Coaching Student Performances

As Dr. W as noted several times in class, the literature for communication pedagogy spends a lot of time talking about instructional techniques, assessment, and other areas of teaching--but concentrates very little on the process of coaching students on their performances. Given the limited amount of time we spend with students in class, the tradition has been to tell students how to practice, then have them do it outside of class. The downside to this is that communication competencies are complex--and we rarely actually catch ourselves doing the things we need to fix.

Back when I was in high school, I had some serious issues with vocalized pauses: "umm," "like," and the ever-versatile "you know." My speech coach on my forensics team corrected this--per my request--by throwing objects at me every time I said one. This sort of hybrid of public speaking and dodgeball gave me an awareness of what I was doing, the reflectiveness to identify where I was doing it, and the control to eventually get better. More recently, I've done similarly sadistic things to students at a summer speech camp:

• Gesture too much? Have another student bind your arms with duct tape.
• Too fidgety? Speak with your back against the wall without moving any part of your body.
• Overuse of stock phrases? Everyone in the room has permission to throw balls of paper at you, which you are then required to pick up.
• Talking too fast? Deliver the speech so slowly it sounds like you're speaking whale like Dorie in Finding Nemo.
• Struggling to articulate? Try to talk with a pencil in your mouth.

Okay--I don't condone these things. These were kids who were incredibly eager to learn and were quite literally willing to jump through ridiculous hoops to get better. The point is to develop that sense of self-reflectiveness and self-critique that enables them to coach themselves to success. This means simple awareness of where they have shortcomings--and that sense of control. "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball," the old adage goes. If you can speak without moving even a single part of you body, chances are you have enough self-control to use your hands only when it's appropriate.

Anyway, let's get down to business. So you want to coach your students on presentation skills. How to do it?

Consider your root causes.

As astute commentators have noted, discussions of body language can sometimes feel a bit surface-level and meaningless. Teaching this way in class can feel very mechanistic. It's important to realize that our students are people, that they're struggling with some of these skills for a reason, and that by tapping into those reasons we can better help them improve.

First of all, consider your common problems. You'll find that certain problems manifest more in some groups than in others. These include the whole gamut of elocutionist movement "intense study of human body movement" business: vocal variety, rate, tone, volume, projection; and non-verbal gesturing, eye contact, poise, purposefulness. Isolate what students in your class have particular trouble with. You can't fix it all at once and it's silly to try.

But don't just stop there. The problem is that we tend to teach these things in isolation. "You should gesture like this," we say. But we don't remember to tell them why. We discourage students from certain vocal and body language characteristics for a reason: they connote nervousness, uncertainty, ambivalence, or a lack of preparedness. Even if we tell them this, though, we don't dig into the reason why these bodily traits connote nervousness: our students are actually nervous, uncertain, and ambivalent. As we'll see in a moment, cultivating student confidence can often address and deal with a lot of these issues at once--much more effectively than just nit-picking one at a time.

Structure the class to facilitate coaching.

Let's say you plan in a coaching day before the Informative Briefing assignment. In order to maximize coaching time for students, I would advise against having everybody get up and deliver something to the whole class. Here's a suggestion for how I would structure the coaching day:

1) Require that students arrive with their speeches already prepared. You'll need to structure out assignment deadlines to guarantee this will happen.

2) First, review some of the key delivery concepts to refresh students on what they're looking for during the presentations. Highlight areas you know several of them have had trouble with. Address both content and delivery concerns.

3) Begin with 5 students getting in front of the class and delivering one small segment of the speech they feel comfortable with. After the first student, model for your class how you expect them to deliver feedback. Provide a short list of two to three "Positives" and two to three "Deltas" (areas for change) to the student, targeting those delivery areas you've noticed they need to improve on. [More on how to do this below.]

4) With students 2-5, gradually have the class give more and more feedback to the students that come forward. Cold call on students to share their feedback--and force them to be specific about details in the speech they observed.

