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Оглавление4 Designing Informal Communication Activities
As we articulated in the first chapter, research shows that professional communication competence is a worthwhile pursuit in the classroom, given the multiple contexts outside of the classroom in which communication competence could make a difference in students’ lives. Similarly, we need to recognize that students can use communication within the classroom in ways that are not necessarily limited to professional competence, but more focused on enhancing their learning experience. In our experience, when faculty members think about using oral communication in the classroom, most automatically think about the formal presentation. Yet, when you think about the important learning and critical thinking processes that occur in your classroom, you may think of classroom discussions, group lab work, and small learning groups. These also involve oral communication—just a different kind of communication than the formal presentation. These kinds of communication activities—sometimes referred to as communication-to-learn activities or informal communication activities—presume a different way of thinking about oral communication in the classroom. We prefer referring to these activities as informal activities, because we believe that whether formal or informal, the communication activities in the classroom are all communication-to-learn activities.
Informal communication activities have many benefits. For example, small learning groups of three or four people can facilitate talk because it is a safer place to try out ideas before coming to the larger group. Discussion, and experience with discussion, can desensitize individuals to public talk to some extent and decrease the threat of formal presentations. This kind of interaction enables change because it is part of an on-going transaction—thought evolves while interacting. The exposure to a diversity of skills and thinking decreases myths about what others think. It helps create a realistic comparison base because students hear and are exposed to others’ work and thought. There is the potential for students to realize the equifinality of learning: the same end can be reached in a variety of ways. Exposure to other ways of approaching ideas helps students explore multiple approaches to learning, and expands options for them. Preparing students for these kinds of activities helps students learn what is expected of them.
Although you might assume students will have the communication abilities to engage in discussions, group work, or in-class activities, many do not. Therefore, many students are unable to reap the learning benefits of the communication activity and you are left lamenting over students’ lack of engagement with course content and discussions. Some of these problems will happen regardless of what you do. Yet many of these problems can be dealt with proactively. This chapter will provide you with information on designing communication activities that maximize the learning that can happen in your classroom and engage your students in skills that are important in situations outside your classroom. For example, engaging in critical analysis of problems is a crucial skill for citizen engagement, whether acting as an advocate, a facilitator, or voter. The process students go through to gather information about course requirements for a major involves skills of questioning, inquiry, research, and analysis—much of which relies on their abilities to communicate. Informal communication assignments address skills such as these. While they do not necessarily focus on helping students achieve polish as professional communicators, they help students learn to think critically, engage in course material, and learn content in deeper ways.
It is clear, though, that just talking won’t aid in learning. The character of the talk matters. Webb (1982), in a series of studies on cooperative learning, has convincingly established that the character of the interaction makes a difference in individual learning. Interaction patterns differ by demographic group (e.g., male/female, age, life experience) and students’ abilities to learn are influenced by ethnicity and socio-cultural background—that is, students learn better when interaction patterns are consistent with the way communication functions in their home culture (Byrd & Sims, 1987; Jordan, Au, & Joesting, 1983; More, 1987; Philips, 1983; Rhodes, 1988; Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987). These kinds of activities also involve a certain degree of risk for students. While they may appear to be low risk because they may not be graded, what a student says in class does not necessarily just stay in class. A student struggling with a text or question may be subject to teasing, ridicule, disdain, or just plain impatience expressed by the peers in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. Publicly stating an opinion brings with it the possibility of responses from others that may be difficult to manage.
So what does this mean for us? If we accept that talk by students helps them learn and that the character of the talk in the classroom will make a difference in the quality of the learning, then we are obligated to help students learn how they can use communication to engage in course material within the instructional setting. Experience with talk can contribute to the development of communicative competence, but experience alone is not enough. Students enter our classrooms with a wide variety of experiences in communicating in classroom learning activities. What counts as competent communication in one academic setting, may not be considered competent in another. Disciplines differ in terms of the types of questions they value, the norms of student interaction, the forms or reasoning, and the preferred methods for providing explanations. When students come to your class, they come with varied experiences related to these kinds of activities. Therefore, students need to be provided with examples of how to use communication in the effort of learning. In this chapter, you will find information about various informal communication activities that are intended to facilitate specific learning objectives, how to design these kinds of communication activities, and how to hold students accountable. This chapter is intended to begin the process of designing these kinds of assignments. Chapter 7 provides further information on ways to help prepare students for participation in activities such as these (specifically those that necessitate discussion). Chapter 8 looks more specifically at how to support activities that necessitate group and teamwork.
