Listen: Bridging Gen Ed Learning and Student Success

There are a few elements of the student life cycle in higher education that are unavoidable, one being general education courses. While a majority of college students are unaware of support resources or unlikely to engage with all of them, each student must fulfill common core curriculum.  

For over a decade, the University of Louisville has offered an Oral Communication Success Guide for students in the public speaking general education course, which has 100 sections. Now a digital resource embedded in learning software, the guide helps connect students’ learning to institutional services and supports.

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader spoke with Elyssa Smith, an oral communications faculty member, and Katherine Taylor, director of the oral communication basic course, to outline the process of digitizing the guide, the benefits for student access and how it breaks down barriers across the institution.

An edited version of the podcast appears below.

Inside Higher Ed: You two recently led an initiative at the university helping create a digital resource for the oral communication class. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the project and what problem this was looking to solve on campus?

Katherine Taylor

Katherine Taylor: We did not do a digital or a technology-based one, but we’ve been doing what was called the course resource tool for over 15 years.

The premise of it 15 years ago has not changed at all. It was to combine and unify the courses across the board, so that there was always one focus about the course, so that it allowed each instructor to be able to bring their own particular bent to it or thinking to it, but it really unified everything.

Part of it was to help students get on the same page throughout—all because we have 45 sections, at least, per semester—and so to get them on the same path. That everybody was accomplishing the same outcomes and the same assignments and things like that. They just had different teachers.

Elyssa’s background is in advertising and in business, and so she brings a little bit of that to [her courses]. We have others who have backgrounds in storytelling and law, and so they can bring and make the assignments their own as far as that goes, but the parameters and all of that are the same.

I think it’s very interesting now that we’ve gone into a digital world that what we did 15 years ago really was the impetus for setting students up to succeed, and we just didn’t realize that it wasn’t a buzzword then, and now it’s what we’ve been doing for a long time.

Inside Higher Ed: Can you explain to our listeners how it works logistically, how students and faculty access the resource and where it’s housed?

Taylor: It’s housed within a program called Achieve, which is a product of Macmillan Publishing Company. And we have two different authors that we use. We use [Joseph] Tuman and [Douglas] Fraley for one, of the business and professional and public speaking, and then we use [Steven] McCormick for the interpersonal skills one.

Their textbooks are within the Achieve program, but what we have done with this program is it’s almost like there are two textbooks. They have the book from these authors. But then they also have what we call OC Chapter One, OC Chapter Two.

It’s in book format in this Achieve program, and then we blend it with Blackboard. They access everything through Blackboard, because we now are part of an inclusive access program with publishers, which has been an absolute joy, because now we don’t hear things that [students] can’t get online. They don’t have their money, their scholarships are not there.

From the moment they register for the class, they have access to the textbook, to the student success guide, and the payment is rolled into their tuition, so they really don’t have that lag. From day one, they’re ready to go.

I think that has been a huge help to have everything within one program, and yet, we’re still using Blackboard as a communication tool, as a repository, as a grade holder, as addendum type of assignments that we may want to have.

Inside Higher Ed: That’s great. And when it comes to accessing the textbooks—we’ve seen national surveys, students say they’re spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on books every year, and that can be a real barrier, like you said, just to getting started and having that day-one kickoff and feeling like they can be successful.

When it came to establishing this digital resource, what were some of the challenges, if any, when it came to translating that into something that students and faculty could use online?

Elyssa Smith

Elyssa Smith: One of the easy problems to solve was just the idea that we needed to update links. We had a lot of information within the original guide that we either didn’t have links, or we had an old link, or the link was linking to something that wasn’t the exact information that we wanted. So just making sure that in this digital version, we were making sure that all the information, of course, is up-to-date, but also it’s the easiest way for the student to access it.

When we started this, maybe 15 years ago—or when it was started, not me, but when others started this—students were accessing the content differently. So when we were doing it this time, we really wanted to think through how to deliver it to them in the way that meets them where they are in the best way, and that they will actually follow through with. Giving students phone numbers is not the best way, because we know they don’t want to make phone calls, they want to do something online, or email someone maybe.

So making sure that all of that information, sure, we have the phone numbers If they want that option, but that we have the best way for them to access the information.

Taylor: The thing that we had to do going from paper to now is that it became much more interactive.

As far as how we approached that, we got the material online, and they [students and faculty] got the material online, and so there was that back-and-forth, whereas before, we were in the paper world and had to turn it in, then get it back [in print]. So how can we take that and really put it into almost an immediacy type of frame for the students and for ourselves? That, to me, was one of the biggest pieces, was taking something that was archaic, which is paper, and moving it into the world that these students are coming into.

