Communication Workshops and Lectures

“Using Adaptive Assessment in Public Speaking" hosted by Elyn Blackmans

Previously hosted October 28th at 3:00 pm Eastern/12:00 pm Pacific, a conversation with Elyn Blackman, a public speaking instructor at the University of South Carolina, who is using Norton's adaptive learning tool, InQuizitive, along with Gehrke and Foley's Contemporary Public Speaking in her classes. We'll spend a little time breaking down how InQuizitive works, and then Professor Blackman will talk about she uses the tool and the benefits she has seen from using it.

“Getting Started with Resources for Contemporary Public Speaking" hosted by Trevor Penland and Heidi Balas

Gehrke and Foley's Contemporary Public Speaking offers your students a wealth of resources to get the most out of the reading and help develop and practice speaking skills and techniques. Resources include a "Try This" exercises to help them develop and prep speeches, "Learn More" tutorials to help students hone skills, InQuizitive adaptive activities, and a plagiarism tutorial and MLA and APA citation guides. Watch Norton staff to take a tour of the student tools for Contemporary Public Speaking and discuss how each tool can help your students hone their knowledge and develop speaking skills.

“Engaging the Quiet Student in IPC"

Despite our best efforts, we may find it difficult to get quiet, reserved students to participate in class discussions and activities. See Bruce Punches--author of the new IPC textbook It's Interpersonal--discuss ways to incorporate more small group discussions into your IPC courses using a technique he's developed with exciting results. A discussion will follow to allow participants to offer their thoughts and brainstorm how they might adopt this technique.

“AI in Public Speaking" with Pat Gehrke and Megan Foley"

Are you thinking about how AI may impact your public speaking course? Concerned or excited about the possibilities that AI might bring? We invite you to join a virtual conversation about AI in the public speaking course with Pat Gehrke and Megan Foley. Pat and Megan will talk about navigating the potential benefits and perils of AI as it relates to public speaking and the public speaking classroom--what are the challenges and what are the potential uses for AI in your classroom?

“Teaching Public Speaking Online" with Pat Gehrke, April 25th, 2023

Are you teaching public speaking online and looking for tools and techniques to improve your online course? On Wednesday, April 19th at 3:00p.m. Eastern/12:00p.m. Pacific, Pat Gehrke—professor at the University of South Carolina and pioneer in online public speaking pedagogy—will be hosting a workshop to offer tools and techniques for teaching a fully online public speaking course. Whether you are new to teaching public speaking online or are looking for new techniques to enhance your current online course, this workshop can help you design and implement a successful fully online public speaking course.

“Contemporary Public Speaking: A Resources Walk-Through" with Trevor Penland and Heidi Balas, April 2023

Are you considering using Contemporary Public Speaking for your course or have you already decided to adopt the book? If so, please join us for a quick, 30-minute tour of the student and instructor resources available with the book.

We'll walk through InQuizitive and other student learning tools and how they can be integrated into your course, and we'll show you examples of the instructor tools, like PPT slides, sample assignments and rubrics, a test bank, and more.

“Teaching students how to be more interesting speakers" with Isa Engleberg and John Daly, March 7, 2023

A frequent concern of students trying to improve their public speaking skills is how to make their presentations more interesting. They often ask us exactly that question: "How can I make my speaking more interesting?" The authors of The Norton Field Guide to Speaking—Isa Engleberg and John Daly—have worked to address exactly that question in their textbook with an entire part dedicated to generating interest. In this teaching workshop, Isa and John discussed some of the most effective ways to generate interest and engagement and offered techniques you can use to teach your students how to generate more interest and engagement in their speaking.

“Using an adaptive learning tool to engage students in interpersonal communication" with Trevor Kauer (U of Nebraska, Lincoln) and Katie Kassler (U of Nebraska, Lincoln), February 27, 2023

The authors of the InQuizitive course that accompanies It's Interpersonal—Trevor Kauer (University Nebraska, Lincoln) and Katie Kassler (University of Nebraska, Lincoln)—discuss using an adaptive learning tool in interpersonal communication courses to engage students and develop their own skills, their vision in writing questions for InQuizitive, and their experiences using InQuizitive to teach interpersonal communication.

“Goldfish, Horns on Skulls, and Attention Spans: Using the SIFT Method to Determine the Credibility of Online Sources" with Susan Ward, February 22, 2023

It appears that critical thinking has met its foe in the form of misinformation and disinformation that quickly spreads online. One tool that can help students to wade through the immense amount of information pouring across their screens is Caulfield's SIFT method. This method challenges traditional thinking about the role of critical thinking in determining the credibility of sources by focusing less on critical thinking and more on attention spans. Susan Ward—professor of communication at Delaware County Community College and resource author for The Norton Field Guide to Speaking—hosts a workshop to discuss how the SIFT method works and how to incorporate it into courses that include a research element.

“Crafting Equitable Rubrics for Public Speaking" with Pat Gehrke and Megan Foley, February 7, 2023

Have you been thinking about ways to make your public speaking rubrics more equitable? Please join us as Pat Gehrke and Megan Foley, authors of Contemporary Public Speaking, discuss strategies for writing equitable rubrics for public speaking assignments and speeches, challenges in writing equitable rubrics, and how to address those challenges.

“Helping students prepare for speeches with adaptive quizzing" with Barbara Shimer, November 30, 2022

In this webinar, Barbara Shimer, instructor at Berkshire Community College, discusses her experience using adaptive assessments—specifically Norton's InQuizitive tool—in her public speaking course and how students can benefit from these assessments, even in their own speech preparation.

“Getting Started with Resources for The Norton Field Guide to Speaking” with the Norton Communication Team, May 17, 2022

Looking for simple ways you can incorporate digital resources into your public speaking course with The Norton Field Guide to Speaking? Join Norton Communication team member Trevor Penland for an introduction to the resources that will help your students master key concepts and learn to apply those concepts to speaking situations.

“Teaching the Latest Research on Speaking Anxiety” with Isa Engleberg and John A. Daly, March 7, 2022

One of students' biggest challenges is facing and overcoming speaking anxiety. What methods are you teaching? What methods are truly most effective? Isa Engleberg and John A. Daly, co-authors of The Norton Field Guide to Speaking, host a workshop about speaking anxiety, the latest research on what speaking anxiety is and how to overcome it, and how to integrate this research into the speech classroom.

“Increasing Student Engagement in the Basic IPC Course” with Bruce Punches and Leslie Ramos Salazar, February 2, 2022

Teaching an introduction to interpersonal communication course is even more rewarding when student engagement is high. In this workshop, Bruce Punches and Leslie Ramos Salazar share some of the techniques they use to spark student enthusiasm and course participation. They also share how their teaching efforts influenced how they approach student engagement in their new textbook, It's Interpersonal: An Introduction to Relational Communication.