Face-to-Face Connection in a Public Speaking Course.

More? Or Less?:Comparing a Fully Online Basic Speech Course to a Partly-Online “Hybrid”

Format

Ellen Bremen, ProfessorHighline Community College

Speech Department

In the Beginning… Online Public Speaking

• Necessary to support college strategic management plan.

• Lack of course hinders other online programs.

• Lack of course stunts students in outlying areas.

• One of the top 10 digital community colleges, as

nominated by the American Association of Community

Colleges

How Online Public Speaking Works1. Course work delivered via WebCT with written and audio lectures, real-

time PowerPoint slides, and instructor-created audio sample speeches

2. Mandatory online orientation

3. One audio speech, called in to a college voice mail system

4. Four videotaped speeches (informative, demonstrative, persuasive, special occasion) on videotape

5. 17 online quizzes & “higher order” discussion questions

6. One PowerPoint presentation

7. Three graded comprehensive outlines

8. Audience & location requirement

9. Specified due dates (Wednesdays) with 10 points late penalty within current speech genre; 50% penalty afterwards with mandatory phone conversation

Step 1: Preliminary Work

• Orientation• Syllabus

• Course Timeline

Students MUST make contact before starting, either by contacting you

or vice versa.

Ensure that college schedule has brief

details about online requirements and

orientation address. Develop an online

orientation to create an authentically distant course.

Managing the Orientation Process

Transforming the Syllabus:

Nothing can be taken for granted!

All instructions must be explicitly described!

Determine Special Requirements

1. Type of videotapes you will accept.

2. Whether or not student must have an outside e-mail account.

3. Audience requirement.

4. Location requirement.

5. Lighting/volume requirement.

6. Deadlines/Late penalty: Specified due dates with 10 points late penalty within current speech genre; 50% penalty afterwards with mandatory phone conversation.

7. How students should submit work (in person, mail, e-mail).

Determine Special Requirements

8. Camera angle and positioning (on speaker entire time; visual aid)

9. Queued tapes.

10. Stopping and starting tapes.

11. No Q & A.

12. No tag-team speeches.

13. How you wish to be contacted.

14. How often students are expected to check discussion forum or e-mail.

15. Current contact information for the student.

Transforming the Syllabus:

Provide instructions for everything! Reiterate often.

Statement on Syllabus:“Our communication in this course is most

important … I am committed to returning your phone call or e-mail within 24 hours on a

weekday… If I receive an e-mail from you over the weekend, I will usually also respond sometime on

Saturday or Sunday, unless I am out of town. If you do not hear from me, then this means that I

have not received your e-mail or voice mail message. Please contact me again. Similarly, if you

have only tried to e-mail me, and I have not e-mailed you back, then this means we are having a technological problem, and I anticipate that you

will attempt to reach me via telephone. I welcome hearing from you as often as you need me—I’m

here to serve you—but I can’t communicate with you if I don’t know that you’re trying to get in

touch with me.”

Creating a Course Timeline:

Keep the timeline manageable for yourself in conjunction with other

courses.

Step 2: Transform Course Content

Content should mimic existing traditional course.

Remember: Anything you would say to your students in class has to be

transformed to text and audio.

Determine Speech Assignments.

Provide ALL requirements, evaluation forms, rubrics, even sample evaluations, if possible.

Design Course Content

Use diverse pedagogical strategies so distant students can connect with

curriculum i.e., text files, PowerPoint, audio, activities, quizzes, essay questions, outside websites, etc.

Build Community

Strategy #1: Student Samples

Create a “Student Samples” page to

showcase former/current student work

Build Community

Strategy #2: Have students record material online and record your own

samples.

Building Community…

Build Community

Strategy #3: Allow students to “meet” you.

Build Community

Strategy #4: Use a community discussion area.

Wow! Speaking groups are forming!

Determine Assessment Strategies

• Speeches• Written Work

• Quiz Tools

Staying Alive Online • Consider online or on-campus

orientation—remember on-campus forces students to

come to campus• Must maintain “community.” • Beware of miscommunication.