Smith: We were actually just talking about that—a version of a worksheet that we have that’s now downloadable. How can we, not only with the students, but how can we also make it accessible for the instructors to deliver that to the students? We know that the students are really good with downloading and filling out a fillable PDF, but how do we make sure that the instructors know this is the downloadable PDF? It’s the same version that you would have had in print, but they are delivering it, or they’re submitting it now in the way that the students are really comfortable with. And you know, how then can they grade that and get it back for, like Katherine was saying, for that immediacy of feedback?

Inside Higher Ed: I think that’s so great that you’re listening to the needs and the preferences of both students and staff as you’re creating this resource. One of the things that I really love about the guide is that it, like Katherine mentioned earlier, unifies a lot of different resources, both for students and for faculty delivering the course. I wonder if you can talk about how it becomes a one-stop shop for students as they’re learning how to succeed in this course and also at the university.

Taylor: One of the problems is getting students to see the value of something and then feeling comfortable with it. And since we are meeting them, quote, unquote, “in their world” for the most part, I think that allows them to have that comfort level to do so.

Because the assignments we give them examples and stuff, but the assignments are so very specific in, “This is what speech you have to do. Here are the parameters. Here are the requirements. Now let your instructor help you do that and go out and figure out how to kind of fill that in.”

But I think it gives them this whole new thing about their work and the importance of their work to do that. And I think that is a huge part of getting these students to use it, to feel comfortable with it, and to access it.

It’s really only geared for the oral communication courses, and so it’s not undoable by anybody else. But it has taken years of work to get it to where this medium is. But I think it’s possible for any program to have [a version] and to use it for whatever their needs are.

Smith: Let me give it a little bit of a background: The OC courses are courses that almost every student in the university will take through the Department of Communication.

One reason it’s important for us to have this tool in that class is because we do have so many students, so of course, it’s important for them to all get that information. They do have a first-year experience class, so they get some of that information there. But we’re trying to just reiterate that content and get it to them in another way. We know that that repetition is definitely helpful.

But aside from the fact that we just see so many students, the content within the guide is specific to our classes, in that we have speech outlines and some activities that are very, very specific to content. But also, the information about the resources that we provide is also tied into our content.

So when we think about communication, when we think about public speaking, business and professional, interpersonal, whatever it is, we know that students will use that for presentations in other classes, they might use them for speeches, for presenting work in the future. Of course, we know interpersonal and even virtual communication is every day. But aside from those ways, we tie those resources into our class: “Aside from in a presentation, how can you use your communication skills that you’ve learned in this class to advocate for yourself when you go to your adviser? And here’s the link to go to your adviser.” “How can you use your oral communication skills to advocate for yourself in a health-care setting?”

We know that our students, especially today, are very anxious about those conversations, and we are providing them the tools to have those conversations, to advocate for themselves, to advocate for others, and then we’re also providing them the direct access to the places where they will be advocating for themselves and hopefully be advocating for others. “How can you use your oral communication skills when you’re meeting with the financial aid office, and you need to ask these questions?”

And we know, like I said, that the students are uncomfortable doing that because of COVID and because of the very virtual nature of our world now, so we are providing them not only the skills to do that, but then also tying that very closely with the content and the resources in which they can do them on campus.

Inside Higher Ed: That’s great. I’m thinking from a career development standpoint, we know students need oral communication skills to thrive postgraduation, but even applying those skills within college.

Like you mentioned, working with the financial aid office can be very stressful for a student who has to advocate for themselves and understand what their financial aid may look like. Even talking to their [resident adviser] about a conflict that they might have in the dorms, that requires oral communication, and so I love that you all are not only telling them, “Here’s some areas that you can go and get support on campus,” but also “Here’s how this class ties into it and helps you advocate for yourself.” So that’s a beautiful application, I think, and really supports this idea of student success.

Smith: And it’s important for the guide to have both of that, right? And our guide does—it has the “This is how you can build those skills,” and then “This is where you can do that,” too. And I think that gets back to the question you asked, right? Why is it important that it’s all encompassing, that it’s a one-stop shop? Well, because those two things are so intertwined.

Inside Higher Ed: I know a lot of this content has been worked on for a decade now, but when it came to getting student and staff feedback and understanding, like, what is useful for learners and faculty to have in this guide, what did that look like, and what have been some of those key elements?

Taylor: To be very honest, this digital version is based on so many of the same pieces that we had when it was in print form. But that print form was not just me doing it.

I got a variety of instructors teaching the different classes. And we all came together, and we decided what was needed. We decided what the evaluation forms would look like, then all of those segments branched out from that.

