by Julie Dodd

In Mass Communication Teaching, the students are developing materials for an undergraduate communications course. Those materials include:

• Course proposal – Updating the proposal that you wrote at the beginning of this project.
• Syllabus – This is the version of the syllabus that you would provide your students. Be sure to follow UF’s guidelines and our discussion of best practices for the content. The syllabus should include a timeline of each class meeting, with the topic for that class, any readings or other homework, due dates for major assignments, and dates for exams.
• Class-by-class listing – For each class meeting, you need a brief explanation: objectives for the class and class activities (i.e., you presenting, minute paper, pair/share activity, small group work, student presentations, case study analysis, etc.). I would expect to see a variety of appropriate teaching and learning approaches.
• Sample lesson plan – For the equivalent of two hours of instruction, develop a lesson plan. The plan should include all needed materials — readings, case studies, presentation slides, and your presentation notes for yourself. This should be a class where you are guiding the instruction and not a class with guest speakers or student presentations.
• Assessment tool – This should be a major evaluation for the course — a major project or a major exam. For the major project, include the directions (with timeline that indicates small-stakes grades) and the grading rubric. For an exam, include the exam and the grading criteria (which could be an answer key and rubric for essay answers).

The class recently submitted the draft of their assessment tools. They could either develop an exam and answer key or a major project with grading rubric. Based on the courses they are developing, they all decided to create a project and rubric.

Here’s feedback that I provided on the project and rubric. Some of these suggestions might be useful as you are evaluating your teaching materials:

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