Teaching during the 2020-21 academic year has been an exhausting experience. I had one, yes, only one, student show up for any of the scheduled virtual class meetings or office hours this spring term.
I was teaching public speaking, a course emphasizing rhetorical analysis. A class without students? There’s no oral discussion, no communication.
Rhetoric requires communication between people.
Asynchronous courses use discussion boards and recordings in place of real-time (synchronous) interactions. The two are different, emphasizing different skills and modes of communicating. I was at least hoping for a hybrid online course: guiding some live discussions and using asynchronous tools. (In the past, hybrid referred to courses that met in person and used online tools, but the coronavirus pandemic moved most instruction online.)
“Even reading is a form of discussion, a rhetorical act,” my colleagues try to argue.
Public speaking is not “speech writing.” It’s not “speech reading,” either.
Teaching a public speaking course online, in a purely asynchronous format, leads to the teaching of media production.
I find myself conflicted. On the one hand, I support a true, broad, liberal arts undergraduate experience with writing, speaking, math, science, history, philosophy, and the arts. Yet, I also understand that was the K12 experience and that for many students, higher education is (and always has been) vocational preparation.
If we’re preparing people for the workplace and civic engagement as they are, then recording speeches and learning about social media reflect the reality of today.
If we’re teaching public speaking, then we should be helping students gain confidence speaking before other people, in person, or at least in real-time.
Either approach has benefits, yet the course I was leading managed to be neither. It was a traditional public speaking syllabus superimposed onto an asynchronous format. If I were to teach a speaking course again, I would revise the syllabus to better align with the “classroom” structure: face-to-face, online/in-person hybrid, synchronous online, asynchronous online, or async/sync online hybrid.
The asynchronous speech class requires that students master recording, editing, and sharing audio or video files. Some students deftly produce near-professional audio, complete with music. Others record in a single take, mumbling their way through the assignments.
If I am teaching public speaking, I want the students in a physical space. I like to create small groups and have the teams take turns practicing their speeches. Learning together, the students engage in genuine feedback and critiques. I walk about the space, offering tips and trying to notice the students in need of extra guidance.
I hope normal does return before I teach again. I also recognize I need to redesign my online courses based on the pandemic experience.
Online in an asynchronous class, the feedback declines. Groups don’t listen to each other closely. The dynamics change.
It isn’t that online is “bad” or “inferior” as a course format. It is different, and it doesn’t align with my teaching methods for a public speaking course. However, online would be ideal for a podcasting or vlogging (YouTube videos) class.
To teach “speaking” again, I would revise the assignments to state, “You are preparing a two-minute podcast segment.” I’d revise the contexts, so the assignments reflect realistic audiences.
Before the pandemic, I asked students to attend public meetings and listen to the speakers. I asked them to speak to organizations on campus. They could seek out community groups, like the Toastmasters. During the pandemic, meetings moved online. Some public bodies changed local comments and questions to text chats. Typing a message to your city council isn’t the same as standing at the podium.
As programs and departments, we need to reconsider what our shared outcomes and expectations should be after this pandemic experience.
The coronavirus changed business, non-profit, and government meetings. Zoom, Teams, and Meet replaced the podiums and stages. Even for a traditional, in-class course, I might now include at least one audio or video assignment.
What I do know is that “public speaking” and asynchronous courses do not align. Instead, I would call the course something else. What should that new title be on the syllabus for an entirely online asynchronous speech class?