Month: May 2019

The story of increasing enrollment resulting in new instructors, reductions in teaching space, and revisions in course structure: OR How a critical analysis of a Mason Core course created and confirmed a positive change for students

Several dilemmas were facing Mason’s COMM 100 and 101 courses:

• enrollment topping a record 4,000+ students
• an ever-changing and often novice set of 50-60 of instructors and the corresponding need to ensure teaching consistency and quality
• reduced classroom availability
• three different delivery methods, with no real data on what version was most successful

The question became how to wrestle these problems while maintaining and/or improving failure rates.  While the process was pivotal, successful outcomes were vital.

Such was the concern for Dr. Melissa Broeckelman-Post, the Basic Communication Course Director, an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and a Senior Scholar in the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at Mason.  She is responsible for planning, supervising, assessing, and improving the communication courses that meet the general education requirement at Mason.

Broeckelman-Post recognized she needed to put some serious analytical insight into best practices for this course — from materials and methodologies to delivery methods and student results.  But how to pull off this important, yet complex, analysis while juggling an already full schedule?

The answer was found in a grant from 4-VA at Mason. 

Armed with the financial support to hire a cadre of Ph.D. students to produce the “in the weeds” analysis, in one short year, Broeckelman-Post had both the necessary numbers and the path to developing and delivering a course that met the needs of the students and produced a blueprint for a pedagogical “win.”  The research focused on pre- and post- course student surveys which considered communication apprehension, interpersonal communication competence, communication competence and engagement.  Additionally, the analysis considered grades, attendance records, and a detailed review of more than 300 explanatory speeches, a required 5- to 7-minute presentation by all students.  Four expert coders evaluated the presentations for five different elements – introduction, body, conclusion, overall impression and delivery. 

Then, this analysis was applied to the two different delivery versions of the course: Face-to-Face and a fully online course, plus a pilot of a new version of the course which is based on a lecture/lab/speech lab format.

The results pointed to the newer version of the class. 

In this version, Broeckelman-Post delivers an online media-rich introduction, with includes content overviews, readings, TED talks, model speeches, video analysis and pre-class activities.  This not only assured a complete and thorough content delivery, it also saved precious classroom space.  Last spring, this version was pilot tested in six sections of the course, and after seeing the results of this study, has been implemented for 100 sections this academic year.

The introduction is then followed by small group interactive face-to-face lab with discussions, interviews and group work presentations.

The bonus comes in the final element of the course that was added for the fall semester – individualized coaching sessions in the new Communication Center for all students enrolled in the course.  In the Communication Center, which is funded by the cost savings from moving the first hour of the course online, students meet with student Communication Coaches to get feedback on outlines, video record and practice presentations, practice interviews, work on developing group presentations, and more.  Most of the Coaches are members of Mason’s nationally-renowned forensics and debate teams, graduate students who also teach the course, and students who have demonstrated outstanding communication and feedback skills, who are able to share their advanced training with students that are just getting started.

The Communication Center is a ‘one stop shop’ for valuable one-on-one coaching sessions for students as they prepare presentations.  Currently, the Center is open every day between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM and books more than 300 appointments a week.  It is anticipated that number will balloon as more students recognize the benefit of the help.

“The bottom line of this effort is that we’ve produced a course pathway that provides the best possible outcomes for our undergraduate students, while supporting our instructors with a rich resource of teaching tools and techniques,” explains Broeckelman-Post.  “What’s more, we’ve streamlined the course and saved some money, which we then were able to use to create our first-of-its-kind on-campus Communication Center.  We are very proud that we were able to deliver this terrific outcome for all Mason students — thanks to our 4-VA grant!”

Communication Research and the Communication Center: It takes a team

Broeckelman-Post credits much of the success of this research project to the graduate student research team, which includes an ace crew of PhD candidates and a student earning her Masters.  Katherine Hyatt Hawkins, Andie Malterud, and Anthony Arciero worked on the 4-VA grant, and Hyatt Hawkins and Briana Stewert are working on a subsequent research grant that is evaluating the added impact of the Communication Center.

