Rethinking Media and Communication Research Methods

Grant:

Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching

Academic Year:

2012 - 2013 (June 1, 2012 through May 31, 2013)

Funding Requested:

$10,000.00

Project Dates:

Wed, 05/01/2013 - Sat, 08/31/2013

Applicant(s):

lotz

Overview of the Project:

The Communication Studies department is preparing for the implementation of a massive undergraduate curriculum revision in the Fall of 2013. The cornerstone of this revision involves the expansion of the existing required course Comm 211 Evaluating Information, which covers the basic features of quantitative social scientific analysis into a two-semester, sequential, team-taught course Comm 121/122 Evaluating Information and Analyzing Media I and II that places quantitative and analytical ways of knowing in conversation. These courses must service roughly 400 students a year and are taught in two 80 minute blocks with a 2 hour weekly lab. This Whitaker Fund application requests the funds to hire a graduate student during the summer of 2013 to work with instructors to develop the labs for the these courses and to aid the instructors in preparing lectures that "flip" the large class dynamic.

Final Report Fields

Project Objectives:

Prepare labs that would allow active learning of concepts covered in lectures Assist instructors in designing assignment materials consistent with applied learning goals Develop (based on instructors' outlines) expansive, media-heavy slide decks that would serve as students' primary written material for the course

Project Achievements:

This new course went much better than expected as a result of being able to fund an assistant. The student who did the development over the summer then served as head GSI, which was enormously helpful for instructors negotiating team teaching for the first time. There is still a good bit of work to do, but the courses are rolling.

Continuation:

Yes. We are doing a good bit of continued revision on the courses. They are offered every semester, and would be offered to more students if we could get larger classrooms. We'd like to create additional written material and incorporate greater use of active learning and opportunities to practice applied learning in the large lecture.

Dissemination:

The teaching team presented a department colloquium after the first offering of the first course to appraise colleagues of course developments. We also reported back on ongoing adjustments and accomplishments after the first full year of the courses in our annual department retreat.

Advice to your Colleagues:

The funds to have a graduate student doing additional work (slide development, finding examples/illustrations of concepts) was just crucial. The teaching team (one of whom is pre-tenure) was often inventing and reinventing content and its organization on the fly and it would have been impossible to have shouldered all that work and making student-friendly slides simultaneously.

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