Focused Inquiry Group (FIG)
College Wide Learning Goal: Communication – Speaking
Fall 2010
Communication Studies 1
Patti Keeling
What I Did:
I chose to use the holistic rubric in conjunction with my own evaluation
sheet. It was easier for me to isolate those elements of delivery on the
holistic rubric and, since most faculty outside of Communication Studies
would be most interested in the clarity of delivery, it seemed appropriate to
give elements such as pace, projection and articulation priority. While
organization is something we carefully consider, each instructor will have
different expectations for their in-class presentations. For example, an ESL
instructor might be asking for a more simplified structure of ideas with
clearer pronunciation and articulation. An instructor in Psychology might
have a more challenging, research-based assignment where clarity is
important but not as emphasized when grading. I believe the way we can
best help instructors across disciplines is in the actual verbal and nonverbal delivery areas.
With this in mind, I chose to focus on all four of my Communication Studies
1 courses. The assignment I chose to evaluate and assess was the
informative speech, a 5-7 minute presentation, with thirty points possible on
delivery alone. This assignment follows the oral interpretation assignment
which focuses on vocal development, stage presence, and non verbal
elements of communication.
Results:
In all four sections, the grades seemed to correspond with the rubric.
Actually the grades were quite high for this assignment across the board
and I think this was because we put so much emphasis on vocal delivery in
the previous assignment and delivery accounted for one third of the points
available for this assignment. More than half the class in all sections
received a 3 or a 4 based on the holistic rubric and actually most received
an A or a B on this assignment. I would not, however, find this rubric very
useful in general for the following reasons:
- It is very, very difficult to separate verbal and non verbal aspects of
delivery.
- It was hard for me to keep content separate from delivery.
- It did not account for the specific details we look for in communication
studies.
- The rubric is far too detailed, I think for general use.
What I Learned:
Interestingly enough, each instructor in Communication Studies
approached this inquiry from different angles. I wanted to see if it would be
useful in all classes, across curriculum, in terms of looking at the
presentational skills of the speaker. This is why I chose the informative
speech as it is probably most like what other disciplines might assign.
Other instructors looked at more Comm Studies specific assignments like
extemporaneous speaking or persuasion I think those assignments were
much more difficult to assess with this rubric (in either form).
Recommendation:
There really can’t be a standard rubric across disciplines. These rubrics
are a useful starting point, however. The key to successful assessment, as
we all know, is to know clearly what you are looking for and to articulate
that to the students so they are clear about your expectations. I think this is
best done discipline by discipline.