Pretest data taken week 1 of class revealed that 100% of the students in a section of CIS105 did not score above 30% in meeting criteria on the communication assessment scoring sheet.
Communication is one of the skills identified in the EMCC General Education Abilities Matrix. Students need to be comfortable and skilled when expressing their thoughts.
Creating a presentation is a module in the curriculum. Additional instruction was given focused on the matrix communication indicators throughout the semester and many opportunities provided for students to practice their skills in nonformal, small group presentations. Feedback was provided by group members and the instructor after each presentation and students had to reflect upon their growth and challenge areas in terms of the technology and communication skills.
I will continue to implement small group presentations in future classes to provide informal times for students to practice their communication skills. Oral communication is a very important life and business skill that must be recognized and incorporated. One cannot rely solely on technology to deliver the message as the audience will remember the speaker more often than the slide show. Individual and group reflection/feedback will continue to be used.
EMCC has determined that communication is important and thus, included this skill on the EMCC General Education Abilities Matrix. CIS105 has a module in which PowerPoint is taught, primarily focusing on the technological side of creating a presentation and how to incoporate the different technological aspects of the program. Time was spent discussing not only the technology of presentations, but the delivery side as well incorporating the EMCC matric indicators. Based upon the results of the mid-term presentation data, instruction/feedback will continue on the importance of verbal communication and additional opportunities will be provided for students to practice their skills. Data revealed that improvement was gained by 100% of the students participating, but that there is room for growth. Student reflections supported the teacher collected data--100% of the students recognized their growth in the same areas identified by the instructor. Additional data will be taken at the final formal presentation which will occur during the Career Module of CIS 105.
Comments
Thank you very much for focusing on one of our core institutional level outcomes. I look forward to seeing how the presentation module effects your students communication skills.
Final Tally of Data based on last presention.
Audio Visual use scored 100%.
Eye Contact showed improvement as 85% of the students maintained eye contact with the audience/class. The other 15% maintained partial eye contact with audience/class. No one read from their notes the entire presentation.
Posture and Facial Expressions scored at 100% of participants meeting criteria to earn top score.
Preparation scored at 75% as two students did not prepare on showing their slides from a shared drive (as instructed) and thus struggled at the beginning of their presentation.
Pacing increased to 92% meeting top criteria of the rubric.
Overall, communication skills greatly improved over the course of the semester.