The TEDxLSU Student Creative Communications Team: Integrating High Impact Practices to Increase Engagement, Facilitate Deep Learning, and Advance Communication Skills.
This article provides background on Louisiana State University's Communication across the Curriculum (CxC) program and details the history and logistics of its experiential learning and community outreach event TEDxLSU. In particular, the authors provide details on the Student Creative Communications Team (SCCT) which conceptualizes, plans, and implements the broader community event with communications mentoring from CxC staff, faculty, and industry partners. In collaborative projects that span two semesters, the SCCT members engage in multiple high impact practices to improve their communication and critical thinking skills. Assessment of the SCCT's experiences has been conducted through on line surveys of student participants and the industry partners who mentored them. The article concludes with suggestions for WAC/WID program administrators who seek ways to expand students' learning and communication experiences through engagement in campuscommunity events. As communication technologies evolve, people change what, where, when, why, and how they compose. In tandem, writing programs must adapt to these changes in communicative contexts, engaging in crossdisciplinary efforts, blending academic and extracurricular programs, and addressing multimodal texts that combine writing, speaking, visual and technological communication in new ways. Likewise where students learn and practice their communication skills is all over the map literally in classrooms, writing centers, learning commons, studios, internships, study abroad programs, and online, just to name a few sites. At Louisiana State University, we have established a campus wide, ever evolving Communication across the Curriculum (CxC) program that serves to improve undergraduate students' written, spoken, visual, and technological communication through multiple initiatives. As we look for new places and ways for students to practice good communication skills, we seek opportunities to brand signature practices that promote high impact educational experiences for students. It is in this context that we launched TEDxLSU in 2013, as part of our effort to bring communities together and promote the effective communication of ideas worth spreading.[1] As the state's flagship university, LSU is an ideal host location for this one day event, and as the academic program dedicated to improving communication for all undergraduates, LSU's CxC is an appropriate organizer. In its third year of hosting TEDxLSU, CxC staff began to recognize and capitalize more fully on Burdette, Galeucia, Liggett, and Thompson 2 the many opportunities it presents for LSU students to engage in authentic, multiple high impact educational practices (HIPs) to improve their communication and critical thinking skills. Enter the TEDxLSU Student Creative Communications Team, another idea worth spreading. In forming the Student Creative Communications Team (SCCT) CxC staff set two goals: to leverage TEDxLSU in a way that improves the quality of the community event and within that context, to provide a robust, communication intensive learning experience for students across disciplines, one rooted in best practices of WAC/WID/CxC programming, including deep/integrative learning. In particular, the SCCT, now in its second year, participates in communication intensive learning communities that conceptualize, plan, and implement collaborative projects for the broader community event. This article provides background about the CxC program; explains the goals, background, and logistics of the TEDxLSU SCCT; details how community engagement with the students benefits all involved; and discusses how assessment of the SCCT experience supports this model as a hybrid high impact practice. Feedback reported in this article was generated by Creative Communications Team students via an online survey and multiple smallgroup informal feedback sessions. CxC staff also collected informal feedback from students, as well as from industry partners who supported TEDxLSU activities. Finally, we offer suggestions for other WAC/WID programs to consider should they want to implement similar opportunities for student engagement related to campus/community wide events. About LSU CxC and Community Outreach: From Student Digital Media Fest to TEDxLSU The TEDxLSU Student Creative Communications Team 3 Begun in 2004, CxC's core programming includes working with faculty to embed communicationintensive (C I) teaching and learning within the disciplines, supporting discipline specific communication studios across campus, and providing advanced learning experiences for students through the LSU Distinguished Communicator (DC) Certification program. CxC's staff is comprised of four full time studio coordinators whose expertise includes disciplinespecific knowledge of communication in science, engineering, art and design, and humanities and social sciences; one visual and technological communications expert; a tenured professor with a 50% appointment as director and experience in writing center administration; a full time associate director specializing in program management, faculty development, public relations, and business communication; and one quarter time administrative assistant. Through its core work with C I Courses, CxC Studios, and the DC Certification, CxC staff serves nearly 500 faculty and 9,500 students each academic year (just over a third of LSU's undergraduate population) Its success led CxC to be named the sole recipient of the Conference on College Composition and Communication's 2010 Program of Excellence Award. To advance its student centered mission, CxC continues to pilot new initiatives that facilitate deep learning through communication intensive experiences. In 2006, CxC created and hosted the LSU Student Digital Media Fest. The goal of the Fest was to encourage campus wide student experimentation with innovative communication technologies and to showcase students' talents to an LSU audience and the surrounding Baton Rouge community. To embed CxC pedagogy into the Fest, CxC faculty and staff mentored the student presenters, videotaping their presentations and offering feedback and instruction to improve their oral communication. In late 2012, CxC staff realized that in many respects, the Fest had evolved into a grassroots, mini version of TEDx Talks. TED is a global nonprofit that brings together scholars, community activists, and innovators to present brief talks on important ideas in all disciplines. To foster dialogue at local levels and increase access to TED like experiences, TED created the local licensing program, TEDx. The main difference between CxC's LSU Student Digital Media Fest and TEDx was not so much in the format as it was in the brand awareness. TED already has a world wide audience, including many student fans. TEDx offered CxC a unique opportunity: an established platform by which to highlight the importance of effectively sharing and communicating ideas, while emphasizing collaboration between faculty, students, and the community and gaining public recognition through minimal marketing efforts. In March 2013 CxC hosted the first TEDx event in Baton Rouge. TEDxLSU's objectives include providing a program to bring together local, regional, and statewide communities; being a catalyst for the effective communication of "ideas worth spreading" and spurring meaningful, engaging, intellectual and creative dialogues. TEDxLSU 2013 featured 23 speakers; sold 100 community tickets; recruited 50 student volunteers to support day of event management; and hosted a free, live simulcast for 150 students. What Burdette, Galeucia, Liggett, and Thompson 4 struck CxC faculty and staff was that in less than three months of planning, CxC had achieved greater student participation and community interest with TEDxLSU than it had in all six years of its Student Digital Media Fest, mainly because of TED's loyal following. For the 2014 event, CxC continued to refine TEDx: more preparation time, a larger venue and a more accessible ticket pricing structure, improved speaker coaching, and more spotlights on student work. As a result, TEDxLSU 2014 saw even greater successes: 15 featured speakers; 7 student groups operating handson activity stations; 75 day of student volunteers; 400 community, student and faculty tickets sold for the live event; and leading community organizations connecting with TEDxLSU to ask how they could become involved as in kind and/or cash partners.[2] In the initial planning stages for TEDxLSU 2015, CxC staff faced an exciting challenge: how best to engage the surge of students asking to be more involved with the event something that never happened with the Media Fest. To elevate the impact of communication intensive teaching and learning opportunities across campus and in the community in a manner supported the University's goals of student engagement and retention, CxC staff initiated the TEDxLSU Student Creative Communications Team in fall 2014. Recruiting the TEDxLSU Student Creative Communications Team: Membership and Motivation In designing the TEDxLSU Student Creative Communications Team (SCCT) CxC sought a structure that would expand the human resources needed to host TEDx while also engaging students in robust experiential learning. In fall 2014, broadcast emails and social media posts invited self motivated LSU students from any major and classification to apply online (see Application in Appendix A) The call explained that the team would be responsible for the core communication functions of TEDx, including "envisioning, planning, and executing various creative elements related to promoting, positioning, and hosting TEDxLSU" in February 2015. Applicants were promised that if selected to join the team, they would receive a unique opportunity to hone their communication skills, interact with industry professionals, meet other enthusiastic students, build their portfolio, and make the