Speaking of Easy

Well, here we are again—it’s Saturday, not Friday! I’m still working on finding my rhythm, and honestly, figuring out how to carve out time to write a couple times a week is tougher than I thought. For now, I’m committing to one post a week while I settle into the swing of Fall teaching and work. This week? All about teaching, but before that was a three day weekend! Let’s join Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything for…

Paddleboarding!

Over the long weekend, I carved out time for paddleboarding with a friend, and wow—what a gift. The water was peaceful, the workout was real, and the surprises were magical: a beaver, an otter, and more birds than I could count. Each trip makes me appreciate my paddleboard even more. Tomorrow we’re planning a Full-Moon Paddle, and I can’t wait to share those photos with you next week.

Teaching Speech – Week Two

This week was one of those “yes, this is why I teach” weeks. After 20+ years, I still love when a class comes together around great speeches and meaningful conversations.

In my public speaking in-person class, we looked at some exemplary speeches and analyzed them using some rhetorical concepts. We looked at Ashton Kutcher’s Kid’s Choice Lifetime Achievement Award speech, the pre-game inspirational speech from the movie, Miracle (this one still gives me chills), Denzel Washington’s AFI Lifetime Award speech, and what might be the greatest convocation speech ever given (and makes me wish I would have been a Georgia Tech student). It is always fun to hear the student perspectives on the different speeches and help them to notice aspects they may have missed before our class.

In my online public speaking class, we had Tech Check sessions in Zoom. I do these about two weeks before the first speech so everyone can check their cameras, microphones, learn some of the Zoom tools for the class and meet a few others from the class synchronously. It is tough scheduling all these around the myriad of student schedules and my own busy schedule, but I got them all in! I have them introduce themselves, and then focus on the tools I think are really important for our class:

• Views – speaker most of the time, gallery when speaking. And I always tell them about “hide self view” in case looking at themselves makes them more nervous.
• React – this little button with the heart shaped icon lets audience members react to speakers with emojis and I find some of my students really like it. It helps speakers feel heard and understood and audience feel a little more connected. I love the ones with effect!
• Chat – to give compliments to speakers after they speak. In the classroom, this happens often with neighbors telling neighbors “good job” as they get back to their seat or someone saying “I went to the same high school as you.” as they walk back to their seat. I tell them these are great to put in chat so the speaker knows and hears!
• Polls – I think polls are a great attention getter in Zoom. It is easy for people to get distracted, be on a different tab, etc. But, putting a poll up makes everyone come back to the Zoom screen to answer and then they’re more likely to stay. It also helps with adapting to the audience!
• Video settings – I focus on the low-light adjustments because many of my students don’t have the brightest of spaces for speech sessions. I also tell them about Portrait Lighting because that brightens them up as well. I show them blur for their backgrounds as well.

That’s about it. It isn’t a ton of stuff, but I find it really alleviates some of the nervousness for students on the first speech sessions.

Teaching Argumentation – Week Two!

My other subject is Argumentation and Advocacy, formerly Argumentation and Debate. This week, we established Community Agreements based on our campus Community Agreements (https://lnkd.in/ge5K9KN9) and each individual did reflective thinking about their experience with arguing and disagreements. Then, by day two, we were already into a group debate!

The topic? Whether traditional grading should be abolished in favor of alternative approaches. Students came prepared with research, and those who missed prep day jumped in as judges.

Here’s how the debate flowed:

1. Each side had a 10-minute strategy session to line up five opening speakers.
2. Those speakers delivered one-minute arguments, alternating sides. Everyone stood up, addressed the judges, and most drew on research.
3. Teams regrouped for five minutes, then sent up five refutation speakers—sometimes complimenting the other side’s points before challenging them.
4. After another quick strategy break, each side delivered a closing speech. By this point, only one speaker remained on each side, so it worked out perfectly.
5. Judges voted, explained their reasoning, and were generous in their feedback.
6. Finally, we debriefed with a discussion of framing, extending, defending, and the classic three-step refutation.

The result? An energetic, thoughtful debate that impressed both me and the students. What a way to start the semester!

So that’s my week in a nutshell: paddleboarding with otters, full-moon adventures ahead, and classrooms buzzing with speeches and debates. I’m constantly reminded why I love what I do and how important it is to try new things. What about you? How’s your fall shaping up so far? Drop a comment and let me know what’s keeping you excited (or exhausted!) these days. Hopefully, I will see you here on the blog BEFORE next weekend!