5) Break students into groups of 3. Have them arrange their desks in a triangle formation so they can see each other. Have students go through two rounds of practice:

• Practice for Content. First, each student in the group practices delivering the entire speech from their chair, start to finish. As they do this, classmates will monitor for places where the student has holes in their structure, an unclear sentence, weaker transitions, a lack of research, and other issues. The purpose of this is to get content out of the way, and to give students a quick "practice" round where they sort out their thoughts. This will be a wake-up call to many students about how prepared they are, too.
• Practice for Delivery. Second, students now will rotate and take turns delivering the one part of their speech they feel most comfortable with to their classmates. They will stand up next to their desk and talk to classmates, while classmates record their Positives and Deltas. Afterward, they take turns sharing.

6) Reconvene as a class. Tell all students to write down one area of delivery and one area of content they will improve upon before their next presentation. Have them go around the room and share these. As the instructor, take note of what they've said. Tell them that when you grade their delivery, you'll in part be grading on their improvement in the specific area they highlighted.

The Content of Your Coaching

1) Make students comfortable. You don't want to make them feel intimidated or uneasy. Adopt a much more light-hearted persona than you have when, say, telling students to meet a bunch of deadlines.

2) Address specific things that students say and do. Don't just talk generally about "gesturing." Tie it to their message: "When you said that 'the left hand will know what the right hand is doing,' you inverted those two gestures. What effect does this have on the point you're trying to make?"

This is true across the board. When students recognize that their messages--the things they care about and want to communicate to their peers--are being undermined, they will quickly become more conscientious and in control of their bodies.

3) Be ornery. This might sound like it goes against the lighthearted point. But it does not. This is a tough love personality that you need to turn to when necessary. Sometimes, the nervousness needs to be addressed head-on. Tell the student: I know from your outline, from your research, from your conversations in class, that you deeply care about this. So show it! Speak up! Don't be afraid of this--you KNOW this! Students need affirmation of this kind. They need to be reminded that their voices matter.

It's too easy to let students get up, deliver something that's merely okay, or a bit lackluster, or a bit unconfident, and let it hang there, and say, "Good job." When a student mumbles, we need to tell them: speak up! I saw Jean channel this extremely well in class last week. When a student delivered a question with a lack of confidence, she made the student say it louder--and didn't let the student off the hook until he did so. 

The trick is that this requires a certain confidence on your part as the instructor. Don't be afraid to confront students about these things. Do it nicely, but it's better to head them off before the speech--instead of giving them some passive-aggressive feedback afterward that'll just make them protest. Let them know that you are serious about delivery; they will meet the bar.

4) Balance "Positives" and "Deltas." One of the best things you can do to balance the needs of light-heartedness with the needs of orneriness: Connect their strengths to their weaknesses. When you tell students to change something, make note of something they do well--and how they can leverage their skill to transcend their area of growth. 

5) Balance delivery and content. We too often conceptualize these things differently. Make sure your feedback addresses both--and how content impacts delivery and vice-versa.

Comments: What do you recommend for coaching students in class? How do you go about training students to reflect on their own delivery and construction of speeches? What other steps would you recommend for giving students opportunities to practice in class?

Preparing Students for the Mid-Term

One of the biggest challenges instructors in college run into is students complaining that they did not understand the expectations or parameters of an assignment. If you didn't say it, the story goes, it's not fair to grade them on it. While I don't fully back the students on this, I was an undergraduate once, too, and to some extent I sympathize.

For the first time in their lives, their days are not fully structured. Their instructors are not giving them study guides. Their reading must all be done outside of class. They don't have a study hall structured into their day for 70 minutes. They have tremendous freedom, but that time may be spent making a Gangnam Style parody video instead of preparing for their group presentation.

Okay. The point is, there might be a grain of reasonableness in their complaint. This is a post about how to acknowledge that grain of reasonableness and do your part to prep them.

1) Know roughly what your exam will look like early.