Remember the “peachtree” story!

• Beware of faulty videotapes.• Beware of talking heads.

• Every requirement explicitly documented; nothing taken for

granted (Remember: tag teams!)

Staying Alive Online • Set Wednesday deadlines. • Maintain integrity of the

traditional course.• If confusion arises during one

semester, use it as a teaching tool for the next.

• Develop a “FAQ” page.• Lead students to review the

discussion forum or bulletin board for frequent updates.

• Maintain contact with students via telephone, if necessary.

Outcomes • Allows fully online programs,

consistent with college’s strategic plan.

• After one year, student evaluation scores steadily rose from “6” to “9” out of “10”

• After one year, retention rate increased from 50% to 75-80%

• More sections of course added through adjunct instructors

• Course won first place in Educational Technology from the National Council of Instructional Administrators, 2003.

• Published in Community College Times as a “Best Practice” in online instruction.

But then….

Relocation to Seattle!

Rocking The World… No Online Public Speaking!

• No remarkable number of hybrid/online offerings.

• New class: Basic Oral Communication.

• New course management system: BlackBoard.

• Only hybrid format supported—

after nearly a year and an enrollment crisis!

Considerations:

• Why?

• How?

• What?

How Hybrid Basic Oral Communication Works1. Definition of “hybrid” at Highline 40/60 split face-to-face/classroom.

2. Course work delivered via BlackBoard with written and audio lectures, real-time PowerPoint slides, and instructor-created audio sample speeches

3. Pedagogical change: Modular format based on Caine and Caine’s brain-based learning principles; “immersion” learning.

4. Class meets five Wednesday evenings for four hours; three lecture/discussion days, 2.5 speech nights. Dates strategically scheduled.

5. Written work incorporated with speeches: one journal, three speeches (minor/major), two outlines, five discussion forum posts, virtual workgroup project. Departmental final exam taken online.

6. 50 quiz questions sprinkled throughout course relating to the final.

Distribution of Assignment Dates

Distribution of Class Dates (on handout)

Outcomes of Hybrid Offering• Has run six times; full every

time.• Maintained 85%+ retention.

• Hybrid students = consistently higher scores, information literacy & .

• Hybrid drives changes to traditional course.

• Success of hybrid makes way for 37 more courses… and

64 online courses!

Speech 100 Assessment for Standard Courses (Spring 2005) and Hybrid Courses (Summer 2005)

Student Learning Outcomes Areas

Standard Courses

(N = 233)

  Hybrid Courses (N = 43)

% Correct   % Correct

Communication Theory 83   89Interpersonal Communication 84 94

Small Group 61   

63

Public Speaking 82   

84

Multicultural Comm.   70    

80

Speech 100 Assessment for Standard Courses and Hybrid Courses (Spring 2006)

Student Learning Outcomes Areas

Standard Courses

(N = 238)

  Hybrid Courses (N = 31)

% Correct   % Correct

Communication Theory 82   92Interpersonal Communication 84 92

Small Group 62   

70

Public Speaking 77   

89

Multicultural Comm.   72    

74

So which is better? Hybrid? Online? Hybrid

Missing classroom time.

Student population largely not ready for online learning.

Taping speeches in class (big benefit!).

Best of both worlds. Option for students not

making it in traditional course.

OnlineNeed flexible teaching

schedule. Student population

well prepared for online learning.

Students in outlying areas.

Students willing to tape outside of class.

Comfortable with being “faceless” instructor.

Challenges for Either Format Hybrid

Hard to play catch-up; less independently directed.

Lack of classroom time for makeup work.

Missed class: One is like missing four.

All speeches at once. Scheduling.Determining what

material should be covered where; tight classroom time.

OnlineDisconnection with

students. Ensuring that the

online component is robust to provide meaningful instruction.

Keeping students on track with taping speeches.

Defining “online” at your institution.