SPCH 1A - Elements of Public Speaking - Stage 4 - Sami Kudsi

Data Analysis

Data Shared With
  • Faculty and staff within our department
  • Faculty and staff from related programs/departments
  • Faculty and staff from across the college
  • Students
Data Sharing Methods
  • Face-to-face meetings
  • Email
  • Website review and commentary
  • Shared document files
Data SummaryThe department continued to reflect on data collected in Spring 12 and analyzed in fall 2012. We discussed the limits of our student success data and made a commitment to watch some key data points (in particular that some Asian populations appear to pass our courses in numbers below college average) and see if the trend continues. We also noted that our data was strangely computed due to our extraction from English.

Departmental discussions focused on two key areas of concern with outlines: the ability to craft some structural elements of a speech (e.g preview statement and subpoints) and the ability to verbalize and convey credibility. We also noted that in student speech performances these concerns persisted. Moreover, students struggled to verbalize sources.
Analysis Summary5 colleagues in Speech Communication developed rubrics and applied rubrics to student outlines and video recorded student speeches. The assessment team took care to label anything over 20% and in the "Needs Work" category an "area of concern." The 3 areas mentioned above met the threshold. 26% of students struggled to craft statements of credibility. 24% failed to adequately craft preview statements. And 26% percent failed to adequately sub divide.

Another form of "data" we received was not appreciable difference between SPCH 1A and SPCH 11.
Next Steps PlannedThis spring, with input from our dean, we took more formal steps to address our areas of concern. The department during FLEX day agreed to explore a custom textbook option that would supply students with more instructional materials about our three areas of concern. After a vigorous discussion, most Speech Com professors agreed to sign onto to a custom textbook project that would allow us to tailor content for our students while still providing a textbook at an affordable price. Our reviewing bids, Speech decided to choose Fountainhead press. During the semester faculty members pooled resources and handouts and inserted additional textbook material and created examples that would appeal to our student body. The deadline for the custom text book is June 3rd.

We improved our course by rewriting our course outline and creating Student Learning Objectives that were clear, understandable, and assessable. The new course outline was approved at the April 10 Curriculum Committee meeting.

As a faculty we agreed to "phase out" SPCH 11 as it did not support our AA-T degree and little evidence existed that it provided instruction different from SPCH 1A. The assessment team made contact with programs affected by this phase out and we agreed to keep a few sections in the schedule until programs were revised for programs that required SPCH 11 (i.e. Environmental Horticulture).

In the fall, faculty not trained in Insight will train on the Moodle 2.0 platform and the assessment team is designing a common course insight shell that will embed common quizzes, tied to specific SLOs into the Insight shell for all instructors using the custom textbook. The common Insight shell will "go live" in Spring 2014. In Spring 2014 our assessment calendar will direct the faculty to reassess SPCH 1A. Upon analyzing the data we will see if we were able to adequately address our areas of concern.
Learning OutcomesALL

Changes

DetailsOur previous course outlines had a bulky set 0f 28 SLOs. Our new outline is much more parsimonious:

IV. MAJOR LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon completion of this course a student will be able to:

A. Apply critical thinking to create logical, ethical, credible, emotionally appealing and well researched arguments.

B. Organize and outline speeches to effectively promote comprehension and retention.

C. Analyze audience, occasion, purpose, subject matter selection, delivery styles, and communication situations.

D. Manage speech anxiety in order to display effective nonverbal communication.

E. Construct effective visual aids and successfully use them in speeches.

F. Appraise speeches to develop critical, appreciative, and evaluative listening skills.

G. Compare and contrast various human communication models.
Learning OutcomesALL

Tentative Future Plans

TermSpring 2014
Activities
  • Revision of outcomes and assessment methods (measurements)
  • Assessment (measurement) of outcomes
  • Analysis and discussion of assessment data and next steps
More DetailsWe will be repeating the assessment done in Spring 2012 and developing new and refined rubrics for aspects of our new course outline that were not assessed.

SLO Details Storage Location

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