SYLLABUS

COMM 427: Children and Communication: Theeory, Research, Application

This course is an upper division COMM elective course for students pursuing either a Bachelor's of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication. The course is also listed as an elective among those courses required for the Understanding the World of Children Cluster. Pre-requisites: COMM 200s or permission of instructor. Goals of COMM 427 include:

• Increase students' curiosity about the complexities of communication as it occurs in children's relationships, groups, and organizations as well as in electronic forms.
• Increase students' appreciation of the importance of communication research in informing the development of children's positive communication practices.
• Increase students' abilities to use communication knowledge as a means to inform their efforts to develop optimal personal communication practices with children
• Increase students' communication thinking abilities (creative, interpretive, analytical, critical) as they apply to interacting with children and work to facilitate conditions for the optimal development of children's communication abilities.

COMM 527: Children and Communication: Theeory, Research, Application

This course is a beginning-level graduate course relevant for students pursuing Master's degrees at ODU in programs such as the Humanities, Counseling, Health Care, Education, ODU COMM undergraduates who wish to earn graduate credit, as well as those pursuing MA's in COMM at other universities. Although COMM 527 is offerred concurrently with COMM 427, it contains a unique set of assigments, unique weightings for these assignments, higher expectations for the quality of written assignments, as well as expectations of a capacity to review scholarly literature and propose original communication research projects. It is expected that graduate students electing COMM 527 will have taken a research methods course of some kind and/or have a basic understanding of seondary and primary research. Goals of COMM 527 include:

• Increase students' understanding of communication theoreis pertaining to children by means of a written literature review paper
• Increase students' understanding of communication research methods used to investigate children's communication by means of a written literature review paper.
• Increase students' ablities to propose original communication research studies by means of a written research proposal pertaining to an aspect of children's of interest to the student.
• Increase students'  ability to translate the findings of communication theories and research for an undergradaute audience by means of a developing and delivering a classroom lecture.
• Increase students' awareness of educational and professional outlets for those working on children's communication.