April 24^th Discussion
Discussion Summary

Concerning the SPAM Leadership:

• SPAM's leadership requires:
• 2 year commitment is asked of the co-leaders
• During the first year the co-leader will assist the leader
• During the second year the co-leader will be the primary leader.

• Changes in the Leadership Configuration
• A consensus was reached which determined that there should be three "co-leaders." It was decided that one leader would be from a technical college, one from a community college and another from a 4-year institution.
• The rotation of the new leadership configuration was not decided.

• The leadership team for 1999-2000 include:
• Lisa Larson, Hennipen Technical College (appointed 1998-2000)
• Michelle Heaton, Century College (appointed 1999-2001)
• Lori Halverson-Wente, Winona State University (appointed 1999-2001)

Breakout Notes

Small Group Notes:

Common Outline Factors

We discussed the issue of common course outlines that we see as being very different from syllabi.

We felt that the administration, MNSCU and teachers need to be aware of these differences. The elements of a common outline which we agreed upon is listed below: 

1. Students should be exposed to traditional theories in small group literature.
2. Students should actually experience the small group process.
3. Students should gain experience in evaluating self, others and the group
4. Students should be given opportunities to develop group communication skills.

Other Goals for Consistency

1. The title of a small group class generally has "small group" somewhere in it and our goal is to continue this.
2. A model description of the course can be found in the Normandale Community College Description:

"This course provides instruction in theory and practice in the application of skills learned in the study of small group communication principles. Students will spend a substantial part of their course time participating in groups, completing group projects and analyzing group interaction."

General Common Concerns Which We Discussed:

• Should classroom groups be assigned for the entirety of the semester? Most people seemed to support assigning the same group for the entire semester rather than switching groups throughout the semester.

• Issues related to the assignments of groups include:
  • What happens when people hate their groups? How are groups formed
  • Self selected
  • Random
  • What is the role of peer evaluation in a group class? Should the peer evaluations be private (shared only with the instructor) or public (i.e., a student can see the evaluations made of them from the other group members)?

• How do we balance and account for competitiveness vs. cooperation in the class.

• What is the role of using videotape with groups -- group exercises are videotaped in some schools.

• Service Learning was a popular discussion item.

As an example, at Century College, service learning is a large component of the Small Group Course. Michelle Heaton explained a successful experience she had with service learning. This idea originated with John Wendt. Here is her plan:

• Community funds are established in each group. Each group member contributes $10.00 toward the group's "community fund." The assignment centers around deciding what to do with the money. They choose how to spend the money. A group took funds for a foodshelf. They printed tee shirts and made flyers and then trick-or-treated for food shelves. They collected food items. They wanted to collect 100 items, but instead were able to collect 683 items. The great benefit to this type of assignment is an increased self-esteem and the development of good citizenship. The group members reported to Michelle that they felt like they were doing something meaningful. Another group bought coats for kids.

• The group grade was very important.

• If you are not holding the whole group the entire time, are you not including a key time emergence issue? Some roles, norms, other key elements are time-bound.

Conclusions

In the limited amount of time that we spent together, we were able to identify the four common objectives for a course outline and the other items listed above. We believe that given more time and discussion, it might be possible to identify additional common issues. We need to revisit these items in a few years.

Intercultural Communication Break-Out Session Notes

General Common Concerns:

• The largest area of discussion was the transferability of this course.

Discussion centered around whether or not this class should transfer as a communication course or as a "global studies" or "human diversity" categorized course. Several instructors from smaller colleges said that they specifically did not want this course labeled as a "speech" course. If it is labeled as such, then students might opt to not take the public speaking or interpersonal course. Thus, they gave good reasons to keep the class categorized outside of a speech class distinction.

When further discussing the transferability issue, the group concluded that the 100 level Intercultural Communication Course is well suited for the global studies or human diversity categorization. While some students might want to transfer this credit to a 200 level Communication Course, such as the one at Winona State University, students must be informed that they will need to keep course syllabi and discuss the issue of such a transfer college-by-college. They should not be led to believe that this will transfer as a major course.

• We decided that the intercultural communication course:
• Generally has the name "intercultural communication" in the title.
• Generally is offered as a 3 credit course (yet is a one credit course at a few schools).
• Generally studies cultural patterns of communication.
• Generally explores theory and skills of intercultural communication, yet at different institutions, the theory and skill ratio balance differently.
• Generally includes a variety of assessment tools :
• written intrapersonal reflection of the material (papers and journals)
• theory application especially with examining cultural patterns
• listening and interviewing skills were included in many courses
• active learning was stressed by all participants present.

• Service learning and/or field service work can be very beneficial to the students by giving them first-hand experience in their learning process.
• For example, at Fergus Falls Community College students in this class work with local community ESL students through tutoring and even designing games to promote reading skills. This process culminates with the paper and a speech.
• Julie Ann at North Hennepin Community College offers a field experience assignment in the course The students write a 10-page paper about 10 and make a presentation of their experience.

Concerns Discussed by the Group as a Whole:

• There needs to be more consistency between what is covered in a 100 level and a 300 level course. When reading course descriptions, it was, at times, difficult to see distinctions between 100 level and 300 level course.

• When discussing issues such as transferibility, our goal is clarification rather than one decision to do things one way throughout the state. Representatives from the Community Colleges and the Technical Schools want to be able to tell their students, realistically, whether or not a class will transfer as general education credits or as a major credit.

• 4 core courses of concern here were Interpersonal, Public Speaking, Intercultural Communication, and Small Group Communication.

• There was a great desire to focus on recruiting university membership in SPAM.

• Some concern was raised over "control quality" of the communication major. Participants discussed whether or not students should take major courses in the first 2 years. Suzanne reports that generally 12 credits (at least at Metro State) can be transferred into the major. This is an issue to be revisited.
  

• Can the same course meet the three different student populations? Is it feasible that we can meet the needs of the student looking too transfer after 2 years, the student completing an AA, and the returning student completing a new degree with one course? T

• School counselors are important to the transfer student. A point was made that teachers and counselors should follow this discussion of transferability closely

• Our general conclusion was that community college and technical school credits should transfer as general education courses. However, IF students come into a university communication major and want to transfer intercultural communication as a "major course," we decided that they should have a working knowledge and matching syllabus. While it is fully transferable as an electives, as a course contributing to the major course-work, each campus will decide the transferability.

Agenda Items for 2000

• Assessment
• Kathy Siskar from Mesabi Community College
• Susan Hatfield from Winona State University will be asked, as suggested by Kathryn Kelly.
• Lisa Larson from North Hennepin Community College

• Service Learning

• Technology
• Lori
• Anne Eastey

• Political Power to get ahead of the game

General Items

• We need a common place to disseminate materials -- Lori Halverson-Wente will help work on a web-site. Anne Eastey will help with a quarterly newsletter.

• The publishers of our major texts should be informed that SPAM will be meeting next year, and should be asked to host a reception and to bring freebies to us.

• CTAM needs more CC and Tech Schools represented. CTAM will meet on September 17-18 ^, 1999. This will allow for more communication. We will propose a panel to introduce SPAM to CTAM members.

• A teacher exchange for Type 3 days was discussed. Suzanne offers assistance to any person who wants experience teaching upper division courses. Contact her at Metro State.

• We need to be more rhetorically effective in creating the descriptions of our courses. Syllabi needs to be crafted in a more deliberate way to promote transferability. Rather than writing a syllabus to excite the student, we need to include statements which will assist the student in the transfer process. This can be done by emphasizing the theory and skills taught in the course on the syllabus.