Information for Faculty
Faculty Introduction
to CWiC
CWiC Grants for Faculty
Introduction to CWiC
CWiC is a University of Pennsylvania program committed to developing students' oral communication abilities and to helping faculty use student speaking as a teaching strategy. The program helps faculty to use student presentations and other speaking assignments in the classroom as a means to facilitate student learning. By engaging in oral assignments, students can learn both course content and critical thinking. And in doing so, students can develop their speaking abilities.
To achieve these goals, CWiC works with faculty and their students. CWiC helps faculty integrate oral communication into their courses, offering suggestions for creating assignments and on-going support to make those assignments successful. Throughout the semester, CWiC advises students as they prepare their oral work: trained undergraduate speaking advisors provide students with critical feedback on their work before they present it in class.
For faculty who already use oral assignments, CWiC can help improve the quality of their students' spoken work. For faculty who do not use speaking assignments, CWiC can help them to create individual or group projects that push students to learn in new ways and to take a more active role in the classroom.
Ways to use CWiC:
CWiC strives to enhance the teaching faculty already do by providing them with support to add speaking components to your courses. That can mean different things in different courses; the program is designed to be flexible. Oral assignments need not be limited to formal presentations: CWiC advisors will also work with students on debates, panel discussions, mock trials or class discussions, to offer a few of the possibilities. And CWiC affiliates with many types of courses, from seminars to large classes with teaching assistants.
Faculty may choose to affiliate their courses with CWiC and receive support throughout the semester. Affiliated courses require students to complete at least one oral assignment. Students must prepare their work in advance, and meet with an advisor to discuss and rehearse it. Faculty must then evaluate the students' work formally. CWiC can offer help establishing grading criteria.
CWiC also maintains a speaking center open to all students. Advisors are available to critique specific presentations and oral assignments or to discuss speaking skills more generally. All faculty are welcome to encourage their students to visit the center.
Faculty interested in working with CWiC or simply learning more about the program are invited to contact Dr. Sue Weber , Associate Director, at (215) 746.3543.
CWiC Grants for Faculty
Each year CWiC awards up to two $3,000 grants to faculty to develop and teach a Speaking-About Seminar. All faculty teaching undergraduate seminars are invited to apply.
Speaking-About Seminars are regular classes in the instructors' discipline that are also experimental speaking-centered courses, ones in which over half of student assignments are oral. In other words, the predominant way in which students formally engage course materials and are evaluated on their learning would be through various kinds of speaking assignments. Otherwise, though, these are ordinary departmental courses, expected to cover regular departmental subject matter. Faculty are welcome to create a new course as a Speaking-About Seminar or to adapt an existing course that does not yet rely heavily on student speaking assignments. Note that Speaking-About Seminars require more speaking assignments than and are not the same as other CWiC-affiliated courses.
The goals here are to encourage faculty experimentation and creativity with oral work and to offer students new ways of learning and thinking about their subject matter. It is not the intention here to suggest that speaking assignments should, in general, replace essays or written exams.
To apply for a CWiC course development grant to teach a Speaking-About Seminar, faculty should submit a vita and course proposal to CWiC, 3619 Locust Walk, mail code 6213 by April 15th. Proposals should include a course description, a brief preliminary syllabus, a description of speaking assignments to be used, and a discussion of the ways proposed speaking assignments further the educational goals of the course. Proposals should not exceed eight pages.
Faculty are welcome to consult with CWiC's associate
directorDr. Sue Weber, with any questions or in putting
together their materials.