Katherine Hyatt Hawkins is a third year PhD candidate in Communication who will graduate in May 2019.  She studies health and instructional communication, and is currently managing the Communication, Health, and Relational Media (CHARM) Lab for the Communication department with Dr. Sojung Kim.  Hyatt Hawkins served as the Basic Course Assistant and has helped to build the Communication Center.  Hyatt Hawkins’ resume also includes internships at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Andie Malterud is a second year PhD student in Communication and is the Communication Center Coordinator.  She also studies health and instructional communication and has served as the Basic Course Assistant. Malterud comes to Mason following her undergraduate and Masters work in South Dakota.

Anthony Arciero is now in his fourth year of a PhD program, with a specialization in Educational Psychology, and a secondary emphasis in Research Methodology. Arciero also works in the College of Education and Human Development in the Accreditation and External Reporting Office as a Graduate Research Assistant.  He is a 22-year veteran of the Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel.

Briana Stewart is a first year MA student in Communication and is the Assistant Communication Center Coordinator this year.  She previously worked in the writing centers at Oakton High School and Christopher Newport University.  Stewart and Malterud are currently working on a follow-up project funded by a Curriculum Impact Grant and Faculty Research Development Award to help evaluate the impact of the Communication Center.

Just as the nation as a whole is grappling with issues from A to Z in healthcare, concerned scholars studying the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine in Virginia were interested in what role they could play in moving and improving their field within the Commonwealth.  While faculty members and students around the state have previously communicated on a range of topics via emails or brief phone calls, they saw the need to work collaboratively to create a space for research and study.

“What we knew was that our discipline continues to grow in Virginia, with programs at Virginia Tech, Old Dominion, and James Madison as well has here at Mason. But we didn’t want to grow these programs in silos,” explains Heidi Lawrence, assistant professor in writing and rhetoric at Mason.  “What we also knew was that by working together, it would be better for our collective student and faculty bodies as well as to help advance critical medical communications and messaging issues at the state level.”

When Lawrence saw the opportunity to use a 4-VA grant to achieve that goal, she jumped at the chance to take the important first step in generating collegiality in the field among the Virginia partner schools.

The grant provided the funding for a first-of-its-kind statewide symposium “The Virginia Colloquium on the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine” (VCRHM).

Their goal was three pronged:  to provide students and faculty with mentoring and academic opportunities; to look closely at what role the group could collectively play in improving healthcare of populations across the state utilizing their humanistic approach; and to explore possibilities for pursuing funded research in the future.

The Colloquium was hosted at Mason in June 2018 and featured a keynote address by internationally-renowned health and medical communication expert Dr. Kirk St. Amant of Louisiana Tech University, presentations from four graduate students, a lightning round collaboration session and concluded with a panel presentation on pursuing further research.  Attendees included representatives from Mason, Madison, Tech, the University of Mary Washington, and the University Detroit Mercy.

Evaluations from the workshop illustrate the success of the event:

“It was a treat meeting other students and faculty in Virginia (and elsewhere) doing RHM work.  I especially like the opportunity for faculty to mentor students and, in turn, learn from them.”

“The networking was most valuable.  The unique perspectives that people brought were also equally valuable.”

Lawrence explains that the Colloquium participants are now moving forward as a team.  In April, the second annual meeting of the VCRHM will be convened at Madison.  During this workshop-based meeting, team members will use their expertise to tackle a difficult and weighty issue in Virginia – managing communications and messaging as applied to the opioid crisis.  They are now analyzing methods of rhetoric to develop a humanities-based approach to the problem, including collecting qualitative data on communities in crisis and working through mechanisms to communicate findings to community partners (e.g. hospitals, first responders, public health officials), and other stakeholders.

“If not for the 4-VA grant, we would never have been able to begin this important work,” says Lawrence.  “We owe our foundation and progress to 4-VA — 100 percent!”