Anders, Abram. “Student Responses to Networked Learning for Professional Communication.” 79th Annual Association for Business Communication Convention. Philadelphia, PA. October 2014.

See the full length video documentary here.

This presentation offers an overview of student responses and learning outcomes for a business communication course that employs a networked learning pedagogical approach. Results include video clips of focus group interviews and quantitative results from a pre/post survey of student networking skills focusing on confidence and anticipated behaviors.

The course design employs networked learning as a conceptual frame for a pedagogy that promises to rigorously teach specific skills and relevant domain knowledge while also situating these experiences in the context of building technological and social networks that support lifelong learning and professional development. Course activities are organized and shared through custom designed community blog site. The design includes a series of assignments geared toward helping students demonstrate professional competencies and develop professional networks. In addition, it employs peer review processes designed to help scale assessment and feedback in participatory media contexts. Finally, the study addresses the ethical and practical challenges – and the meaningful rewards – of networked learning practices for professional communications pedagogy.