Before we introduce the framework of this book, we want to recognize that many of you have come to this initiative as a result of outside forces. It could be that your campus has an established communication-across-the-curriculum program that has invited you to participate. Perhaps your campus has a writing across the curriculum program that has incorporated more attention to speaking and they are looking for people who might be interested. It could even be that you are feeling pressure from the administration to participate in more teaching and learning enhancement activities. Or, if you are an administrator, you could be feeling pressure from the alumni, industry, or accreditation agencies to produce outcome-based evidence of student learning and communication competence. It could also be that your campus or department is not involved with these initiatives, but you have become curious and intrigued by the possibility of doing something new in order to revitalize your departmental participation. Whichever of these “sparks” (or perhaps there are others, too) has brought you to this book, our goal is to provide you with a framework and practical supplements to that framework to help you consider, seriously and efficiently, a focus on oral communication in your classrooms and curricula. The premise of this book is that focused attention to goal-based, discipline-specific oral communication activities can benefit teaching and learning in significant ways, facilitating engaged and interactive learners and teachers, proficient and coherent soon-to-be professionals, and participatory citizens within and outside of your classroom.
While there are many reasons to consider oral communication as a viable contribution to your classroom, the task of incorporating oral communication in your courses could be a daunting one, especially if you are already teaching a packed curriculum, dealing with larger and larger classes, or managing other instructional initiatives. The framework we present is not intended to simplify this task, but rather to provide you with a number of options to explore using that which you already know—your discipline. One of the key assumptions of this book is that oral communication is a situated activity that, when taught across the curriculum, is best implemented with a discipline-specific, goal-based foundation. We do not start with the five oral communication assignments that every student should participate in or the oral communication skills that should be present in each course, nor could we even establish what assignments or skills should be included in every class. Instead, we suggest several decision points and elements to consider while developing your own approach to teaching oral communication in your own discipline.
As you move forward, we encourage you to be strategic in locating where oral communication best fits within your instructional emphases. To help you explore these issues, we propose a framework that focuses on five decision-making points about oral communication: Consider institutional context, articulate oral communication instructional objectives and outcomes, design oral communication assignments and activities, support students’ learning, and evaluate learning. These decision points follow a traditional instructional design model that moves from institutional context to goals to design to implementation, and then finally, to assessment. Figure 2.1 provides an illustration of these decision points.
Figure 2.1. Strategic Framework for Oral Communication in the Disciplines
We tailor this model to oral communication in the disciplines by highlighting the situated nature of these decisions. For each decision, you should consider the particular norms and values of your course and discipline so that you can construct a learning environment that is useful and authentic to the students involved. We will introduce each of the five decision-making points in brief here, and then will expand on them in later chapters by providing teaching resources for each of the constructs.
Decision Point I: Considering Institutional Context
Guiding Question: How do oral communication assignments fit with the institutional mission, the department objectives, and your disciplinary culture?
Before you think through your work within your specific courses, it is important for you to consider the contextual issues that might surround your particular course and discipline. How you integrate oral communication activities and assignments into your course occurs within the context of your institution’s goals as well as your discipline’s expectations. Consider the institutional mission, and the ways in which that mission fits with the local region and community. What historical issues influence this mission? How do these relate to the role of your discipline within the larger institution? What other initiatives (such as writing across the curriculum) are present and how are they implemented on your campus? How does your particular department contribute to larger initiatives, a broader sense of your discipline, and/or institution? If you are in a department that is one of many within your larger discipline, what historical or current departmental issues are relevant to your department’s activities? How does the class fit within the larger curriculum? What is the communicative culture of your discipline, department, and curriculum?
There are also considerations related to logistical issues: What are the realities you face in terms of elements such as time, space and students’ demographic? What are your students likely to face relative to expectations in other courses that they are taking—for example, if all major courses require extensive group work, will students be able to fully participate if they are expected to be fully functioning group members in four different long-term group projects?
Finally, there are considerations about the impact of using new kinds of pedagogy in your own teaching and upon how your teaching is evaluated. To what extent have you had some experience working in other communication-related initiatives? How prepared do you feel for turning over some control in the classroom to student discussion? How ready do you feel to assess oral communication efforts of students? What kind of institutional support is available to you to help you develop your pedagogical approaches? What kinds of criteria are used to evaluate you as a teacher, and do they take into consideration investment in new pedagogies?
Once you have a better understanding of these institutional considerations, it is important to consider the cultural, disciplinary issues that will impact the teaching and learning of communication. Some of those could emerge from particular historical traditions in your discipline, others might emerge from standards of practice that have become entrenched in the way in which the faculty and students in your discipline go about approaching communication. Yet others possibly emerge from the pragmatics of your students, faculty, and institutional structure. These situated, disciplinary issues are important to understand because the teaching and learning of communication within your courses will be driven, in many ways, by the context in which it is occurring. Chapter 3 addresses this decision point in more detail.
Decision Point II: Articulating Objectives and Outcomes
Guiding Question: What are your instructional objectives for incorporating oral communication in the classroom and what communication outcomes do you want your students to achieve?
As you think about incorporating oral communication in your course, consider the reasons it might be beneficial for your classes. What purpose could oral communication serve in the larger context of the course? The answer to this question will help you