devry SPCH275 all week discussions latest 2015 spring

This discussion will enable us to lay some of the theoretical groundwork for communication and public speaking. Let's begin by exploring the basics. How do you define the term communication? Take a few minutes to go through the "Is This Communication?" activity included in this week's lecture material and report your results.

What have your experiences been with public speaking? Try to share with us a little about the things that you have already done in your personal and professional lives.

After reviewing this week's material on listening, share with us some of your listening habits and views. Do you find yourself practicing useful listening habits or do you have some habits that might be working against you?

Picking a topic often proves difficult for people, so it's helpful to have some dialogue about how to do that. Begin with some ideas about how someone might begin to pick a topic for a presentation. What are some good approaches?

Part of establishing a strong audience-centered perspective is about knowing to analyze and adapt to an audience. What are some frames of reference identified in the text that may influence how an audience may interpret your messages? Discuss how some of what you mention might influence the meaning of your message.

diss 2

Think about the purpose of criticizing presentations. What are some of the practical things you might be able to gain from this?

week 4

Please take a look at these four sample slides (SPCH275_Week_4_Discussion.pptx in doc sharing) that demonstrate some of the common mistakes of designing effective visual media. Let's have a few people share their critique of these slides and explain why they probably do not work so well. What is the downside of having such ineffective slides?

Let's discuss some of the reasons why we need to support presentations with research. What may enable you to choose research sources well and avoid traps of using poor quality sources?

week 5

Think about something you have found online that persuaded you. It might be a video, an article, or any other form of rhetoric. Let's have a few people share a sample with the group and then post a minianalysis for why it seemed so convincing. Try to be specific as you break down the content.

Review this list of possible goals, and begin to discuss how you might apply them in a contemporary context as a communicator developing your skills:

• To pursue mastery of oral, written, visual, and nonverbal communication
• To use a variety of communication media with proficiency
• To continue to use and develop communication skills on an ongoing basis
• To design communication with an audience-centered focus in mind
• To maintain a standard of ethics with communication
• To engage in the political process to aid in bettering the world
• To use communication to foster clarity and understanding
• To seek out and learn new ways of enhancing communication experiences

This week, we take a more advanced look at persuasion, with the ultimate aim of attempting to apply possible strategies to your Course Project, in addition to your understanding of successful persuasive formulas, tactics, and strategies. Begin by sharing some of the ways persuasion may show up in your Course Project.

Communication usually becomes more and more complex with each person who is added to the interaction. Because of this complexity, let's begin to think of the ways that we modify the messaging when communicating within a group. What are some of the ways we may communicate to a group working together? Later in the week, we will move on to how this affects presenting as a group.