If you decide to assemble your exam three or four days ahead of time, you'll hate your life. First of all, you'll go into the test bank of questions and realize: Oh, no, these are all incredibly precise questions about terms from the chapters! Okay, you'll rationalize, I've been reminding them to read all semester. But still, there'll be this bit of guilt and uncertainty on your end, and a potential mutiny on their end. There are a million terms and concepts in the first ten chapters, and the majority of class time is devoted to activities designed to more deeply cultivate their understanding of particular key concepts. You need to think about what you're going to test in advance so you can at least help guide students' focus. You also need some idea of the format of the exam in advance, so you can give them a semblance of what to look for on it.

2) Write some exam questions after class.

When you get done teaching and walk back to your office, think about what you covered or recapped that day. Think about tricky concepts you clarified. Then, write a few test questions (or adapt a few from the test bank book) that you know fit with what you discussed. That way, you'll know that you definitely did address the material in some capacity when you test them on it later.

3) Or, write a quiz.

Put together a short quiz, worth low stakes, that is part of the students' participation grade. Base it on the reading before that day of class. Give it to them sort of abruptly, just to keep them on their toes. Make the quiz mirror the format of your exam, and tell them that it does. This should put the fear of God into them and make sure they stay on top of the reading. (Remember, you're battling the perception that the reading does not matter!)

4) Prep them on constructed response answers.

The thing about open-ended questions is that students can write anything. This is good; that means they can't just make a guess based on the four possible answers available. It also is good because they have to apply what they have learned, synthesize ideas, and do other more complex critical thinking stuff. But it's problematic if you do not give them some sense of what you are grading on.

Preparing them for this is as simple as creating an example constructed-response question and a sample answer, and dissecting the answer for them to go over the main components you're looking for. I did this in my class, and provided students a PowerPoint slide of some of my key expectations:

5) And yes, give them some heads up about content.

I give students at least some idea of what concepts will be covered. I know, I know. On Facebook I'm kvetching about them giving the question topics to presidential candidates in advance because that allows them to study specific topics and talking points and completely throw out others. But our students aren't running for president (thank God). They're preparing for one of several tests, and we're not the only instructors throwing a ton of content at them, telling them to synthesize it themselves from ten chapters of a fairly dense textbook, and having them go forth. Remember that they mostly have four other classes doing the same thing. We need to give at least a little guidance.

For me, that meant a PowerPoint slide (which I posted on ELMS--I didn't make them copy this whole thing, that'd be sadistic). I specifically told them, for the constructed response questions, what concepts they would need to apply from their viewing of the movie 12 Angry Men. This lets them know what to look for and take notes on. They don't know the actual questions in advance, but they at least know what they will need to write about, which--given that these students did have pretty solid GPAs in high school and ACT/SAT scores to get in here--should be sufficient to prepare them for the test.

6) Set expectations for the review day.

Require each student to bring a question for review day. Make it a participation grade. One thing that they don't understand. Forcing students to hunt for a topic that's too complicated for them to get it on their own is a good way to ensure that they gain at least a passing familiarity with a large subset of the chapters. Set it up so that their questions and thoughts facilitate the review, and then in the latter part of the class hit the important concepts that you're surprised nobody asked about.

7) Use the group presentations as exam question fodder.

A great way to get the student groups to pay attention to each other is to tell them that some of the content their classmates are covering in their presentations will show up on the exam. (The presentations are based on concepts from Chapters 1-10 anyway, so this just helps you with that process of focusing). This saves you some effort in that it helps you decide on five or six things to test them on; it gives them an incentive to support one another.

8) Set up the exam as an "attainable challenge."

Be straight up honest that it's going to be hard, and they need to study. They're at a great university; they should expect to take hard tests that don't just look at their conceptual knowledge, but also at their ability to apply and synthesize that knowledge. Tell them you make it hard because you believe they can do it, and that you've given them the tools they need to succeed on it. Now they simply need to meet you half way.

Negotiation Scenarios & Civic Engagement

So yesterday, I was reading J. Michael Hogan's "Rhetorical Criticism, Public Scholarship, and the Scholarship of Teaching" and felt guilty about the lack of civic engagement in my class. It's not that we haven't been doing interesting things (okay, there have been some duds), but I forgot about the deeper goal I wanted for students in the class from day one: to engage with bigger issues in society; to see communication principles at work in spheres beyond their daily and interpersonal lives; to begin to put together their role in the public. Today's lesson represents a modest effort to rectify that situation.

