It’s not the same thing: considering a path forward for teaching public speaking online

ABSTRACT

Teaching public speaking online is both an innovative and experimental approach that has created dissonance within the discipline. By definition, the online public speaking course is not the same thing as the face-to-face course. This essay considers the status of the online course and addresses concerns about teaching the traditional course online including how it is conceptualized and designed. Should we teach nearly the same thing but not the same thing online? This question is addressed by considering two different paths for moving forward: not calling the online course the same thing and calling the online course the same thing. The author argues in favor of a path forward that advocates for the creation of a new course altogether—one focused on speaking in digital contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Public speaking
• online learning
• basic course
• digital contexts

ORCID

Susan Ward http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8284-923X

Notes

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2. I. Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman, Grade Level: Tracking Online Education in the United States (Oakloand, CA: Babson Survey Research Group, 2015). The authors report that the number of students taking at least one online course has grown at a rate greater than the rate of the overall higher education student body every year since 2003.

3. Stephen Bradley Bailey, “Efficacy of a Basic Public Speaking Course Delivered Via a Virtual Community College.” (PhD diss., The University of Southern Mississippi, 2012).

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5. Roy Schwartzman, “Electronifying Oral Communication: Refining the Conceptual Framework for Online Instruction,” College Student Journal 41, no. 1 (March 2007): 37–38.

6. See Ruth Anne Clark and David Jones, “A Comparison of Traditional and Online Formats in a Public Speaking Course,” Communication Education 50, no. 2 (2001).

7. Terre H. Allen, “Is the Rush to Provide On-line Instruction Setting Our Students Up for Failure?” Communication Education 55, no. 1 (2006).

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10. Clark and Jones, “A Comparison of Traditional and Online Formats.”; Trudy Hanson and Jason Treven, “Lessons Learned from Teaching Public Speaking Online,” Online Classroom: Ideas for Effective Online Instruction, no. 1.

11. Morreale, Worley, and Hugenberg, “The Basic Communication Course,” 423.

12. Elizabeth Tolman, “Teaching the Public Speaking Course Online: Considerations and Best Practices based on a Content Analysis of Course Syllabi,” National Communication Association (2012), https://www.natcom.org/uploadedFiles/Teaching_and_Learning/NCA%20grant%202012%20paper%20final%283%29.pdf.

13. Shaundi C. Newbolt, “Public Speaking as the Last Battlefield: A Cluster-Agon Analysis of Conceptual Conflicts in the Controversy Between Traditional And Online College Classes,” (Thesis, Florida Atlantic University, 2012).

14. Nicholas Butler, “Learning to Speak in the Digital Age: An Examination of Instructional Conditions for Teaching Public Speaking Online,” (Phd diss., Arizona State University, 2014); Karen Newtzie and Leslie Smith, “Collaboration Among Colleagues,” Inquiry 10, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 23.

15. Jason J. Kemnitz, “Communication Apprehension in an Online Public Speaking Course,” (PhD diss., University of South Dakota, 2005).

16. Carla Stout, “An Exploration of the Roles of Communication Apprehension, Online Technology Self-Efficacy, and Retention in an Online Public Speaking Course,” (PhD diss., University of Southern Alabama, 2012).

17. Tabitha Bailey, “Exploring Expression-Based Apprehension in Online and Traditional Sections of a General Education, Introductory Communication Course,” (Thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2008).

18. Bailey, “Efficacy of a Basic Public Speaking Course,” 116.

19. Nick Linardopoulos, “Teaching and Learning Public Speaking Online,” MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching 6, no. 1 (March 2010).

20. Ibid., 111.

21. Jeffrey Jackson and Bibb Latane, “All Alone in Front of All Those People: Stage Fright as a Function of Number and Type of Co-Performers and Audience,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40, no. 1 (1981): 73–85.

22. See Linardopoulos, “Teaching and Learning”; Bailey, “Efficacy of a Basic Public Speaking Course.”

23. The title of the course would depend on factors particular to an institution such as transfer agreements; however, a possible option includes Speaking in Digital Contexts.

24. Jon Hess and Judy Pearson, “Basic Public Speaking Principles: Examination of Twelve Popular Texts,” Basic Communication Course Annual 4 (1992): 5; Nancy Rost Goulden, “Revising Public Speaking Theory, Content, and Pedagogy: A Review of the Issues in the Discipline in the 1990’s,” Basic Communication Course Annual 14 (2002): 5; Omar Swartz, “Interdisciplinary and Pedagogical Implications of Rhetorical Theory,” Communication Studies 46 (1995): 130.

25. Melissa Beall, “The Online Teaching Guide: A Handbook of Attitudes, Strategies, and Techniques for the Virtual Classroom,” Communication Education 52, no. 1 (2003): 70–71.

26. Stephen Lind, “Teaching Digital Oratory: Public Speaking 2.0,” Communication Teacher 26, no. 3 (2012): 163–169.

27. L. Dee Fink, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 11.

28. Lind, “Teaching Digital Oratory,” 164.

29. Paula Bigatel et al., “The Identification of Competencies for Online Teaching Success,” Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 16, no. 1 (2012): 59–78.

30. Morreale, Worley, and Hugenberg, “The Basic Communication Course,” 423–24.

31. For example, some students may not have an ideal setting in their respective homes for delivering a speech. Faculty should consider ways to approach helping students to determine the best setting including ways to alter the background such as using a blank wall, using a properly hung sheet as a canvas, using software that eliminates the background, etc. Also, it is important to teach students how to read from manuscripts as this may be a requirement for those preparing asynchronous webinars.

32. Tolman, “Teaching the Public Speaking Course Online,” 27.

33. Todd Frobish, “Jamieson Meets Lucas: Eloquence and Pedagogical Model(s) in the The Art of Public Speaking,” Communication Education 49, no. 3 (2002): 239.

34. “What is Communication?” National Communication Association, accessed January 4, 2015, http://www.natcom.org/discipline/.

35. Isa Engleberg, Susan M. Ward, Lynn M. Disbrow, James A. Katt, Scott A. Myers, and Patricia O’Keefe, “The Development of a Set of Core Communication Competencies for Introductory Communication Courses,” Communication Education, (2016), 10.1080/03634523.2016.1159316

36. Tabitha Bailey’s thesis work about expression-based apprehension in an online communication course provides a helpful starting point.

37. Roy Schwartzman and Heath Tuttle, “What Can Online Course Components Teach About Improving Instruction and Learning?” Journal of Instructional Psychology 29, no. 3 (2002): 186.