“More alike than different”: learning about diversity from people with disabilities

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Health Communication, Intercultural Communication

Objectives: After completing this semester-long activity students, should be able to (1) apply course concepts (i.e., stereotypes, identity, listening, language, and conflict) to diverse real-world scenarios; (2) explain the utility of intergroup contact theory in relationship to communication and social diversity; (3) critically reflect on social diversity explored through communication behaviors; and (4) develop communication competence toward diverse others, specifically persons with disabilities (PWDs).     

Exploring diversity through dialogue: avowed and ascribed identities

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Conflict and Communication, Interpersonal Communication

Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) differentiate between the avowed versus ascribed dimensions of cultural identity construction; (2) articulate the contested nature of cultural identity, including how cultural stereotypes guide perceptions of the Other; and (3) demonstrate tolerance through active and supportive listening to facilitate a nuanced appreciation of cultural diversity.     

A Group Project on Communication and Intercultural Friendship

Objective: To provide students with an opportunity to understand how communication can help reduce stereotypes and foster intercultural friendship

Course: Intercultural, Interpersonal     

SNAP Challenge in the communication classroom

Courses Health Communication, Gender Communication, Communication and Food, Communication and Diversity, Ethnography, Critical/Cultural Studies, or Qualitative Methods

Objectives

• Explain, assess, and critique the social, cultural, and political discourses related to food.

• Analyze how communication about food reflects and influences issues of inequality.

• Examine and alter damaging racist, sexist, and classist stereotypes of low income people and SNAP recipients.

• Practice composing scholarship informed by communication theories and personal health behavior.

     

Teaching Interpersonal Communication Competence to Medical Students through Theatre in Education

Course: Health Communication (doctor–patient communication)

Objectives: Students analyze doctor–patient communication and practice interpersonal communication to understand effective communication in a patient–physician relationship     

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.     

Outside the box: Unpacking the group process model

Courses: Small group communication and advanced group dynamics.

Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to: (1) evaluate successful communication characteristics that enhance the group's ability to achieve specific goals; (2) identify small group communication barriers; and (3) develop strategies to overcome small group communication challenges to achieve shared goals.     

The Interpersonal Competence Development Project: The Intersection of Theory and Practice

Objective: The goal for this project is for students to develop their interpersonal communication competence. Students identify an interpersonal competency (skill) that they wish to develop (or eliminate) to become a more effective communicator.

Courses: This assignment is designed for use in a skills-focused undergraduate interpersonal communication course.     

Stereotype reduction through humor and accommodation during imagined communication with older adults

Ageism can generate conflict and harm well-being. Our paper integrates the Aging Stereotypes in Interaction model with intergroup contact theory to predict how communicative elements mediate the effect of intergenerational contact on warmth and competence stereotypes of older adults as a group. Students (N?=?288) were randomly assigned to imagine having a conversation with an older adult in one of six experimentally manipulated contact conditions: a competent/incompetent older woman, a sociable/unsociable older woman, or a moral/immoral older woman. Participants’ stereotypes of older adults were affected by the characteristics of their communication partner, and this effect was mediated by specific communication behaviors imagined by the participant for two of the three trait dimensions. For perceptions of competence, overaccommodation was the key mediator. For perceptions of sociability, the key mediator was humorous communication. These mediators represent an expansion in how we understand not just the outcomes of intergroup contact, but also the communicative mechanisms through which it occurs.     

Beyond Buzzword Bingo: A critical examination of genre,culture, and communication

Courses: This single-class teaching activity was designed for courses on public speaking, rhetorical criticism, and critical thinking. In addition, instructors can adapt this activity for online or face-to-face courses on intercultural communication, organizational communication, listening, and political communication.

