Working Girl

Okay, sort of a working girl. I teach as an adjunct (meaning part-time for those not in higher education) speech instructor for Oklahoma Panhandle State University. I really enjoy teaching - even basic public speaking.

This semester, I am teaching an online speech class for the university. This is a little different for me. I have taught hybrid classes with the University of Phoenix, but I've never taught a full online course before and it is a little different.

At this point, some of you are thinking...how the heck do you teach/learn public speaking online? I mean, isn't it supposed to be about giving speeches? I understand your question and it is definitely not the prefered way to teach this - at least in my opinion. That said, there is also a need for online speech classes.

Since almost every institution of higher education requires students to take a basic speech course, we need to be open to offering it in a manner that students need and want. Online is the new way to go for many students. I will admit that students doing their online class while sitting in their dorm room or in their cubicle at their on-campus job, really bothers me. If you are on campus, take a regular speech class. However, I understand that there are just some students who would rather do it that way and that's fine.

Anyway, I am now into week 3 of this course and it is going fairly well. I am curious to see how my evaluations turn out at the end complared to my previous traditional class evaluations. Turning a class into an online class is not as easy as it may seem. If you've been teaching a while, it's not the hardest thing in the world, but it is critical to understand that teaching in the classroom and teaching online are different beasts. The activities that worked great in a face-to-face class, typcally don't fly well online. You have to get creative to keep students interested and motivated.

I'll put this out to you all to see if you think I'm getting close to the mark. Here's this week's threaded discussion. How does the opposite gender communicate? What about the communication patterns/styles of the opposite gender bothers you? There are two discussion threads. Males are supposed to respond in one thread and females in the other. In a traditional class I have the two groups split up and create a list of what they don't like about the opposite gender's communication style. Then we come together as a class and go through them all and talk about possible "solutions" to the complaints. For this online exercise, I have allowed them to read all the comments and complaints and then offered a third thread were we can discuss the "solutions." We'll see how this one turns out transitioning to online. I really wanted to keep this activity so I hope it works.

So, I'll pose the question to you as well...What about the opposite gender's communication style drives you crazy?