The Communication Center at U.S. Colleges and Universities: A Descriptive Overview

Communication centers were originally designed to augment the basic communication course and assist students in the development of their oral communication skills. According to the National Association of Communication Centers (2012), there are currently over 70 communication centers in the United States. This study offers a descriptive investigation of communication centers at colleges and universities from communication center directors. Our purpose is to provide data about the nature and state of centers so that it may inform others about how to develop, maintain, and compare centers’ trends and tendencies. This investigation discusses the following communication center information: (a) institutional context, (b) structure and configuration, (c) services, (d) resources, (e) institution and community impact, and (f) curriculum. Additionally, the study opens a discussion for explanations of the results. Collectively, these findings provide insight into communication centers’ primary purposes and the impact these centers offer for the basic communication course, communication discipline, and higher education

Effect Of Goal-Setting And Self-Generated Feedback On Student Speechmaking

This investigation examined how goal setting strategies and self-generated feedback from video affects student grade improvement on subsequent speaking occasions. Students (N =140) across ten course sections were conveniently assigned to experimental conditions manipulating video use and goal setting strategies. Significant and meaningful main effects of anticipatory goal setting combined with self-generated feedback from video were obtained when compared to unstructured video replay, only goal setting, and self-reactive goal setting with self-generated feedback from video. Implications for these findings are examined along with the potential of video as an instructional technological tool for student learning in the introductory course

Effect of Goal-setting and Self-generated Feedback on Student Speechmaking

This investigation examined how goal setting strategies and self-generated feedback from video affects student grade improvement on subsequent speaking occasions. Students (n =140) across ten course sections were conveniently assigned to experimental conditions manipulating video use and goal setting strategies. Significant and meaningful main effects of anticipatory goal setting combined with self-generated feedback from video were obtained when compared to unstructured video replay, only goal setting, and self-reactive goal setting with self-generated feedback from video. Implications for these findings are examined along with the potential of video as an instructional technological tool for student learning in the introductory course

Speech Communication at Iowa State University: A Departmental History and Aftermath

In 1903 at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, a Public Speaking department emerged. This transition occurred over a decade prior to public speaking teachers seceding from English. Members of the department played foundational roles in establishing the national association and moving the discipline toward research-driven initiatives in order to secure legitimacy across academic landscapes. Surviving two World Wars, the Great Depression and title merger with English, the department again emerged as an independent academic unit prior to the 1970s. The department included faculty from areas of speech, drama, telecommunicative arts, and speech disorders, which progressed until its dissolution in the mid-1990s. This manuscript traces the historical progression, collapse, and ramifications of Speech Communication at Iowa State University. Particular attention is given to the implications of department dissolution through my experiences as a member of the program of Speech Communication. The departmental history revisitation as well as my experiences as a faculty member blend uniquely to unfold a cautionary narrative for how Communication faculty should attempt to minimize paradigmatic fractionalization and coalesce to unify support for the introductory communication course

The Unaware, Accurate, and Overly Critical: Video Technology Use of Improving Public Speaking Competency

Students often hold overly favorable views of their public speaking skills. In this study, students set goals prior to speaking, and then assess the presentation via video replay. Although some basic courses use video, the technology is not standard practice nor consistently utilized to aid student skill development for speechmaking. Differences between students’ self-estimated and earned grades students were categorized into five estimator groupings. Study 1 (N = 102) results indicated video self-evaluation positively influenced student ability for predictive goal-setting, improved accuracy for assessing speech quality, and diminished overestimation from the informative to persuasive speech. To further explore the findings and address the limitations of Study 1, a second study was conducted. Study 2 (N = 622) results supported Study 1 findings. We discussed how video technology use, as a pedagogical tool, enhances public speaking competency for students in the basic course

Preparing to Prepare Quality Speakers: What New Basic Course Instructors Need to Know

Students should focus on practicing speaking skills, not just preliminary activities such as learning concepts about speaking. A common obstacle for training instructors is to describe the valued activity in an appropriate way. Often instructors first think the assignments included in the basic course simply are the activity the course teaches, but they are not. For example, giving an informative speech is supposed to help students become better public or oral communicators in general – the speech is a means to that, not an end itself. As we contemplate the important elements for training new basic course instructors two variables emerge: (1) how instructors situate the course’s structure and composition and (2) the skills needed for teaching the course. The first section details how instructors should prepare the course in terms of learning outcomes, pedagogy, and evaluation. The second section outlines how these new teachers should meet the learning outcomes, engage students through pedagogy, and create meaningful evaluation

Class Size for the Basic Communication Course: A Recommendation for the Dean

Authors were asked to prepare an essay as if they were writing a letter to their dean (whose academic training was in another discipline) who (1) asked that enrollment in each basic course section be increased to a level that compromises the pedagogy of the basic course or (2) proposed that the required basic communication course be eliminated from the university’s general education program

Teacher immediacy and student learning: An examination of lecture/laboratory and self-contained course sections

This study examined teaching assistant’s immediacy in lecture/laboratory and self-contained classes.  Two hundred fifty-six students responded to instruments measuring teachers’ immediacy behavior frequency, perceptions of instruction quality, and cognitive learning.  No significant difference was identified when comparing lecture/laboratory and self-contained teaching assistants’ immediacy behaviors.  But all students who observed frequent immediate behaviors demonstrated higher affective and cognitive learning.  Teaching assistants’ ratings had significantly higher levels of faculty-student interaction for self-contained sections but lecture/laboratory sections were significantly higher for student effort/involvement.

Sketchnoting A Methodology: Fostering Team Based Learning Conversations

Sketchnoting is a methodology that uses simple shapes, frames, and connectors to visualize complex information, concepts, and physical objects, thus it has a low barrier entry for skilled and non-skilled drawers, as well as for designers or non-designers alike. It is situated at the lower end of the visualization fidelity spectrum, which ranges from napkin style sketches to photo-realistic renderings or high fidelity info-graphics

Multilevel Mentoring Using TBL

Produce an action plan for using TBL in existing classroom applications, training programs, training faculty and future faculty, research teams, capstone projects, faculty learning community, scholarship using TBL