Objectives: By completing this activity, students should be able to (a) describe the principles of generic rhetorical criticism; (b) identify buzzwords associated with specific communicative contexts and genres (e.g. political debates, commencement speeches, award acceptance speeches); (c) critically examine the rhetorical significance and underlying assumptions of these buzzwords; and (d) discuss the benefits and limitations of using buzzwords in public communication contexts.     

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.     

Star gazing: Transing gender communication

ABSTRACT

This activity implores students and pedagogues to engage intrapersonal gender subjectivity through the analytic practice of transing gender communication. Specifically, Yep, Russo, and Allen (Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, pp. 69–89) suggest gender is best understood as: (1) intersectional, (2) a performative and administrative accomplishment, (3) multiple, and (4) self-determined. Students are asked to analyze their gender sense of self through each of the pillars in a hands-on creative activity. The end result is a means of narrating one’s own gender in relational tension with other gender subjectivities.

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to accompany a sustained conversation on questions of gender and communication, this unit- or semester-long activity imparts a critical approach to gender understanding through one’s own subjective gender experience by engaging the analytic work of “transing” (Stryker, Currah, & Moore, Introduction: Trans-, trans, or transgender? WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2008;36(3–4):13). Further, the activity equips students with a working understanding of trans-affirming discourse including the critical capacity to de-center normative gender through lived experience. Finally, students are provided a space in which to explore and voice, through creative means, their own gender “galaxy” (Yep, Russo, & Allen, Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, p. 70).     

Virtual Voices with Real-Life Consequences: Teaching Students about Cyber-Vetting

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Gendered Communication, Nonverbal Communication

Objectives: The aims of this single-class activity are (1) to illustrate the relationship between cultural norms and nonverbal communication, and (2) to demonstrate the impact of cultural norms on everyday life.     

Assessing Effective Partnerships in Intercultural Education: Transformative Learning as a Tool for Evaluation

Objectives: The goal of the Intercultural Partnership Project is to introduce students to issues surrounding language and cultural identity, with the ultimate goal of helping students see themselves as engaged participants, rather than observers, in a multicultural community. For students in the intercultural communication class, this goal echoes the overall purpose of the course. For students in the ESL class, this goal seeks to improve their communication skills through interaction with members of the target language community.

Courses: An upper division intercultural communication course and an English as a second language (ESL) class that focuses on academic skill development, with an emphasis on written communication.     

Serving our Communities with Public Speaking Skills

Course: Public Speaking

Objectives: (1) To develop communication skills through practical experience that provides a service to the community; and (2) to inspire and equip students to use their public speaking skills for positive societal influence.     

An In-Depth Look at RACE: Creating a Public Relations Plan

Course: Introduction to Communication

Objectives: To provide students with a fun and interactive way to practice and observe communication concepts discussed in class. Students will (1) be able to identify nonverbal behaviors, (2) practice the stages of group development, (3) understand how important listening is in solving a murder mystery, and (4) gain an understanding of how perceptions are formed.     

Katz and Aakhus’ Theory of Apparatgeist: Students’ Perceptions of Normative and Non-normative Behaviors for Technology Use

Course: This activity was used in an upper-level, undergraduate, special topics course entitled “Issues in Mobile Communication.” However, the activity could also be used in undergraduate courses relating to mediated communication, interpersonal communication and communication theory

Objectives: The purpose of this activity is to increase students’ awareness of how norms for mobile communication technology use are established     

Video Family Memoirs: Service-learning in a Family Communication Course

Objectives: Students will: (1) analyze course theories (e.g. family narratives, roles, rules, and systems) in a real world, service-learning context; (2) enhance their group communication skills by working in a positive team setting; and (3) perform basic camera and editing skills.

Course: Family Communication     

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.

     

Educational Media

Jay Stein's Mass Media Education, and a Better Society (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1979---$ )

Gavriel Salomon's Interaction of Media, Cognition, and Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1079---$ )

Dennis D. McDonald et al, Directory of Public Broadcasting Information Resources (Washington: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1979--- free , paper)

Religious media communication, two recent titles