But it was always with faculty, first and foremost, and then, if they heard something from students, then we went, “Oh, really?” Now we can [add] that; before it was print and you couldn’t make immediate changes or yearly changes, like we’re going to do. We’ve got a couple things that we want to add and to build into it going forward. We’ve got a really nice skeleton of the new format. Now we get to do the bells and whistles.

Smith: Because there are so many people teaching the OC courses, we have a very collaborative environment, and we’re using the tools that other instructors come with. Whether it be like a specific activity, or whether it be a way of evaluating this that we haven’t thought of before.

That’s really the joy of this arrangement of having so many different instructors, and that’s really, I think, thanks to Katherine and the way that she has created this collaborative environment where we feel like we can really learn from each other.

And then, of course, we’re always learning from the students, so we see the gaps that they are experiencing. We hear them complain about, “Hey, I don’t know how to reach my adviser.” And then we hear another student solve that problem for them, and we say, “Hey, how can we put that in here so that they can then solve that problem for themselves?” Or still crowdsource that information, but now you can point someone else to that [information] you can advocate for someone else. You can advocate for yourself, advocate for someone else, which is, again, the part of the communication course that’s so important for us.

Inside Higher Ed: That’s great. For people who are interested in doing something similar on their campus, what have you learned throughout the 15 years, or from the digital version that you would share with a colleague?

Taylor: Truthfully, I would say that it’s very important to have, and I don’t mean this to sound self-serving, but to have one dedicated person who is the person to coordinate all of these moving parts, because it there are so many moving parts, and they’re constantly changing. You’ve got instructors and you’ve got students, and then you’ve got also the bookstore and the publisher and all of these pieces—to have one person helping to do that. Especially, and I guess the second part is the especially, to have it uniform across a lot of sections. If it’s an English class and you’ve got 100 sections, they need to have some basis that is equal across the board all the way through all of those that their individual instructors can approach in their own way. But having that format, that structure at the very, very beginning, is what I perceive to be really, really vital.

Smith: I think it has to be that balance of, “Here is the structure, here is the information, but the way that you deliver that to your students is personal to you.” I think we’ve talked about this before, too, that that’s also the way we want our students to operate. “Here are the guidelines. This is what’s important, but the way that you go about that [should] be very customized to your interest, to what is important to you.” I think that Katherine has had a really good balance with that. That’s definitely something that I would recommend.

I think the combination of having the historical knowledge of we’ve done this many, many, many times, and this is what we know to be important to include, but then also the flexibility to say, “Wow, this needs to change,” or “we need to add some more here,” or “this example isn’t relevant anymore.” So how can you balance those two things? I know that can be very difficult, but I think that’s also the joy of having, again, one point person that connects the experiences of all of the instructors and then all of the instructors that connect all of the experiences of the students on a day-to-day basis.

Inside Higher Ed: Definitely. It seems like that collaboration element is very key to, one, keep information relevant, and, two, organized, because institutions can be very busy and sometimes hard to sort of get all on the same page.

Smith: Absolutely.

Inside Higher Ed: We’ve alluded a little bit to the fact that there’s a new version of the guide available, or at least there will be some updates moving forward. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about what’s next.

Taylor: What’s next is we’re going to go through it and see if there are examples that are not relevant at all anymore, if there are new ways that we can think about doing it, maybe we have provide some other thinking about, what kind of examples for speeches that could be done, as opposed to just what we’ve offered. But [instead], here’s another way to think. Here’s another way that you might be able to do this type of speech.

And then add to some of the basic informational pieces for the students to have access to, those like we’ve done already, but just branching them out as we hear new things, or new departments or things like that that come into existence. So those are what I think we’ll work on for this next one.

We probably will not update it more than every two years. Once we get this update, we’ll wait for two years, we’ll gather our information, because really, what it will become is a tweaking, as opposed to a full-blown rewrite or anything to that effect. I like tweaking because that means you’re at a different point.

Smith: I think as far as our content that’s specific to our classes in a very, I don’t know, rubrics-based, evaluation tools–based ways, even our worksheets, they’re very refined. We don’t need to make a ton of updates to those. And like Katherine was saying, maybe pulling in some new examples. We always get stellar speeches or stellar presentations that we’re like, “We need to use this as an example that we think will resonate with students.” So doing some of that.

The other side of that is just as we have more resources for students as the university, or again, as we hear about more challenges that students have, we’re going to add those things. So I’ve learned a lot from listening to your other podcasts in this series about gaps that students are having that we might not observe. So how can we add those things?

A couple years ago, we added the suicide hotline, things like that, that are just new resources or that are reshaped through the university or through other channels that we need to keep adding. Those kinds of things are just going to change because of the nature of the changing world. But like Katherine was saying, we have a really good foundation of the content we have in there and just making those updates as we need every couple years.

Listen to previous episodes of Voices of Student Success here.