Storytelling plays a central role in human communication and in conflict. This activity can be used to teach students the importance of telling stories to better understand conflict or simply to practice storytelling. By engaging in mediations, students simulate the process of resolving conflict, practice storytelling, and improve their active…

Courses: Introduction to Communication Theory, Small Group Communication, Organizational Communication, or any class with a group-based component. Objectives: This activity aims to engage students more deeply in group role-playing activities, reduce stereotyping and prejudice in a popular activity, and enhance students' understanding of group…

Courses: Crisis Communication, Crisis and Issue Management, Writing for Public Relations, Public Relations Capstone. Objective: This unit activity refines traditional simulation activities used in crisis communication education. By partnering with crisis management professionals and developing localized, multi-stage scenarios grounded in the…

Courses: Public Relations, Organizational/Crisis Communication, Social Media in Organizations. Objective: The goal for this activity is for students to simulate an organizational response to an environmental/health crisis impacting their business operations. By working through various components of a crisis event, students apply theoretical…

Courses: Conflict communication, negotiation, small group. Objective: This activity will enhance students' awareness and critique of their own negotiation behaviors. A list of references and suggested readings is included.

Courses: This unit activity is intended for public relations (PR), crisis communication, or journalism courses. Objectives: The purpose is to equip future PR professionals with critical thinking skills and experience to manage crises. Students demonstrate mastery in two ways: by crafting clear crisis response messages and materials in a narrow…

Crises threaten high-priority goals of impacted organizations. In the field, trainings range from overviews of crisis plans to full-scale exercises that simulate a crisis. In the classroom, simulations engage multiple learning styles, and allow students to reflect on observations and provide recommendations. The objectives for this unit activity…

Courses: Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication. Objectives: This activity encourages students to learn collaboratively about diversity through the sharing of student experiences; deepen and complicate their understanding of organizational diversity; and enhance their ability to apply course material to increasingly complex…

This article describes an activity in which students will be able to apply rhetorical theory effectively and critically from specific theorists throughout history to modern-day issues. Through a simulated trial of a current figure, this activity makes connections between rhetorical theories to current affairs, thereby inviting students to consider…

This article describes an activity whose objective is for students to gain self-awareness related to the ways in which humans (consciously or not) alter their self-presentation depending upon the context, thereby maintaining different "faces." Also, this activity aims to highlight effectiveness related to different modes of nonverbal…

This article describes a realistic online crisis unit, in which students practice: (1) responding to fast-paced information on multiple social media channels; (2) coordinating and making team decisions; and (3) creating effective responses. These skills are required for entry-level positions such as digital specialists and community managers,…

The authors of this article believe that the introductory speech course described here is a good fit for this sophomore-specific assignment for several reasons. First, the introductory speech course is often taken in the first 60 hours. Most students taking the course are in their second, third, or fourth semesters. Second, this assignment is a…

The subject of research methods is often unknown, foreboding, and unappealing to undergraduate communication majors. Thus, in the research methods course, two ways to overcome such issues and achieve learning are by: (1) making the unfamiliar more familiar and accessible; and (2) placing abstract knowledge in its useful real-world context. Making…

Courses: Fundamentals of public speaking, basic hybrid course, introduction to communication, introduction to journalism, introduction to advertising, and any other course that includes components of communication ethics. Objective: Students will understand the fundamental elements of communication ethics.

Although Western cultures tend to view dolphins as friendly and benevolent, in Japanese fishing communities, "iruka" (dolphins) are often viewed as food or pests. These perspectives have led to intense conflicts between Japanese fishermen and activists from the west. This article presents an exercise that simulates intercultural conflict by asking…