Course: Organizational Communication, Business/Professional Communication. Objectives: This activity is designed to help students respond to their peers' challenges in a more compassionate and helpful way. At the end of the activity, students will be able to identify appropriate displays of compassion at work.

Courses: Undergraduate courses in interpersonal communication, nonverbal communication, relational communication, computer-mediated communication (CMC), and intercultural communication, as well as basic communication courses. Objectives: The purpose of this activity is twofold: (1) to demonstrate how nonverbal communication shapes content and…

Challenges to identity formation often emerge during college experiences as one's world view is confronted by exposure to new social circles, ideas, and cultures. Through the analysis of interpenetrating identities in the popular television show, "The Big Bang Theory," students are able to locate concrete examples of the four frames of…

This piece builds upon literature using media to teach not only college students in economics, social justice, and sociology, but also those college students in family and interpersonal communication as well. I provide a resource aimed to engage and expand students' understanding thoughtfully of two well-known family communication and…

News literacy is an important part of journalism and liberal arts education. Adapting a tool called the Frayer Model, the activity guides students in developing a conceptual understanding of news by creating a definition, listing essential characteristics, and coming up with examples and non-examples. This activity is intended to set the stage for…

Courses: Senior Seminar. Objectives: (1) To provide graduating students a semester-long capstone experience where they can apply communication theories/skills in a professional context. (2) To create a capstone project that contributes to programmatic assessment.

Managing one's online identity, with a focus on constructing a "professional" identity, is of paramount importance for college students (Back et al., 2010; Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007; Metzger, Flanagin, & Medders, 2010). This is because employers often search for potential candidates online before they choose to interview them…

A fundamental challenge that all public speakers face is getting and keeping the attention of audiences. Because audiences absorb large amounts of talk with little chance of taking the floor, the potential for inattentiveness and boredom is significant. In conversational interchanges, the brief duration of speaking turns and regular transfers of…

In this article, Wieland and Bauer discuss a teaching activity that helps students understand how meanings of work (MOW) are socially constructed through commonplace texts: children's books. The activity helps students consider how children's books shape future workers' understandings of what work is, what kinds of work are most…

Listening is a core component of developing effective communication skills. Thus, a common objective of many basic communication courses is to help students become better listeners (Johnson & Long, 2007). Often, the teacher's goal is to show students that there are different listening styles or preferences and that people decode messages…

Understanding and conducting research is a complex, integral skill that needs to be mastered by both undergraduate and graduate students. Yet many students are reluctant and often somewhat apprehensive about undertaking research and understanding the underlying statistical methods used to evaluate research (Dauphinee, Schau, & Stevens, 1997).…