Conflict Negotiation in the Real World

I selected five major news topics that involve disputants of one kind or another. With their groups, I set them out to try to reconcile the differences. In each group, two people represented the opposing "sides" of the issue, one an intermediary or decision-making figure, and the rest acted as note-takers recording the communication styles and strategies employed by their group members.

The issues were:

The Chicago Teachers' Strike

Google's Decision to block "The Innocence of Muslims"

Financial woes in higher education

The natural gas fracking debate

Internal strife in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign

[Visit the ELMS site for a simple Word document that has condensed/cut each of these into two-page versions.]

I framed the exercise by placing it after the Smith v. Patel negotiation (which we did as a whole-class activity). This set us up to discuss some principles of conflict negotiation before splitting into groups and working on these various exercises. The goal, in each case, was to work out the most mutually beneficial solution for all (the most utilitarian solution).

The issues deliberated were as follows:


Scenario I: Fracking Controversy in Michigan

• Person A: A representative of a natural gas company that wants to bring in new jobs and natural gas revenues.
• Person B: An environmental expert concerned about the effect of fracking on water supplies.
• Person C: A Michigan mayor, torn over whether to bring Fracking to town.

Scenario II: College-Cost Calamity

• Person A: You are the Dean of the College of Humanities (English, Philosophy). 
• Person B: You are the Dean of Department of Behavioral Sciences (Psychology, Sociology).
• Person C: You are the President of the University and need to cut an amount equal to one of these programs from your school’s annual budget.

Scenario III: Google’s Decision to Block “The Innocence of Muslims”

• Person A: You are a freedom of speech advocate who believes strongly in open exchange of messages—even messages that offend people.
• Person B: You are a business-minded pragmatist who doesn’t want your company associated with starting riots in Libya.
• Person C: You are a Google Executive torn between the two positions. 

Scenario IV: Inside the Campaign: How Mitt Romney Stumbled

• Person A: You are Stuart Stevens and believe you made the right choices for the campaign.
• Person B: You are Peter Wehner. You believe your speech would have brought Romney more success and believe Stevens should be demoted due to his incompetence.
• Person C: You are Mitt Romney and you want to be President really bad. 

Scenario V: Chicago Teacher Strike: Issues at the Center of Contract Negotiations

• Person A: You represent the Teacher’s Union.
• Person B: You represent the School District.
• Person C: You are the lead negotiator for talks between the two sides. The sooner you resolve this, the sooner 260,000 children are back in school. 

Afterward, students were told to "go meta" and, using the notes, reflect on how they interact, argue, haggle, and deliberate as a group. 

Finally, a full-class share-out happens: each group has one student describe the conflict their group encountered, discuss the resolution they arrived at, and discuss how their group members worked together in the conflict situation.

Reflections and Suggested Revisions

1) This needs more time. I didn't pace myself great today; the blue banana activity probably took longer than it should have (I let it meander too long), leaving less time to do the full-class sharing and reflection at the activity's end. I needed to transition more crisply and keep a better eye on time. I'd budget at least 35 minutes for this. I will need to finish the debrief part on Tuesday, which will be tricky since I'm sure students will forget about the exact proceedings of their discussions between now and then.

2) Give guidance to the note-takers. I didn't give a lot of explicit directions about what kinds of things to look for. Next time, I'll pull specific concepts from the textbook to tell them to be on the lookout for. I'll loop these things back in on Tuesday; I just wish I'd anticipated a little better.

3) Anticipate misunderstandings/confusion about the events. I forgot that not everyone lays in bed at night reading the news on their iPhone Flipboard app when they should be sleeping. Be prepared to circulate during the initial reading phase of the assignment to offer explanations/clarifications of the events.

4) The Mitt Romney prompt is a little weird. I feel like there's a good conflict negotiation there re: his campaign's in-fighting, but I don't think I quite nailed it with the scenario I wrote there.

