In 2012 Service Learners in COM100 Honors Cohort prepared and presented Informative Speeches based upon their project and a related Social, Civil, or Global (SCGR) issue. As reported on my CATS submission, only 50% of the students included the issue aspects on the visual aid. In Fall 2015 regular COM100 students (not Honors or Service Learners), were given the opportunity to select a SCGR issue to research and present to class as their "Final Exam" Informative Speech. Along with the writing guide previously posted on CATS by P.Turner, & the Informative Speech Evaluation tool, I provided a PowerPoint template as a “guide” for including the elements to be scored for the SCGR assessment. Meeting individually with each student, I assessed their visual aids prior to performing the speeches. Results were that 16 out of the 22 (82%) of the students’ visual aids were complete. I was able to provide feedback to the 6 students so that their visual aids were complete prior to the end of class. I expect the delivery of the 22 students’ speeches will be more comprehensive in covering each of the SCGR elements because their visual aids attended to the details.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| com100-scgr-speech-guide.docx | 16.46 KB |
| com100-scgr-ppt-structure-slides.ppt | 127.5 KB |
| com100-scgr-informative-speech-evaluation.docx | 15.37 KB |
Comments
HI Ro,
Great idea to create the powerpoint template! This helps the students focus and be organized with
the required information. I look forward to your results.
Smiles
Olga
Looking forward to the results. I am noticing that a lot of these CATS are about templates for our students, mine included. When do we distinguish the difference between giving students too much information and needing to learn what is important to include in our homework/projects? This might be a good discussion for a SAAC event.
I hear you, Becky! Instructor modeling falls in alignment with your question, too, and we have several CATS on that practice, too. I personally think templates and modeling help our students better envision what we want out of them but can be at the expense of originality. But perhaps it can give them a starting point toward innovation if we present it as a starting point (not the end product). What a great discussion this could be! I wonder what the literature says? Thank you for your comment!
I agree...I am finding several references to templates etc. I just read a CATS by reading faculty who offered a visual reference for her students. So my question would be - which would be a more beneficial - having a visual example to reference or a template to follow? and is there much of a distinction?
I am looking forward, to seeing more examples and references to this technique in future CATS and colloborating with my colleagues to come up with ideas for my courses.
Teri
I think this was a solid idea, Ro.The use of s template has had very positive results for me in the past. I appreciate Becky's question, and I look forward to continued discussion on this topic. I think what is most important is for our students to become self-directed learners. So perhaps we can make the template/example available and reference it as a resource, as opposed to requiring the use of the template. Need more thought and discussion on this one!
What a great way to help guide students in being more successful at the end of the semester. I find that giving students guidance on your expectations as the instructor can help them immensely because they seem to have more confidence going in to the assignment. Cool stuff!
So . . . were the students' speeches more comprehensive in covering the SCGR elements?