How to assign courseware

Hey, folks,

Let's see if we can find some different ways to ensure that students complete the courseware assessments (i.e. post tests) in COM100 classes. My initial idea was to make it part of the participation grade, but that's not necessarily the best way, especially for holding students accountable.

What might some other ways be?

Covering the debates in class?

As I'm watching the VP debates, I'm wondering how we might be able to incorporate these debates in our lectures in COM100, without promoting our own political interests and agendas? Any ideas? Has anyone tried it?

Speech Builder Express?

I'm having difficulty accessing Speech Builder Express via Web CT. (I'd like to review it to see if I want to recommend it to my students.)

I see where it is referenced at the end of Chapter 16 but I can't see how to access "online resources" for that chapter.

Can anyone tell me what I'm missing???

Thanks!

~Erin

Hello all, figured I'd post and say hi. 

Hi all,
Great assest here.
First week went great. Exciting start.
Ditto Crystal. And, important to get students involved in webct from 100 level, eh?

Jason, for engineers, research indicates; job #1 for enigineers based on skills from Ed second based on comm. skills. EVERYTHING is comm. right.? They ususally love the real exs. Interpersonal translates everywhere, every job ... I bet you are doing great.

Hello!

Just wanted to post and say hello. I finally made my way over here.

Thanks so much for setting this up Adam.

Just wondering (I'm new to a group blog/discussion like this) if it makes sense for us to respond to questions in the comments of individual posts or as a new post. Any thoughts?

~Erin

Hi Jason- good thought, I struggle with this myself. I know one thing that has helped me hook students in is relating different branches of com (0rganizational, interpersonal etc.) to things the students already find interesting or already participate in, like facebook, fantasy football, comic con and so on. This works with the resistant students the most because of the surprise factor. I find that if I can introduce the idea that com covers a myriad of topics off the bat, then the students remain more open-minded as the semester progresses. Hope that helps!

Dealing with different majors....

Hey Everyone Jason here...

Just wondering what does everyone do to try to relate to the multifarious majors represented in COM 100....I find trying to relate communication principles to folks who really couldn't care less challenging i.e. engineers, science folks....

I still have difficulty trying to convey the importance of human behavior, social construction....in a non linear, non-causal paradigm thoughts comments....

Also, wanted to give Adam big up's for his cool approach to this course he's made my life easier I don't know about everyone else....

Have a good weekend

Thank you

Thanks again Adam for creating this space for us. My first week went wonderfully and I LOVED not having to lug around a paper syllabus. I posted my added calendar and grading policy in the WebCT shell. The students are psyched about not having to carry a book back and forth to home etc. They are looking forward to reading online.
Crystal

First Class

This is great! Thanks Adam!
Just wanted to share

Intro to blog

Hope you all had a great first week of classes!

Some of you have requested a forum for discussing course related topics--here it is! I hope we can use this electronic forum to ask questions of each other, exchange ideas, and share information that might be relevant to us all.