Presented by Pam Tracy

In order to meet student needs, the Department of Communication Studies offers several courses in both face to face (over 15 weeks) and asynchronous online (over 4 weeks) learning environments. In doing so, faculty want to be sure that students in these courses are achieving the desired student learning outcomes (SLOs) regardless of mode and length of delivery. It is also desired to design courses that are feasible for both the instructor and the student— courses that enable higher order thinking skills in a healthy learning environment.

Communication Ethics (COMM 400) meets Goal 12 General Education requirement and is designated as a Writing Intensive course in the discipline. The student learning emphasis in this course is ethical reasoning and critical thinking. Ethical reasoning is measured by the final case study exam, and critical thinking is measured by the “course-long” intensive case analysis project. Modified versions of the AACU VALUE rubrics are used to assess these SLOs in COMM 400. The challenge with a 4-week course is that students do not have the same time-on-task necessary to complete an extensive writing assignment.

This presentation focuses on how course assignments and activities were revised to maintain academic rigor, to provide students with meaningful learning opportunities in a time-intensive learning context, and to ensure that students had several chances for much needed ethical reasoning practice. A comparison of the SLOs for the face to face class with the online class demonstrated that we met our pre-determined target; more than 70% of the students earned a passing score on each ethical reasoning and critical thinking learning outcome. This current project takes place within a broader context of curriculum mapping in the Department of Communication Studies. The department is in the process of re-defining program-level student learning outcomes and developing curriculum in targeted courses to introduce and/or reinforce these desired outcomes.

Dr. Pamela Tracy is the Director of the Center for Faculty Enrichment and an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Longwood University. She earned her MA in Mass Communication from Bowling Green State University and her Ph.D. in Communication from The Ohio State University.