Regardless of the type of activity you are using, there are important issues related to participation in all communication activities. Student participation in informal communication activities is often seen by instructors as a low-risk process. Yet, for many students, engaging in oral communication of any form is not low risk. A student who chooses to participate in class is essentially publicly committing him or herself to a position of some sort. In doing so, participation becomes a self-disclosing activity. Face issues are always present, more relevant for some students than for others (see Chapter 13 for an extensive discussion on facework). As instructors, we are often not aware of the ramifications of a student’s choice to participate. Evaluation by classmates occurs both inside and outside of class—whether we require it or not—and we often do not see the latter. Consider the assessments of faculty members made on the basis of their participation in a faculty meeting, and you will have a sense of the potentially risky nature of class discussion. Furthermore, research on participation in classrooms indicates that faculty or instructor behavior affects the extent to which students participate, as well as the quality of their participation (Webb, 2009; Webb et al., 2009). Therefore, the way in which you, as the instructor, engage in informal communication activities could influence the eventual learning outcomes of the activities themselves.
It is also important to realize that some students will experience a high degree of anxiety with any oral communication expectation—even those that are not formal public presentations. There are things one can do to help deal with high levels of communication apprehension. For example, studies have shown that multiple experiences with public speaking can help decrease public-speaking anxiety for some people. Preparation generally makes a difference in the degree of anxiety that students feel, and structuring activities that integrate a preparatory mechanism such as freewriting prior to discussion may help. Experiences with different kinds of oral communication situations can also be helpful; for example, communicating in a small group in order to prepare for a more formal presentation. Courses that focus on some aspect of oral communication that feels less threatening can help decrease anxiety in those situations perceived as more threatening. One of the best ways of dealing with communication apprehension is to experience situations where one can begin to try out and develop coping mechanisms that help. Informal communication activities can begin to do this (see Chapter 6 for a discussion of communication apprehension and for suggestions on helping students who experience a high degree of apprehension).
Finally, it is important to think about how students’ past experiences might influence the communication activities you do in your class. Students may have learned “appropriate” behavior in another class, another discipline, or another group that would alienate individuals in your class. For example, what is assertive in one setting may be interpreted as grandstanding in another; qualifying one’s remarks may be expected in one setting but may be interpreted as waffling in another. Gender, ethnic, racial, and cultural elements also enter into the mix. English proficiency, differences in cultural values, responses to status, the perception of status differences—all influence interaction in a group (Lee, 2009; O’Donnell, 2006; Webb, 2009). Since the dynamics of any group have a bearing upon the skills exhibited by the participants, performance of skills depends upon the pattern of interaction developing in the group as well as upon individual ability (chapters 7 and 8 provide a more extensive discussion of issues related to participation, whether in large class discussions or in teams; Chapter 10 provides information about diversity in communication activities). Part of communicative competence is developing the ability to adapt, be flexible, and be aware of multiple contextual issues, but students do not always come with those abilities, and so we believe it is important to address them up front. Therefore, even in these early stages of developing assignments, it is important to consider these issues in more detail.
There are several steps to consider when designing informal communication activities. It is important to note that not all informal activities should look the same. Some you will do quickly, in class, with very little follow-up (other than the activity itself). Others might require students to engage in some preparation outside of class. Yet others could necessitate more detailed instructions and practice in the kinds of critical thinking skills that will facilitate learning. The way in which you design the activity will determine the kinds of information you will need to provide for students. Table 4.1 provides some planning questions to help you identify what is important in as you think about informal activities.
Table 4.1. Planning Questions: Informal Communication Activities
| What learning goals are most important to your course content? |
| What forms of inquiry are important for your students to be able to master? |
| What structures of communication activities would fit best given your course constraints? |
| What kinds of follow-up strategies could hold students accountable for these informal activities? |
| What challenges do you expect your students to have with informal communication activities? |
| How can you proactively address these challenges in designing the activity? |
The seven steps in designing informal communication activities include
•Delineating learning outcomes and forms of inquiry
•Identifying the structure of the task you want students to complete
•Articulating the particular areas of content you want students to focus on
•Designing prompts/tasks that have multiple possible responses and audiences
•Designating guidelines for interaction and potential relational issues
•Setting clear expectations for outcomes of the exercise and, if appropriate, instructions for reporting the results of the process/product
•Holding students accountable for their communication choices and behaviors in these activities.
