Potential disruptive innovation: online learning of public speaking courses in higher education

Purpose The sudden pandemic of COVID-19 has caused disruptive innovation in all areas of business including education. Despite the educators’ and students’ acceptance and readiness in the new normal, the traditional face-to-face (FTF) public speaking has been shifted to online courses to suit the current needs. This study aims to examine whether there were differences between online and FTF pubic speaking in the students’ anxiety level, speech performance, as well as their perceptions of the challenges in the implementation of online public speaking courses as a potential to disruptive innovation. Design/methodology/approach This pilot study was a mixed method research that involved a purposive sampling of two groups of 39 students in higher education. The instruments used were questionnaires of self-report anxiety, speech performance test and observation. Findings The findings show that the students preferred the traditional FTF rather than the online mode for public speaking courses. The challenges of internet connection and the lack of a live audience were their main concerns in online public speaking. It also provides a potential for disruptive innovation that could take into consideration of a live audience in university online courses. Originality/value This study provides the potential of public speaking course as a disruptive innovation. This brings implications for the innovators, marketers and educators to think of the online courses/programmes that can be best implemented while embracing the changes and the new normal of COVID-19 brings for student learning.

KEGIATAN MENGASAH KEMAMPUAN PUBLIC SPEAKING DAN PRESENTASI ONLINE PADA MAHASISWA UNIVERSITAS TARUMANAGARA

Covid-19 pandemic has affected the learning process in the university. The students and all lecturers are doing distance learning by using video conference apps. They are no longer meeting each other face-to-face in the class. The lecturer should cope with this situation by giving a topic that focused on online public speaking or presentation. The skill of online public speaking or presentation should be delivered to the students from all faculties, not only for communication students. One of the students’ organisations, Mahkamah Mahasiswa, conducted an online event to give its member a piece of knowledge about online public speaking. They invited me as a lecturer of communication science in the Faculty of Communication, Universitas Tarumanagara. Discussion and survey are held just after presentation. The results were that the students realize the importance of public speaking skills in the class and their organisation activities. Then, they also identify that this skill is beneficial for their carrier in the future. Unfortunately, based on their answer, they have not obtained this knowledge in the class, except for communication students. Therefore, the result of this community service event should be considered by all of the faculty in the university. In the reality, students expect to obtain a topic about how to be a good public speaker in the class or an online class. This material can be inserted in one of the subjects, or it can be one of the community service activities along with a member of the communication faculty.Kondisi pandemi Covid-19 membuat proses pembelajaran di perguruan tinggi dilakukan jarak jauh. Komunikasi yang biasanya dilakukan secara tatap muka, beralih menggunakan sarana konferensi video. Situasi ini perlu disikapi dengan pemberian materi public speaking atau presentasi online. Kegiatan pengabdian masyarakat yang dilakukan oleh dosen Program Studi Ilmu Komunikasi Universitas Tarumanagara adalah memberikan materi tentang public speaking atau presentasi online kepada mahasiswa. Dalam kegiatan kali ini, mahasiswa yang memperoleh materi ini berasal dari seluruh fakultas, tergabung dalam organisasi Mahkamah Mahasiswa. Paska kegiatan, pengabdi melakukan diskusi dan memberikan sejumlah pertanyaan terkait kemampuan public speaking atau presentasi dalam ruang kelas online. Hasilnya mahasiswa menyadari pentingnya kemampuan public speaking dalam perkuliahan dan berorganisasi di kampus, bahkan kemampuan ini juga kelak berguna ketika memasuki dunia kerja. Namun, materi ini belum diberikan oleh seluruh fakultas. Hasil kegiatan pengabdian kepada masyarakat ini perlu menjadi evaluasi bagi fakultas agar memberikan perhatian terhadap materi public speaking atau presentasi di kelas dalam pembelajaran jarak jauh. Fakultas bisa menggandeng dosen program studi Ilmu Komunikasi atau praktisi untuk memberikan materi seputar public speaking atau presentasi. Materi bisa disisipkan dalam salah satu mata kuliah, atau sebagai salah satu kegiatan pengabdian kepada masyarakat.

Variations on Exposure Therapy: Best Practices for Managing Public Speaking Anxiety in the Online Communication Classroom

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy techniques offer unique opportunities for comprehensive management of public speaking anxiety in the online public speaking classroom beyond exposure to only the speech-giving act itself. This best practices article outlines nontraditional strategies for incorporating ERP practices in a distance-learning setting.

Exploring Strategies to Improve Oral Communication Engagement Online According to Higher Education Instructors

This chapter addresses the following problem: the strategies higher education instructors need to strengthen the oral communication skills of online undergraduate students have not yet been identified. The exploratory design used semistructured interviews that queried the experiences of 10 undergraduate online higher education instructors tasked with teaching a course with an online public speaking assignment. The population in the study was geographically disbursed and worked remotely within the United States. The conceptual framework guided the study and focused on the general research problem and the ways in which management can improve practices related to teaching and learning. The theoretical construct that was most closely examined was andragogy. The research question asked: What are the strategies higher education instructors need to strengthen the oral communication skills of online undergraduate students? The results of the semistructured interviews uncovered five themes but this chapter examines the theme of student engagement.

Student’s Perception of Online Learning for Public Speaking Course

This research is aimed to find the perception of students on the speaking ability in Public Speaking class during pandemic Covid-19. By communicating to students who are from Public Relation majored, the researchers considered that speaking as a tool of communication should be done intensively. Therefore, within this pandemic teachers and students should change their learning methods from offline face to face to online face to face. The authors stated the problems that the students faced, they are perceptions and difficulties of online public speaking learning. A qualitative method had been used to analyze this case. The authors used the percentage of students as respondents to see the perceptions. The result of this research viewed that students disagree with the online Public Speaking Course. This amount consisted of 35,4% of total respondents that possessed in the second rank. While the first rank with the amount of 36,5% stated hesitation whether should be conducted online or offline. This also made authors and may other researchers to rethink about online Public Speaking Course. Perception, Public Speaking, Online

Teaching Public Speaking Online–Not a Problem but an Opportunity!

This reflection essay focuses on the problems inherent in the design and development of an online public speaking course, which in part result from presuming the course must mirror its face-to-face counterpart. Based on our own experiences and background in designing an online public speaking course, we recommend that instructors and administrators of this course solve such problems by employing design strategies that effectively adapt the course content and pedagogy to a digital context. The essay begins with a description of an integrated course design model (Fink, 2005) that proved useful to us for accomplishing this task. Then we discuss how we used the four components of the initial design stage of this model to take advantage of opportunities for teaching public speaking online.