5) Make yourself some French toast afterward. Nothing like some delicious French toast to follow up some civic engagement.

Anyway--let me know if you have any questions, and let me know how it goes if you attempt this in your own class!

Using Excel and Mail Merge to Grade Efficiently

Hey all!

I have provided a few documents on the ELMS site that will help you more quickly and easily grade student work. This is especially useful during class presentations, so that you can grade on your laptop in the moment while students are talking. Once you get the hang of this method, it makes grading extremely efficient and easy--and it allows you to keep a log of how you scored your students across all categories on every assignment.

First of all, open up the provided Excel spreadsheet. I have created a category tab at the bottom for each assignment; simply select the assignment you are currently grading.

Then, enter your student names in the left-hand column.

If it helps you to enter scores, you can freeze the top row or the first column.

Next, enter the students' scores. You can do this while students are speaking, while you're looking over an outline, and so on.

The spreadsheet automatically calculates student scores. Double check my math, but this should automatically add up your students' scores properly so you don't have to fuss with all of that complicated basic addition. It should also calculate points for each part of the assignment.

The columns after the scores provide you a space to type in comments for students. Basically, as you scroll to the right you can add as many comments as you need to address.

Next, open up the provided Word document that corresponds with the assignment. You'll get a message like this; just click "yes."

The document should look like this. The << >> areas indicated places where fields in your Excel spreadsheet will auto-populate.

Once Word is open, go to the "Mailings," hit "Select Recipients," then "Use Existing List." You'll get a standard file-finding box; locate the Excel document there.

Once the document is selected, then choose the individual sheet in the file that corresponds to the assignment you graded (in this case, "Informative Interview").

If things work properly, you should be able to click "Preview Results" and scroll one or two sheets over to see what your merge documents look like. All of your spreadsheet information should auto-populate into the rubric when you preview. Check for any errors or discrepancies (again--I've never used this before so I may have made a small mistake somewhere!).

Finally, click "Finish and Merge" and "Edit Individual Documents." Scroll through for any discrepancies, weird blank pages, etc. Then print and give the grades to your students!

Voila! This looks complicated here, but I assure you--once you do the up-front work of designing the spreadsheets (which I've already done for you), this is a really efficient way to grade. Let me know if you have any questions or issues that need clarifying in the comments here.

Lesson Design Model for ADD Rhetoricians

Hey all,

For 686, we were told to select an instructional design model that captures our style of teaching. I could not find one that quite fit, and have struggled to find an accurate depiction for years. Finally, today, I just took a stab at creating one. Behold:

Group Presentation Unit + Pacing Tips

Hey all,

The semester has definitely hit us all like a ton of bricks this week! I'm here to help you navigate the upcoming unit and figure out how you'll tackle the upcoming assignments. What I'll offer here is a little preview of the teaching meeting on Friday with a broad overview of how to plan a unit. [With the caveat that I am crazy and not everybody does this kind of stuff.]

Arc of the Group Presentation Unit

Consider every unit as a huge arc, pointing toward an assessment. For the Group Presentation, that arc looks something like this:

Notice that the entire unit has an arc--and so do the individual lessons (as each one is driving toward some sort of outcome as well). With the group project, my first goal was to build cohesive groups that respect each other. We worked on that today through the sharing of stories about themselves. I also need to get students thinking about logistical things this early. So, I gave them  five minutes at the start of class to decide on a schedule of times to meet, ensure they all agreed on a topic, and share contact information.

After that, the next two classes will be a slight diversion from the arc of the group presentation. That's okay. The project can roll around in the back of student heads for a while. In the interim, I'll teach them about job interviewing (which I'll discuss more at Friday's meeting) and have them review one another's interview outlines to offer constructive feedback. During the interpersonal unit, we'll tackle gendered and mediated communication.

