Focused Inquiry Group (FIG)
College Wide Learning Goal: Communication – Speaking
Fall 2010
Communication Studies 1
Jason Ames
What I did
For this particular FIG, I studied my Communication 1 (Public Speaking) course
and in particular, their “extemporaneous” speeches. In my class, the extemporaneous
speech is at heart a persuasive speech created in a limited time (typically a week).
Results
The results of this speech were tough to gauge because a number of students
missed their speech either due to negligence on their part or due to some sort of excused
absence (illness, a car accident, etc).
What I learned
Using the criterion was difficult for me for a couple reasons. First, there were too
many elements put together that, in my point of view, did not belong together. The
organization section was an example of this. It mixed together organization and
argument formation. These are two different elements to me. One (organization) is
about the structure of the speech and how it is created. The other (argumentation) is
content related. When I am grading, I typically separate and grade these two sections
separately, and it caused some difficulty in scoring. For instance, some students would
be very organized, but not have enough data/evidence to support their arguments. Others
would have good arguments, but be lacking in the organization department. Perhaps this
is why no student scored a “4” in that section.
Second, I believe the rubric was unusable because it weighed all aspects equally.
While we do focus on delivery and teach delivery, I typically do not separate non-verbal
and verbal communication. They all fall under the guise of delivery. Also, delivery is
only one aspect of a speech and the majority of work done on a speech is done prior to
the actual delivery of the speech. My grading form reflects that. Delivery is typically
only 15% of the speech, yet the rubrics had it weighed out to 50% of the speech. This
simply doesn’t equate.
Recommendations
Overall, I believe this FIG was helpful in developing an overall rubric, but I do
not believe it was good for me. After assessing and discussing the findings of the my
other colleagues, I saw the Comm. Studies department more as assessors of the rubrics
than of our own classes. We already have rubrics created and we use those for every
speech. Thus, it was more valuable for us to use the rubrics to find any gaps or errors
within the rubrics themselves.