Category Archives: Mass Communication Teaching (MMC 6930)

Strategies for recognizing and promoting cultural differences in the college classroom

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by Lynsey Saunders
Ph.D. student, University of Florida

Many terms or phrases may come to mind when trying to consider what cultural diversity means.

The classroom is one of the most culturally diverse settings for students and teachers. Everyone in the classroom may share similarities, but each person’s individual differences could really help enhance the learning environment.

It’s best to look at cultural diversity in the classroom as bringing parts of a whole together. Teaching students that each one of them can contribute something innovative, unique, and worthwhile based on their backgrounds will help bring their learning experience full circle.

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Tips for handling large classes

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by Nicki Karimipour
Ph.D. student, University of Florida

Teaching a large class may not be ideal, but could become a necessary part of our teaching careers, especially at Research I institutions around the country. Based on the classroom poll, most of us consider a large class to range anywhere from 50 to100 (and more) students. Some auditoriums and lecture halls can accommodate hundreds of people.

I took some of the most common concerns from my classmates and organized them into five main categories.

Challenge #1 – Course organization

These are decisions you should be making before ever stepping foot into the auditorium or lecture hall – decisions about the syllabus and what topics will be covered in your course.

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Creating Rubrics: The art of evaluation

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by Andrea E. Hall
Ph.D. student, University of Florida

One of the biggest issues surrounding teaching today is how to effectively evaluate students. While testing is a major component, especially for our brothers and sisters in secondary education, it isn’t the be-all and end-all of the educational system as it is often made out to be.

Wilbert McKeachie’s book McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers stresses the importance of validity in assessment. Just like in research, validity asks if the assessment is measuring what it is supposed to be measuring. The reality in teaching is some topics simply can’t be evaluated as effectively with tests, which is where papers and projects often become the choice method.

However, there are often more variables to consider when assigning a paper or project than filling in multiple-choice bubbles. This where creating a rubric as a guide for both the student and later for you, as the grading teacher, is useful.

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Developing and using group assignments: Bridging the theoretical and the practical

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by Jordan Neil
Ph.D. student, University of Florida

In my presentation in Mass Communication Teaching, I looked to highlight many of the facets that comprise successful group assignments, as well as the common barriers to
achieving that success. Furthermore, against a backdrop of why group assignments are important within teaching theoretically, the presentation was structured so as to also provide real-life, practical examples to draw reference from.

Although most of my research for the presentation was based off the work by educational scholar Wilbert McKeachie, in his book “McKeachie’s Teaching Tips,” I found ancillary readings online to supplement and support the textbook.

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8 tips for developing more effective lesson plans for college teaching

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by Julie Dodd

I feel like I’ve sat in on classes across the communications curriculum, as I’ve just finished reading a collection of lesson plans from the graduate students in Mass Communication Teaching.

I’ve been a part of group discussions, watched PowerPoint presentations, been assigned to a small group to compare print and digital versions of magazines, and looked for media examples to illustrate concepts discussed in class.

I’ve thought about the history of communication before iPads, televisions and newspapers. I’ve considered how best to tell a story. I’ve debated what media ethics should mean to reporters.

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Consider different learning styles when you plan your teaching

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by Jessica Marsh
Master’s student, University of Florida

A learning style is defined as the preferred, or best, method for an individual to gain knowledge. It is important to realize that though a student (or yourself) may have a preferred method of learning, learning styles are not fixed. This means that learning styles can be developed and improved over time. So if you took the quiz below and learned you were primarily an auditory learner you can still work on developing skills to become a better visual, or tactile learner.

Learning styles are unique like fingerprints. They vary from individual to individual and from subject to subject. You may use a different learning style when attempting to learn Algebra than you do attempting to learn Chemistry. Similarly learning styles can vary based on what you are being asked to do with the information (synthesize, memorize, apply, construct, etc.). When constructing assignments and presentations, it’s important to

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Tips for promoting effective discussions in your college classroom

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by Summer Best
MAMC student, University of Florida

Using discussion as a teaching tool has been shown to be a popular and effective way to reach students academically on many learning levels. The technique allows teachers to pose problems, listen, and challenge, while promoting learning by doing and practice in thinking through problems.

Benefits of Using Discussion

In McKeachie’s Teaching Tips, authors Wilbert J. McKeachie and Marilla Svinicki note several of the following benefits discussion can provide:

  • It helps participants evaluate the logic and evidence of several viewpoints on a topic.
  • It offers opportunities to formulate applications of principles.
  • It develops motivation for future and collaborative learning; provides a catalyst for continued discussion.
  • It allows students to participate in the conversation – as opposed to sitting and listening to lecture.
  • It helps us offer opportunities to make informed, reasoned next actions in a new context.
  • It offers an opportunity to break apart an idea or an ideal and put the concept back together with thoughtfulness and respect for each contributor in the discussion.

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Strategies for improving student learning by promoting intrinsic motivation

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by Steve Waters
MAMC student, University of Florida

For my presentation, I discussed motivation types among students and some best practices for encouraging intrinsic motivation in the classroom.

One popular theory when thinking of motivation is the attribution theory, which basically states that when a student seeks explanation for unexpected outcomes, they make attributions about probable causes. You can find a well-written overview from Purdue on attribution theory here:

http://education.purduecal.edu/Vockell/EdPsyBook/Edpsy5/edpsy5_attribution.htm

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How to Write a Multiple Choice Test: Dos and Don’ts

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by Holly Cowart
Ph.D. student, University of Florida

The advantages of multiple choice testing include ease of grading and student familiarity with the format. The disadvantages include the fact that students can guess the correct answers and often aren’t tested on higher-order thinking. The time required to develop a good multiple choice test may not be justified in a small course.

DO’s for creating multiple choice exams

  • Randomize correct answers
  • Use parallel construction (in stem and choices)
  • Adapt, not adopt questions
  • Use application
  • Put most of the words in the stem, not the answer
  • Make the stem clear
  • Provide plausible answer choices
  • Write concise answer options (or at least similar in length)
  • Put your answers in logical order
  • Pretest your questions – Wilbert McKeachie recommends having a skilled test-taker who doesn’t know the material take your test

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Strategies for creating university course syllabi

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by Julie Dodd

An important part of successful teaching is being able to design an effective course. The foundation of course design is the course syllabus.

In Mass Communication Teaching (MMC 6930), each class member determines an undergraduate communications course to create a syllabus for. Decisions for developing the syllabus include:

understandingbydesignWhat are the Student Learning Outcomes (SLO). Curriculum design and learning theory support determining the big-picture outcomes for the course and letting those guide the course structure and week-by-week instruction and assignments. A very helpful book for this big-picture to small-picture planning is Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe).

How will student learning be assessed. “McKeachie’s Teaching Tips” recommends using several assessment strategies to enable students who have a variety of learning styles to demonstrate what they have learned. Assessment can include quizzes and exams, major papers or projects, team projects, and class participation.

How will the class be structured. A typical course at the University of Florida is three credits and meets three hours each week. The decision is whether the class will meet three times a week for an hour each time, once a week for three hours, or twice a week, meeting for one hour one day and two hours on the other day.

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