Then, the group project will be back in focus. Here are the steps:

Interpersonal Conflict: On this day, we'll practice scenarios (provided by Annie Laurie on the message board) in which students work through hypothetical conflicts. In groups of four (two arguers, a mediator, and a note-taker), students will confront complex situations and try to work them out. Afterward, we'll reflect on what these things mean for their interactions as a group;

Concept of Groups: Rather than simply talking about the concept of groups and applying it to an abstract context, I am going to try to get students applying the group ideas to their own work. At the start of class, students will craft an agenda based on the expectations I'll communicate to them about the assignment. I will reinforce research expectations (students will bring laptops to class), and then have students work and collaborate. During this time, I will create "fishbowl videos" of group interactions: filming student conversations/discussions as they work through problems for their project.

Participating in Groups: Going meta. On this day, we'll apply the concepts of group dynamics, leadership, various interaction styles, etc. to actual student conversations filmed in the previous class. Students will reflect on how they have operated as a team so far, and consider how they can improve their teamwork as well.

Rehearsal: Since we can knock out the presentations in two class days instead of three, the first day will be dedicated to students rehearsing and addressing specific parts of their assignment. Rather than meet all at once, students will be assigned fifteen minute chunks of class to come to during which I will see approximately one minute of each student's presentation in the group. I'll then offer general feedback to the group and address possible issues that will arise during the presentations. This "last minute check" will help me catch any major problems before they arise!

Obviously, this isn't all we're doing on these days; we'll also have a number of videos, examples, and other small activities to reinforce concepts as we go. But, what I'm focused on here is the trajectory of the group project and how I'll address the development of their group as we go.

Pacing a Lesson

Some people were looking for tips on pacing a lesson. Here are a few things I do:

1) Plot out ahead of time what time you should be at at which part of the lesson. This might mean simply anticipating how long each part of the lesson will take. (15 minutes for this, 30 minutes for that.) But it might be more valuable and effective for you to plot out the actual times and check your watch as you go. [At 8:15, we need to be here; at 8:30 we need to be here...]

2) Be realistic about how long things will take. Every single person in the room memorizing one fact and the name of every single other person who spoke before them, until all 24 people have gone? That's a 20-minute endeavor, not a 10-minute one (unless your students just have insanely good memories).

3) Be adaptable. Don't assume your activity will eat up the entire class period--sometimes students reach the major takeaway or point very quickly. Always have a backup activity just in case. Likewise, be ready to change gears if an activity just isn't working.

4) Be wary of meandering discussion. Always make sure your discussion is driving at something. It doesn't have to be super-concrete, but the point is that your discussion should have some sort of terminus or end-point that it logically drives toward.

5) Careful with the tangents. Don't be afraid of breaking from the flow of the lesson if it's a teachable moment or an excellent point; but don't regale everyone with stories from the time you _____ if it hasn't got a thing to do with the lesson.

6) Keep it moving. A class is like a shark: if it stops moving, it dies. If you give five minutes to discuss, and students start getting quiet after two minutes, don't sit in silence for the next three. Keep the momentum going, and move urgently--"We have so much to get through!"

Hope that helps!

Michael

Day 2 Reflections, Building Teams, and Lesson Plan Outlines

First Day of (Real) Class

Today, I employed the following activities:

