Saint Mary's College



SMC Core Curriculum Course Proposal FormSupplement 2: Teaching and LearningProposer: Makiko ImamuraDepartment: CommunicationCourse: COMM112 Interpersonal CommunicationSyllabus: Current course syllabus containing a course description and a list of learning outcomes. The course’s learning outcomes must include coverage of the Learning Outcomes associated with the Core Curriculum Learning Goal for which the course is being proposed.Please see Supplement 1: Syllabus and Schedule.Teaching and Learning: A narrative that explains how the course will guide students toward achieving each Learning Outcome and how coursework (e.g., papers, exams, videotaped presentations) will be used to measure student achievement of each Learning Outcome. Please address the outcomes directly and one by one.Overview of Course Content and AssessmentCOMM112 Interpersonal Communication course is designed to provide students with theoretical and practical knowledge of interpersonal communication and its outcomes in various contexts (e.g., intercultural, workplace, friendship, romantic relationship, family, and conflict) in contemporary American society (i.e., late 20th-21st century). At the completion of this course, students are expected to be able to provide theoretically grounded explanations of interpersonal communication behaviors and relational outcomes, to critically evaluate theories and literature on interpersonal communication, and to conduct a basic research project using a social scientific methodology (see also Course Objectives in Syllabus). From a practical standpoint, theoretical knowledge helps students improve their interpersonal communication and relationship management skills. Hence, this course is structured to enrich students’ understanding of “what it has meant and means to be a human in relationship with others.”In general, assessment tools used in this course include formal paper assignments (e.g., research project phase 1 and phase 2), reflection assignments (e.g., journals), group project, quizzes, and exams. In general, reflection assignments provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of the learned theories and concepts by reflecting on their experiences and observations. Quizzes and exams are used to help students establish accurate understanding and practical applications of the learned theories and concepts. Paper assignments are designed to assess students’ ability to conduct a basic research project on a topic of their choice. The following section will address how each Learning Outcome is achieved in this course (i.e., Teaching and Learning).Learning Outcome 1 (i.e., examine human activity in particular periods or places from a social, cultural or historical perspective)COMM112 primarily focuses on social and cultural perspectives in understanding our everyday communication behaviors. The majority of course content adheres to interpersonal communication in social contexts, such as friendship, romantic relationship, family, and workplace in the U.S. Students examine their identity (e.g., gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity), role (i.e., roles in workplace, family, and romantic relationship), and communication behaviors (e.g., self-disclosure, use of verbal and nonverbal languages, and conflict management styles) in these contexts. In addition, this course provides opportunities for students to take racial, ethnic, and national culture into account for culture shapes human behaviors in various communication contexts. For example, students learn differences in communication behaviors and relationship maintenance in the individualistic (i.e., American) and collectivistic (e.g., China, Japanese, and Korean) cultures. Learning Outcome 1 is assessed primarily in the reflection assignments followed by quizzes and exams. The reflection assignments often ask students to reflect on their own identities and roles in their day-to-day communication situations. Some examples of the reflection assignment questions/statements include “Describe how, in a recent conversation, your self-fulfilling prophecy influenced the outcome of the conversation or the situation,” and “During a conflict episode in your own family, who takes the ‘blamer’ role, ‘placate’ role, ‘computer’ role, and ‘distracter’ role? Do you think that these four roles depict communication process during conflict?” Through these exercises, students build in-depth understanding of their self-concept, communication behaviors, and the consequences of communication behaviors on human relationships in contemporary American society. Furthermore, quizzes and exams are used to test students’ ability to articulate interpersonal communication as the fundamental human activity.Learning Outcome 2 (i.e., demonstrate an understanding of theories of human behavior, relations, culture, or institutions; or interpretations of historical causation and change) COMM112 is taught as a theory based content course. Thus, it is expected that students learn the major theories of interpersonal communication and interpersonal relationships and that they can provide explanations and interpretations of their everyday communication behaviors using an appropriate theoretical framework. For example, attraction theory explains why we are drawn to others. As the course content develops, uncertainty reduction theory and social penetration theory illustrate the functions of communication (e.g., self-disclosure) in the development of interpersonal relationships. Predicted outcome value theory and social exchange theory further describe the underlying human motives to maintain existing relationships. In addition, several other communication models that describe impression formation, conflict management styles, and intercultural communication are discussed. In intercultural communication contexts, Hofstede’s taxonomies explain communicative and behavioral differences in various intercultural contexts. Similar to Learning Outcome 1, Learning Outcome 2 is assessed primarily in the reflection assignments followed by quizzes and exams. Students have opportunities to articulate their understanding of these theories in the reflection assignments. In addition, quizzes and exams assess accuracy and depth of students’ understanding of the theories. Typically, multiple choice and true/false questions are designed to assess accuracy of understanding, while short answer/essay questions are designed to assess depth of understanding. Students are also highly encouraged to use a theory that is relevant to a topic of their choice in their research project paper assignments.Learning Outcome 3a and 3b (i.e., employ social science or historical methodology to collect and interpret evidence about the social world) Two components of Learning Outcome 3 are explicitly and implicitly encompassed in COMM112. In the discipline of communication, interpersonal communication is studied through the social scientific lens. This includes experiment and survey (i.e., online, paper, interviews) methodologies as well as statistical (and content) analyses to draw a conclusion about human communication behaviors. The textbook is written based on the findings from previous social scientific research and the majority of additional reading materials involve prior studies using an experiment and/or survey method. These course materials ensure that students are exposed to one or more of these methodologies and analytical tools. Furthermore, students are expected not only to gain general knowledge about the methodological approach in interpersonal communication but also to learn how to conduct a basic research project using an appropriate method.Learning Outcome 3 is assessed primarily in the research project paper assignments, quizzes, and exams. Students’ comprehension of social scientific research articles is assessed using quizzes and exams. The two-sequence research project paper assignments assess students’ learning in terms of their ability to choose variables in the topic of their choice, conduct library research and identify social scientific research articles, write a sufficient literature review on the topic, construct a basic survey (i.e., close-ended or interviews), collect and analyze a small set of data, and interpret and synthesize the results. The data is analyzed using either a statistical procedure for close-ended survey or a content/thematic analysis for interviews. As students write their discussion section of the paper, they are asked to summarize and synthesize the findings by providing implications to the society we live in. Overall, the paper assignments, quizzes, and exam aim to teach students skills to interpret the findings from their own and from the existing social scientific studies in the context of interpersonal communication. ................
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