This article describes an activity in which students will understand, analyze, and apply the principles learned in the RACE process (research, action, communication, and evaluation). Students should have the ability to identify the four-step public relations planning process and ultimately create a public relations plan. This two-week activity is…

Communication teacher scholars have traditionally focused attention on the power of language in written or spoken narratives as situated in particular contexts. Increasingly, however, scholars are espousing a vision-based epistemology that recognizes the relationship between seeing and knowing, and in doing so foreground the political relationship…

Students tend to believe that RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) is an unfailingly valid measure of teaching effectiveness, and in fact viewing that site prior to taking a course can have a direct influence on their future evaluations of faculty. The authors describe an activity whose objective is to have students analyze different types of validity using…

This essay derives from a course called ‘"The Rhetoric of Native America,’" which is a historical-critical survey of Native American primary texts. The course examines the rhetoric employed by Natives to enact social change and to build community in the face of exigencies. The main goal of exploring a native text (particularly, Simon Pokagon's…

This article describes an activity whose objective is for students to gain self-awareness related to the ways in which humans (consciously or not) alter their self-presentation depending upon the context, thereby maintaining different "faces." Also, this activity aims to highlight effectiveness related to different modes of nonverbal…

The activity outlined here, using the "Monopoly" board game, is designed to illustrate the way that classical liberalism fails to provide justice for societies marked by historical and ongoing oppression. Taking up roles in a game that simulates some of the conditions of late capitalism can help students begin to understand how economic…

To many students, theory can be confusing and difficult to retain. Therefore, instructors who put emphasis on theory in their courses and lectures must find new ways for students to connect to the sometimes obscure material. Through a hands-on approach to learning theory, students may be challenged to examine their own beliefs and knowledge…

Audience response systems, also known as clickers, hold much promise for use in the communication classroom. Yet potential benefits notwithstanding, implementing new technology in the classroom also offers challenges for faculty who must master it themselves while managing students' learning. Successful clicker implementation, like the…

According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA, 2005), 10 million women and one million men struggle with eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia. Disordered eating is most common in adolescent girls ages 15-19 and is prevalent in a diverse range of populations (NEDA, 2005). For example, African-American girls aged 11-14…

Cell phone use is evident in society. Individuals have cell phone conversations while waiting in line at the grocery store, glance at their cell phones during meetings, check Facebook while having dinner with friends, have a meaningful phone conversation with a parent, and even text while sitting in church service. This assignment provides…

About 13.2 million people will make a video call in 2011 (Swartz, 2011). Organizations use this technology to connect employees and stakeholders because of reduced cost and greater participation among global stakeholders (Hertel, Geister, & Konradt, 2005). Scholars have examined videoconferencing in groups (Zornoza, Prieto, Marti, & Piero, 1993),…

Social identity is central to communication and culture, and while many intercultural communication textbooks devote much more space to the topic than they have in the past, undergraduate students continue to understand social identity in largely superficial terms. In order for them to grasp its complexity and its relationship to communication,…

Instructors of large lecture classes face a variety of challenges, including student engagement and participation. With budget cuts and increasing class sizes, more schools may turn to large lecture/lab formats for the basic communication course (Stanley & Porter, 2002); instructors must understand how these classes engage students. One viable…

Social influence is presented throughout the communication curriculum, from the introductory public speaking course to upper-level courses devoted to communication theory and advanced study of persuasion. Within the progression of these courses, there is often a shift in emphasis from practice to theory. For example, the public speaking course is…

As part of a yearly university mandated assessment of a large basic communication course that fulfills the oral communication general education requirement, this study examined student preferences for textbooks, reading, and learning. Specifically, basic course students ("N"=321) at a large state university in the Midwest were asked to complete a…