• The fun drawing activity for the communication models (Jessica's activity)
  This went very well! I think I over-explained the directions--I think students understood what I was asking them to do well before I finished setting it up. (A holdover from teaching ninth graders the last two years, no doubt!)
• The Semantic Stomp (Jade's activity, also in the Instructor Manual)
  Quick and simple. It took two seconds and made a pretty profound point. Students seemed genuinely apprehensive about stomping on the word that represents their most loved person (their mom, grandma, etc.). Great follow-up discussion on how the flow of the activity led them to think of the things they saw as meaningful and valuable.I recommend everyone tries this--it takes only five minutes.
• The "Abstract Language" questionnaire (Melissa's activity)
  Also quick and simple. Again, students took away the important points about the ambiguity of certain language and applied what they learned both to their own performances and their own
• Discussion of the "Dialect Map" (my activity)
  The discussion surrounding dialects and native ways of speaking was fascinating. For example: One group of four North Easterners from different states (and even just different parts of Maryland) all said the word "Water" differently. In a future class, I might brainstorm in advance a list of a few words that people in various regions tend to pronounce differently, and then have the group discussions center on those words (to make sure every group arrives at this takeaway of dialect differences.) Afterward, we briefly discussed whether there are "rules" or "proper boundaries" to language that everyone has to follow. 
• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis activity (my activity)
  I wouldn't call this a dud--I think it just requires more time and discussion than I provided it. I gave students a list of phrases that depict our cultural comparison of "time to money." I then had them brainstorm a list of ways time might be perceived differently in a culture that discusses time in terms of other metaphors--cooking, conversation, etc. Some interesting notes:
  - Students had trouble escaping our dominant metaphor as a culture. For instance, they tried to apply a cooking metaphor -- "This will take a 'pinch' of time"-- but still were considering time as something that could be spent, wasted, or "taken." I thought this was fascinating--how we cannot escape this framework for thinking about time! Students found that concept challenging, but were definitely thoughtful about it.
  - One student quite intelligently explained that a culture that sees time as a conversation might think about how they interact with their time throughout the day, instead of taking or losing time. She exemplified the goal of the activity: exemplifying how one culture might read "time" completely differently than another based on their dominant metaphor!

Building Teams for the Group Project

An important skill for beginning instructors is to anticipate problems that will arise later--and start addressing them early, weaving the important stuff into class day-by-day. One problem that instructors have consistently noted is building strong collaboration and group communication among the participants in the Group Communication Assignment. In the background of my lessons, I'm going to start confronting that problem in advance.

First, it helps to have a rough timeline in mind of what the rollout of a project will look like:

Thursday 9/6: Students declare their groups; receive preliminary details on assignment
Tuesday 9/11: Students declare their topics; given rubrics and deadlines for presentation

Knowing this is what's on the horizon, there's an important first step that needs to happen soon: Team-building and cohesion for the participants in the group project. And even though we're not covering Group Communication for another few weeks, it is imperative that students start to form a bond with their groups now. To do this, I am going to design an assignment that meets the goals of the Intrapersonal Communication unit while at the same time building a stronger group bond: The Story of Self.

This activity is something that Teach For America employed this year--and which I saw really help boost group dynamics quickly. Basically, it is the formation of a narrative of identity: a brief (3-5 minute) story of who you are and why you believe what you believe. These narratives are coupled with a set of expectations and norms of understanding whereby students respect one another.

The best way to exemplify this, of course, is to demonstrate it for your students. I will provide students a loose set of expectations for this at the end of the 9/6 class. Then, on 9/11, I will present my own "Story of Self" to them (recounting formative personal experiences directly and honestly, and explaining how they led to my personal convictions--as well as my way of communicating with others). I will then have them share their stories in small groups--particularly, the groups they will use for their later projects. This way, they will deeply engage with and understand crucial core beliefs of their classmates before they embark on a major assignment with them. Simultaneously, this will meet the goals of the Self & Perception unit by helping students get in touch with how their own perceptions are shaped.

I'll post more details on how I'm setting this up as we get nearer the interpersonal communication day. But the point I want to make here is: I am anticipating challenges before they arise, and designing activities that kill two birds with one stone.

Constructing a Lesson Plan Outline

I've talked to some people who have been trying to prepare lesson plans as elaborate as I've been writing here. I want to stress that what I'm doing here is meant to replicate the thinking that goes into a strong lesson plan, not the writing. That is: I've been ridiculously thorough for your benefit. While scripting out questions, etc. is important, it's not sustainable (or necessary) to write out paragraphs for yourself in class. Here's an example of what a lesson plan I create for my own personal use might look like:


8:00 Opening of Class:
-- Two truths and a lie
Discussion: To what extent do you recognize others' non-verbal behaviors? (Example: Flirting) --> Relate to lie detection video assignment

8:05 - Introduce Informational Interview Assignment
-- Rubric available on Blackboard
-- Expectations for online
-- Expectations for outline
-- Includes...
-- Expectations for journal entry
-- Addresses...
-- Due Dates:
9/13 Outline
9/20 Reflection
-- Exemplars available on ELMS site