The first step in designing informal communication activities involves thinking about what you want students to learn and what forms of inquiry you want them to engage in or practice during the activity. This decision involves a process similar to articulating course-based outcomes and objectives but is focused at the level of this exercise or assignment. Put this activity in the context of your entire course: What particular student-learning outcomes do you want to achieve for different parts of your course? How does this activity or exercise help you achieve those outcomes at this point in your course? As mentioned in Chapter 1, many of you have probably been exposed to the taxonomy of questioning developed by Benjamin Bloom (often used when articulating students learning outcomes, as well). While Bloom’s taxonomy is widely cited and is often used as a guide for developing levels of outcomes for assessment purposes, it might be helpful to use Bloom’s three domains—cognitive, affective and behavioral—to guide designing communication outcomes.
Given that your goals for these communication activities will be more focused on how well students learn course content, it is likely you will be writing outcomes that focus more on cognitive and affective outcomes. You will focus on the form of the communication itself primarily as a means to achieve these ends. One way to think about the learning outcomes for activities is to consider the forms of inquiry that you want your students to engage in for this activity. Do you want them to evaluate? Interrogate? Compare? Contrast? Regardless of the final format of the exercise of assignment(s) you create, the kinds of inquiry you are expecting of your students needs to be made explicit, both to yourself and to your students. For example, if you want your students to “compare and contrast,” what does that mean?
As you think about generating outcomes for informal communication activities, it is also important to consider the kinds of questions you think are important for students to ask as they participate in those activities. Students often believe that what is most important is imparting their knowledge. They need to be encouraged to ask questions—and you will need to prepare them to be able to accomplish what you are asking them to do, in part by identifying the multiple ways to approach problems, texts, and issues. There are many different kinds of questions, and it is often enlightening to students to realize these different forms. Students often get stuck at the level of asking factual/knowledge questions, never considering that there are different forms of questions that can illuminate a text or an issue. It is helpful to discuss with students the different ways of asking questions and the types of insights that might be associated with different question forms. There are many different taxonomies of question types, ranging from highly abstract categorizations to fairly mundane descriptions. We have listed typical categories here in Table 4.2, although the categories are not all mutually exclusive. Of particular note are convergent and divergent questions. There are those who assert that convergent thinking and divergent thinking utilize different brain functions (divergent thinking utilizes the right brain, developing imaginative and creative abilities; convergent thinking utilizes the left brain, thus developing the deductive, rational, and analytic abilities (Guilford, 1967; Robinson, 2011; Runco, 1991).
Table 4.2. Types of Content-Focused Questions
| Form of Question | Examples |
| Factual/Knowledge: To get information, open discussion, or test for knowledge | Questions that ask “who, what, why, where, and how” |
| Explanatory: To elicit reasoning, create an opening for further information, or to clarify a purpose or goal | “What other factors contributed to this problem?”“Why did the author use this analogy? |
| Leading: To introduce a new idea or focus attention on an idea introduced by someone else | “Now consider XYZ. How would these additional factors have changed your solution?” |
| Analytic: To focus on relationships among concepts or to break issues into smaller parts for further examination | “How does A relate to B?”“If X is true, what do we do with the fact that . . .?” |
| Hypothetical or Application: To focus on a potentially unpopular position, or to try out how a concept or solution would work to solve a problem or address an issue | “What would happen if…?”“Let’s say we decided to….?”“Now let’s change the scenario and see what happens if….” |
| Justification and Evaluation: To challenge old ideas, develop new ideas, or focus on reasoning and evidence | “I’d like to hear your reasons.”“What observations did you make that led you to your conclusions?”“Does this solution meet our criteria?” |
Table 4.3. Questions to Expand Ways of Thinking
| Form of Question | Examples |
| Disjunctive: To clarify alternatives or show problems with oversimplification | “Of the two most likely possibilities, which is preferable?”“If A is not the answer, then what must the answer be?” |
| Convergent: To develop accuracy, think deductively, develop consensus, move toward action, or direct attention to specific elements | “Based on our information, what conclusions can we draw?”“Where are the points of overlap?”“Where do we agree?” |
| Divergent: To develop open-minded thinking, discover new ways of approaching an issue, show connection, focus attention on many elements | “How else might we approach this?”“If you were to research this topic, how would you proceed?” |
The second step is to clearly identify the structure of the task. Given what you are trying to accomplish at this point in your course, as well as the character of students in your course, does it make sense to use a more or less structured exercise? Will you have students do small-group discussions in order to try to gain insight into a text? How structured do these small-group discussions need to be? What kind of preparation will students need in order to be ready to ask the kinds of questions that will lead to insight, and be able to talk intelligently in response (for example, reading the text, preparing discussion questions, freewriting, journal-writing, outlining essential arguments)? Will this be an in-class debate? Micro presentations? Poster presentation? Discussion? Role play? Pair-and-share (see example at the end of this chapter)? Will the task be completed fully in class or will there need to be preparation work or follow up work outside of class? How much class time will you devote to the activity and how much out-of-class time (if any) will students need to devote to the preparation and/or follow-up?
