Building Your C-I Assignments
When designing Communication-Intensive (C-I) courses using backward design, focus first on identifying your priority student learning outcomes and the communication modes most appropriate for those goals. The next step is to think about the activities/assignments/projects you want to engage your students in, and how you will engage iterative feedback to achieve your outcomes.
C-I pedagogy relies heavily on iterative feedback methods. This means intentionally designing your C-I course activities to include cycles where your students (a) practice and/or process their communication skills learning, (b) receive feedback to inform further learning, and (c) demonstrate their learning.
Let’s look first at identifying activities/assignments/projects that might work best for your C-I course. To do so, think about these two stages of C-I teaching and learning:
C-I Practice/Process: Engagement that enables students to practice and/or process learning of the course content and communication skills prioritized in the course’s learning outcomes.
C-I Demonstration: Engagement that enables students to demonstrate their learning of the course content and communication skills prioritized in the course’s learning outcomes.
Pro Tip
Spend a few minutes thinking about what you are currently doing in your course, and the ideas you have about what you might do new or different. Use this worksheet to get your juices flowing! **insert wkbk worksheet 18-19
Demonstration & Practice/Process Ideas
If your demonstration activity is a poster, practice/process activities could include:
Write-ups of different sections/parts of a poster
Drafts of charts, images, graphics
Sketching the layout and placement
An elevator pitch of the main points
Practice using software for poster construction
Critiquing existing poster presentations to inform your own design
Attending a conference poster session and reporting on it to peers
If your demonstration activity is a paper, practice/process activities could include:
Sequenced process drafts for revising and editing
Generative quick writes for brainstorming
Sharing-and-responding groups for peer review
Dear Reviewer Letters addressing revisions and where issues remain
Reflections on writing process and how to apply lessons learned
Information literacy exercises to evaluate research sources
1-slide summary presentation of findings
If your demonstration activity is a presentation, practice/process activities could include:
A storyboard of information needed for presentation
Evaluating slides from another presentation, discussing what's effective
A narrated preview presentation for feedback from peers, instructor
Delivering a practice presentation standing in front of a peer audience
Practicing answering questions
If your demonstration activity is a simulation for a design process, practice/process activities could include:
Sketching a 2D design
Testing form, fit, and function of a prototype
Deconstructing existing models
Creating a 3D model
Familiarizing yourself with a technological tool
Practicing with settings and options
If your demonstration activity is a webpage/blog, practice/process activities could include:
Storyboarding content
Mind-mapping the navigation and organization of the website
Developing language for the website
Creating a color/mood board
Practicing content placement on the platform
Creating graphics for the website