I Really Hate 8AM Classes

So unlike most of the people who've posted, I'll just go ahead and admit that I didn't make it to every class, or even most classes. In fact, I probably made it to maybe 80% of classes, and that's a generous estimate. I learned my lesson and am never scheduling anything before 11am, ever again, if I can avoid it. What it boiled down to was me waking up in the morning when my 7:40 alarm went off and asking myself whether it was worth dragging myself out of bed (I have insomnia and can't fall asleep until 2 or 3 am most nights...well, pretty much every night so far), brushing my teeth, getting dressed, and drudging to class. The answer was, alot of times, no, it wasn't worth it. Making attendance mandatory and graded wouldn't have helped; when it comes down to it, I honestly think students don't attend class in most cases because they feel they won't gain anything from attending class.

Of course, I fully believe the material this class covered certainly taught me some things that I didn't know before about oral communication. However, these things were few in comparison to the larger majority of material, which was really just general knowledge in this age. It's like teaching swimming to a fish; as 18-22 year olds in the 21st century, a lot of what we learned, well, we already knew. Eye contact with your audience is important? Open body language sends a responsive attitude? Most, if not all, of us already knew these things as common sense.

(No!)

That being said, things like haptics, ocalics, gestics; language-explosion theory; cognitive processing-- these were things and terms I never knew before, and were concretely new material that was taught. But these new ideas were few and far between lessons on the purposes of listening, the role of informative listening, and so on and so forth. If I were to make one suggestion, it would be to change the course curriculum, or at least the textbook, to one that centered around more concrete and new materials: things that students can learn, not things they already know and experience daily. Cut out the fat and go more in-depth on real topics that we don't already know. And on that note, a lot of things in Berko & Wolvin are just not supported by the professional communications community- the group phases differ from the generally accepted Tuckman's stages of group development, and the 'language-explosion theory', well, just plain doesn't really exist outside the textbook.

As far as the instructor of the course goes; Andi, I think you were personable, approachable, knowledgeable, and I couldn't have asked for anything more. My only complaints, if I were to be brutally honest, were that I think some of the midterm questions were too subjective; there were many questions where multiple answers could be equally argued as correct. Additionally, I felt the speeches were graded the slightest bit arbitrarily. Otherwise, I really have no complaints. The last-minute cancellations were annoying, but understandable; no one minds class being canceled, but everyone hates not knowing whether class is or isn't until half an hour or an hour before. I think an email sent out the evening before a canceled class, when possible, is reasonable.

I enjoyed the class blog, Youtube channel, and Facebook group; I wouldn’t agree with other students that it was a burden or extraneous and unnecessary. I think it added a novel element to the class; as a prominent member of the social media world, you imparted that valuable and unique knowledge you have in a way other instructors aren’t able to. It, among other things, helped successfully make the class more informal and more about learning than grades, which, in the end, is the aim of every instructor. And I think it was achieved very well.