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Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons™
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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Interpersonal and Small Group Communication
The American Pickers Demonstrates Communication Skills, Jeffrey Brand
The American Pickers Demonstrates Communication Skills, Jeffrey Brand
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
This activity prepares students to identify persuasive communication practices in non-classroom environments and to view reality-based television programs as a learning platform for understanding communication theories and concepts. Using selected scenes or an entire episode from a popular reality-television program, American Pickers, students can observe how Mike and Frank establish a rapport with new customers, get to know them and their stories, negotiate sales, interact with each other as a team, and leave with a new relationship (client) and connection intact. The purpose of this exercise is to help students observe these initial contacts and relationships as they develop on …
Developing A Supportive Communication Climate For Virtual Task Groups, Brent Kice
Developing A Supportive Communication Climate For Virtual Task Groups, Brent Kice
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
This class activity places students in virtual teams to assess Gibb’s (1961) defensive or supportive behaviors as a means of reinforcing trust among virtual task-group members. A worksheet offering a fictitious online chat transcript is provided for group analysis; student directions for creating unique team names are also given. This activity helps students to establish positive climates for virtual task groups.
Simulated Creative Collaboration: Experiencing Challenges To Innovative Virtual Teaming In The Classroom, Brian C. Britt, Kristen Hatten
Simulated Creative Collaboration: Experiencing Challenges To Innovative Virtual Teaming In The Classroom, Brian C. Britt, Kristen Hatten
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
This activity provides students with in-depth experience working as part of an innovative virtual team, which will enable them to better understand the relative advantages and disadvantages of various approaches to creative collaboration in different contexts. Participants are divided into groups, which must then solve an assigned problem using a specified communication technology and creative process from the literature. The instructor will introduce a variety of obstacles to communication using each technology, which may inhibit students’ creative processes. Following the activity, the class will discuss these challenges, participants’ responses, and the range of experiences with different collaborative processes and technologies.
Using Social Lubricants To Increase Conversationality, Nathaniel Simmons
Using Social Lubricants To Increase Conversationality, Nathaniel Simmons
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
Responding to the epidemic of the dying art of conversation (Asha, 2014; Barnwell, 2014 April), this activity constructs a space in which students tap into social lubricants as a conversational, artistic tool to increase conversational skills. Inspired by Monahan & Lannutti’s (2000) social lubricant work, this study views social lubricants— any object or action that facilitates social interaction, such as a dog or a compliment— as a vital resource that merits pedagogical attention. After completing a role-play in which students tap into a social lubricant to achieve an assigned goal, students will be able to: (a) define social lubricants; (b) …
Social Justice Storytelling: Giving Our Students More Than Just An Education In Speech, Phillip E. Wagner
Social Justice Storytelling: Giving Our Students More Than Just An Education In Speech, Phillip E. Wagner
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
In an effort to highlight the practical and relevant applications of public speaking, this activity was designed to give students a safe space to discuss current social justice issues. Beginning with an open-ended narrative prompt, this activity requires students to take turns building upon a social justice narrative, giving them an opportunity to practice confident delivery and healthy dissent while also further enhancing public speaking skills and fostering a social-justice orientation.
Improving Interviewing And Conversational Skills Using "Speed Interviewing", Colleen Arendt
Improving Interviewing And Conversational Skills Using "Speed Interviewing", Colleen Arendt
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
A great deal of research focuses on the importance of effective interviewing skills across professions and interpersonal settings. This activity, based on “speed dating,” is designed to improve students’ interviewing skills. Specifically, the activity develops listening and probing skills by having students conduct mini interviews without preparation. The lack of preparation forces students to rely only on their listening and probing skills instead of an interview protocol. To increase difficulty, the questions can be tailored to employment or internship interviews to help the interviewees prepare while their partners practice listening and asking probing questions. This activity can also be modified …
"I Don't Always Look At Memes, But When I Do, It's For A Class": Using Memes To Demonstrate Language Rules, Jocelyn M. Degroot, Hannah Coy
"I Don't Always Look At Memes, But When I Do, It's For A Class": Using Memes To Demonstrate Language Rules, Jocelyn M. Degroot, Hannah Coy
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
This activity uses Internet memes to demonstrate the pervasiveness of language rules and culture’s effect on language in online culture. Numerous introductory communication courses include a discussion on verbal communication that focuses on language rules and the effects of culture on verbal communication. The most relevant language rules for memes are the regulative rules that guide action and how we use language (Cronen, Pearce, & Harris, 1979). In this exercise, students analyze and evaluate language rules present in popular online memes. The students identify the language rule utilized in each of a pre-chosen set of Internet memes and generate at …
Facing Our Racial Biases Via The Implicit Association Test, Stacey A. Peterson
Facing Our Racial Biases Via The Implicit Association Test, Stacey A. Peterson
Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD
Classroom discussions around race and difference are often difficult and challenging. We all come to our social interactions as products of our cultural selves, race being one of a myriad of multi-faceted characteristics. Therefore, while many feel that race is something that is discussed ad nauseam, others feel that such discussions rarely scratch the surface. This exercise uses the Implicit Association Test on race to encourage students to reflect upon and examine their hidden biases and address the role those biases play in potential communicative interactions, decisions, actions, and even emotions that they, the students, likely have of people of …
Girls Are Us: A Collection Of Oral Histories From The Jmu Community, Anne M. Sherman
Girls Are Us: A Collection Of Oral Histories From The Jmu Community, Anne M. Sherman
Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
On a campus where women make up a majority of the student population, it is especially important that female voices are heard and given a platform on which they can control their own narrative. I wanted to give those female-identifying voices that platform. I conducted a series of interviews to examine how college-aged female-identifying students feel about their identity and how they construct that identity within the climate of the JMU community. I was particularly interested in the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual preference, and ability. I asked each person to share their stories of times when they …