The third step is to identify the content with which they will work. Is it a particular text? A chapter in the book? Their own opinions? Web-based research they will do during the activity? Experiential events? Clearly specifying the content they need to have read, found, experienced, generated, or otherwise prepared will make the process more efficient and will help students prepare.
Fourth, you will need to design prompts that lead to multiple responses and that have varied audiences. A prompt that has one right answer will likely not lead to discussion, and students will likely find the process to be one of busy work. The best communication tasks/prompts have a breadth of possible answers and responses (see Chapter 7, Class Discussion, for more information on question-asking). Ideally, prompts should encourage students to look for answers, but also lead students to even more questions. For example, if you are having students engage in a mock psychological client role-play, use multiple psychological problems in the plays and perhaps each “client” brings to the role-play a different psychological profile. There needs to be room for true inquiry, with openness for discovery. If there is a “right” answer, then inquiry might be “how did you get there?” Such an approach will help explicate the methods of your discipline, surfacing how inquiry works.
Fifth, designate guidelines for interaction and consider relational issues that might emerge. How much time will you give students? Will they leave class or stay in the classroom? Will you ask one person to be a recorder? Is the material controversial? Is it likely that participants may become angry, concerned, fearful of potentially offending others in the class, or be reminded of difficulties in their own life? How will you address these possibilities (see Section III for discussions of approaches to these kinds of difficult situations)?
Sixth, articulate clear expectations for the outcomes of the exercise. Students need to know what they are aiming for; provide that direction by giving instructions for reporting products and processes. Depending on how you structure your exercise, not every student has to talk every time. Nor do students have to turn something in. For example, the outcome of an exercise may be one student from a small group reporting back to the class for a large class discussion on the section of the text assigned to that group. Yet another outcome might be for students to identify possible paper topics as a result of the discussion.
Finally, when designing informal communication activities, you need to consider how you will hold students accountable for the process. Will you do a post-exercise debriefing? Will you help students identify and articulate the content they have learned? How will you do so? What kinds of feedback will you provide, and based on what criteria? Will there be peer feedback? Will your feedback be connected to a grade? Will students self-reflect on their own oral communication choices and behaviors? How will you facilitate that self-reflection? Will you use rubrics? If so, what kind of rubric and what elements need to be included? The important issue to know at this point is that holding students accountable should not translate into heavy grading for these kinds of informal communication activities. Rather, you are helping them discern how their communication behaviors relate to their learning. You can easily use part of your participation grade for these kinds of activities. For example, you could have 10 percent of your course grade focused on participation, in which students get points for either attendance or for turning in some form of product from multiple communication activities (e.g., an index card reporting group processes, a one-minute paper indicating learning reflections, etc.). The key here is accountability for learning, not evaluation of the communication itself. Identify efficient processes for giving feedback that focus entirely on the learning. If you design a rubric, keep it simple, short and focused on the learning goals and processes you want for your students. Table 4.4 illustrates some examples of how to hold students accountable without creating excessive grading.
Table 4.4. Holding Students Accountable for Informal Communication Activities
| Accountability Schema | Example Related Activities |
| Full credit if completed | Sociology: Group problem-solution discussion; group presentation of an example sociological problemAstronomy: Full class working to sort pictures into moon phases; role-play of timeline of astronomical understandingPlant Pathology: Sharing of a specimen with brief explanation; engagement with lab partner |
| Rated 1–3 on criteria such as clear interpretation, evidence-based argument | English: short analysis of a poem followed by a reflection; in-class debate about some aspect of a text (e.g., the true motivation of a character)Art: Oral presentation of a piece of art with interpretation; in-class discussion comparing different periods or different pieces of artHistory: Discussion comparing two accounts of the same event |
| Rated 0 or 1 on whether a particular aspect is present | Engineering: Individual demonstration of lab protocol; progress presentations of a design projectPsychology: Group discussion of relevance of characteristics to a diagnosis; group presentation of a possible interpretation of a case studyNursing: Role plays of specific patient interactions |
Template for Informal Communication and Activity Design
In this section, we provide several informal communication activities and an activity-design template (Figure 4.1) to use as you think about using informal communication activities in your classroom. This template can be thought of as a way to think through designing these kinds of informal communication activities and to structure the oral instructions that you give in class. Or, for more complex activities, you can use this template to design a written prompt (in a handout, PowerPoint, or on chalkboard) and then create a handout that deals with the additional complexities.