- Introducing Group Presentation Assignment
-- Share contact information
-- Decide on a topic by Tuesday
-- Rubric available on Blackboard

8:10 - Nonverbal Listening Styles Exercise
Select THREE listeners:
-- 1) Nodding positively almost continuously
-- 2) Immobile, sitting up like a board, little eye contact, indifferencce
-- 3) Slow turning of the head from side-to-side
Outside the classroom:
-- Practicing a story about something they did over the summer or labor day

Discussion:
-- Who had more control in the conversation: The speaker or the listener?
-- To what extent did this reveal the transactional model?
-- What are some requirements of effective listening?

8:30 - Text Message Exercise
-- Share the last *three* text messages you've sent with someone next to you.
-- Who did you talk to?
-- What were you trying to communicate?
-- Was the message understood or misunderstood?

Second round of questions:
-- How would the message have been received in person?
-- What "medium" of communication would have been best?

8:50 - Test warning: Aesthetics, etc. a great opportunity for a matching section

- Aesthetics
-- Images of Baghdad murals: Before and After
-- Discuss how the space affects Iraqis differently in light of these changes

9:00 - Future-Orientation vs. Past-Orientation
-- How do you interact differently when I give you 5 minutes to complete--
-- Versus when I give you 1 minute?
-- Deadlines versus long-term: How is your writing in one circumstance versus another?
-- Most job interviews last thirty minutes: Is that okay?
-- VIEW VIDEO (first 2.5 minutes)
-- Does your family/local culture move faster or slower?
-- New York versus New Orleans
-- What does it communicate when you arrive late?

9:10 - On that note, The Future:
-- Read Chapters 4 and 5
-- Begin working on your interview outline
-- Prepare (don't write, just think out what you'll say) a "Story of Self"

More Details on Exercises Above

Several assignments above can be found on the ELMS Discussion Board or the Instructor's Manual (the text message one, courtesy the other Michael; the Nonverbal Listening Styles activity courtesy the Instructor's Manual). I will address my self-created assignments below:

Two Truths and a Lie
Following a discussion of the Paul Ekman video I assigned for homework, a few students (2 or 3) will come to the front of the room and share two truths and a lie. The classic icebreaker will take on new meaning in the context of non-verbal communication and lie detection; concepts from the chapter regarding kinesics will be related to this exercise.

Baghdad Walls & Aesthetics

Via Time.com

Students will be shown two PowerPoint slides: the first will feature images of the walls the U.S. Military built in Baghdad to contain areas of insurgency. The second will include images of the same walls, after Iraqis beautified the walls with murals and images. The ensuing PowerPoint slide will provide students the following information and questions:


The murals reflected traditional stories, symbols, and natural environments of the Iraqi people.
Discuss….
How do concrete walls communicate?
How might Iraqis surrounded by these grey slabs have felt after they first appeared?
How would the “feeling” of the space occupied by Iraqis change as a result of the murals?

Students will discuss with groups/partners, then will share thoughts full-group. The purpose is to reinforce the principles of aesthetics as communication highlighted in the chapter, and to expand students' understanding of "communication" to something much more general (space and visual).

If you want to employ this, you can find a great variety of these images (before and after the murals) on Google Image Search. Just search for "Baghdad Walls" and you'll find everything you need.

Future-Orientation vs. Past-Orientation
Head to this RSA Video regarding Future versus Past Orientations. During class, I will play the first 2-3 minutes of the video (the part where Dr. Zimbardo discusses Sicily and its lack of language for the future will be my cutoff point). This will transition into a discussion regarding the way different cultures construct time: Big cities versus small towns; individual family orientations; etc.. The students will discuss in pairs, then we will share full group. Like the aesthetics exercise, this is meant to expand students' view of what constitutes communication.

I'll relate this to their own class: How do you feel when you have an entire semester to work on something, versus one minute? How does your communication change when you only have a minute to share a thought--versus ten? How might this effect your assignments?

In Conclusion...

Anyway, I hope everyone's off to a great start! Let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or conundrums you'd like me to address here on the blog.