Communication, Sex Communication

Objectives: Students will (1) gain knowledge about gender identity, sexuality, and sex work; (2) increase their skills in critical thinking on the fluidity of gender and sexuality; and (3) demonstrate the capacity to be more attentive to trans issues in conversation.     

Making the “minority” voice heard: Critical communication pedagogy and dissent

ABSTRACT

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Argumentation and Advocacy, Communication and Education

Objectives: This activity is designed to help students to problem-pose and think critically about policies/laws that influence education. Students will be exposed to U.S. policy and will be able to articulate a critical dissent of such documents.     

“Is this for real?”: Web literacy for the web-savvy

Objective: Students will enhance their information literacy skills (ability to determine the validity, currency, and appropriateness) relative to web resources.

Courses: Professional Writing, Academic Writing, Introduction to Communication     

Reducing Vocalized Pauses in Public Speaking Situations using the VP Card

Courses: Public Speaking, Business and Professional Communication, Persuasion, Interviewing, or any other skill-based oral communication course

Objectives: Students will become conscious of their own vocalized pauses in their verbal communication and will be able to remedy this common speech problem in this single-class activity.     

A critical thinking activity for communication classrooms

Courses: This semester long activity can be employed in any communication classroom and is designed particularly to provide first-time graduate student instructors (GSIs) with a theory-based assessment tool. As such, the article is appropriate for graduate-level pedagogy classes.

Objective: To introduce a theory-based, critical thinking activity that can be applied in communication classes to enhance students’ mastery of course content at a basic level while also deepening understanding of the learning process promoted through higher levels of cognition.     

Student as Communication Skills Trainer: From Research to “Concept Keys”

Objectives: (1) Students will become familiar with academic research; (2) students will understand that communication training should be based on sound research

Course(s): Interpersonal Communication, Public Speaking Fundamentals, Business and Professional Communication (or Any Skills-Based Course)     

Health Behavior Change Challenge: Understanding Stages of Change

Objectives: After completing their own health behavior change challenge (HBCC) activity, students will be able to understand better, first hand, the complexities of implementing health behavior change. More specifically, students will increase their understanding of the barriers target audiences’ face by participating in their own personal challenge. They will also be able to identify and apply stages of change (Transtheoretical Stages of Change model) and other health communication models (Health Belief Model), theories, and concepts. At the same time, students will come to develop a deep appreciation of their own barriers, competitions, and motivations for positive health change.

Courses: Health Communication, Health Communication Campaigns, Communication Theory     

Combating greenwashing through public critique

Courses: Environmental Communication, Environmental Media, or Critical Media Studies courses

Objectives: This unit activity is designed to guide students in a critical examination of advertising that utilizes green appeals to sell products or brands. The assignment asks students to use concepts from media analysis, communication ethics, and social justice to critique advertising claims and potential influences of advertising on society's environmental discourse. Students should be able to identify greenwashing in advertisements, research whether the statements of the advertisements are accurate, and discuss the significance of the advertisements’ messages in shaping environmental and social thought. A secondary purpose of the assignment is to give students experience writing for a popular audience in a public forum.     

Calling-in the family: Dialogic performances of family conflict

ABSTRACT

Courses: Introduction to Communication, Introduction to Interpersonal Communication, Family Communication, Small Group Communication, Communication and Listening

Objectives: By this end of this activity, students will be able to identify and practice supportive and defensive communication; understand a dialogic approach to conflict; and reflexively imagine and perform dialogic interpersonal conflict communication as constitutive and transformative.     

Policy Game,Online Game—Simulated: Applying the Ecology of Policy Game to Virtual World

Courses: Communication Policy, Media Law, Emerging Communication Technologies

Objective: Students will learn the genesis of regulatory gridlock by applying the ecology of policy game (Dutton, 1992; Neuman, McKnight, & Solomon, 1997) in the virtual environment of Second Life     

Step by Step through the Scholarly Conversation: A Collaborative Library/Writing Faculty Project to Embed Information Literacy and Promote Critical Thinking in First Year Composition at Oregon State University

ABSTRACT

At Oregon State University, writing instructors and librarians collaboratively teach research writing and information literacy in first year composition courses. A four-week unit focuses on the connections between critical thinking, writing and learning, and information literacy. This article describes the process of developing, implementing, and refining this collaborative curriculum. By using assignments and texts that model a recursive critical research and writing process for students, librarians and writing instructors help students think more deeply and critically about their topics.     

Raising awareness of campus diversity and inclusion: Transformationally teaching diversity through narratives of campus experiences and simulated problem solving

ABSTRACT

Courses: Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication

Objectives: This activity encourages students to learn collaboratively about diversity through the sharing of student experiences; deepen and complicate their understanding of organizational diversity; and enhance their ability to apply course material to increasingly complex organizational environments.     

Using the outdoor scavenger hunt to teach theories of organizational communication

Courses: Communication Theory, Organizational Communication, Strategic Communication.

Objectives: Students will identify and categorize organizational discourses on their campuses; students will become aware of the ethical considerations of communication; students will recognize the different perceptions of organizational culture on campus.