Speech department to undergo exciting changes
Released: May 1, 2008
The same routine every day can be boring and students need variety in their lives. Now, with the help of a $2,500 University of Wisconsin System Office of Professional Development grant awarded to Communication Lecturer Jeanine Fassl, and co-investigators Communication Lecturer Kathy Brady and Associate Professor of Communication Sue Wildermuth, the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater speech department has a plan that will excite both students and professors.
The required speech 110 class and other speech classes will soon be offered in a nontraditional way. Three professors will teach their own lab and then they will combine their classes once a week in a team-taught format. One teacher will lecture for all three classes one week, a second teacher will lecture all three classes the next and so on.
“The lesson study is looking at how the way we teach effects student learning. We can teach a speech class solo, but we can't model a group speech,” Fassl said. “Students don't get stuck with the same professor all weeks, they get to experience different teaching styles as well as have the opportunity to get to know two more professors in class and make connections with different faculty.”
The course “Cross Cultural Communication” is currently taught in this format and all teachers have been pleased with the outcome. The first speech 110 team-taught format was offered in fall 2007. “Last fall we did see much better group speeches from classes and we expect that to happen again,” Fassl said. “The lesson study grant came at a great time.”
Fassl, Brady and Wildermuth were interested in the grant because they recently started a pilot program to offer the basic communication course, “Introduction to Human Communication,” in a team-taught format. The professors knew they were at an advantage when they found out there are now lessons they can create that were not possible in the traditional classroom format.
Their focus for this lesson study was to model the group informative speech and investigate its effect on student learning outcomes. “The funds will be used to compensate each of us for some of the time spent in researching, developing and reporting on the actual lesson and for the staff and equipment needed to record the activity,” Fassl said. “To date, each of us has about 10 hours of work on this project with probably twice that much left before we are able to write up our final report due in spring 2009.”
For more information contact Jeanine Fassl at fasslj@uww.edu.
- Regina Shirkey,shirkeyrm26@uww.edu
