COMD 345 (Communication and Aging)

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID: [Course name/number]
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract:  This collection of open resources and zero-cost course materials are being utilized in a Communication Sciences and Disorders course for undergraduate students by Ying-Chiao Tsao at California State University, Fullerton. These materials provide the breadth of course materials for the various topics covered and some supplemental materials to support student writing/research. The main motivation to adopt open and zero-cost resources was to reduce costs and provide materials that were better organized and easier to access for students. Most student access the materials through Canvas. 

COMD 345 (Communication and Aging)
Brief Description of course highlights:  Communicative changes found in older adults, including normal and pathologic changes in the physiological and behavioral aspects. Diagnosis, rehabilitative strategies, social implications and health care systems.

Student Population: Include majors, typical incoming knowledge (i.e. prerequisites). Department majors- course serves as an elective for degree completion. Prerequisite- Oral Comm A.1. GE requirement

Learning or student outcomes:  By the end of this course, students will:
1. Demonstrate increased awareness of aging effects on communication and swallowing and their impact on community attitudes, social participation, and political policy on health.
2. Be able to describe the normal course of aging and its influences on speech, hearing, and swallowing; describe differences between healthy and pathological issues in aging.
3. Be resourceful for older clients or adults, and healthcare providers
4.  Be able to apply general principles associated with assessment in making an appropriate differential diagnosis and developing culturally/linguistically appropriate intervention programs for communicatively handicapped bilingual/bidialectal and culturally different aging adults.

Syllabus and/or Sample assignment from the course or the adoption
- Lesson and quiz on APA citation
-  Journal readings required for the annotated bibliography assignment

 Key challenges faced and how resolved:

• Time and complexity to build the Chapters 
  • It may take 2-3 cycles to ease out the technology complexity
• Some students were not as familiar with the technology.
  • It required some scaffolding strategies

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: 

Brief Description: Provide a brief description of the textbook, OER or Low Cost option, including anything relevant to your choice.

Please provide a link to the resource:  Basically, in addition to PPT slides, my teaching materials included mainly the info (e.g., journal articles, diagram, etc.) available online. As the first time using the OER textbook, th framework was purposely kept it simple without too much embedded info. I plan to embed Google ChatGPT as one of the course assignments, flipped classroom reading assignment, as well as off-line quizzes.

Communication and Aging by Jon F. Nussbaum, Loretta L. Pecchioni, James D. Robinson, and Teresa L. Thompson (library ebook)
-  This text employs a communication perspective to examine the aging process and the ability of individuals to adapt successfully to aging.

Communication and Aging: Creative Approaches to Improving the Quality of Life by Linda S. Carozza (library ebook)
-  This text examines how professionals can inspire and develop programs that allow patients to live successfully with their disorders.

Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders: Methods for Systematic Inquiry by Lauren K. Nelson and Jaimie L. Gilbert (library ebook)
-  This forward-thinking book reflects the movement toward evidence-based practice in speech-language pathology and audiology.

Student access: As indicated above, the online information mainly from journal articles available from a few reliable and relevant professional websites, and some from OER repository, MERLOT.   

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.
Toner, M.A., Shadden, B.B., & Gluth, M.B. (2011). Aging and Communication. International Pro-Ed Publisher. -- $41.94

Harwood, J. (2007). Understanding Communication and Aging. SAGE Publication --$81.51

Printed course packet compiled by me -- $55 

 License: PowerPoints are unlicensed, library materials are copyrighted but available through unlimited user licenses. 

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. Using a combination of sources allowed for more flexibility to incorporate materials that related to issues in the field, how it connects to the daily life of practitioners, and evidence-based and clinical-focused works.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? Online search and publishers’ websites, library resources

Sharing Best Practices:  The sustainability of open education relies on sharing with others. Please give suggestions for faculty who are just getting started with OER or Low Cost options. List anything you wish that you had known earlier.

• If textbooks are what you will be teaching, contact the librarians who can be very helpful to identify the sources or purchase some of them for the class.  
• I am the person, textbooks are typically only used for supplemental for my teaching. The use of OER has definitely helped the class to save money.  

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned:
-  I have long wanted to build an e-text for the class. The OER platform has surely given me the flexibility and a means. 

-  I am still in the process of learning to build a more comprehensive e-text.

Instructor Name:  Ying-Chiao Tsao
I am a Communication Sciences and Disorders professor at California State University, Fullerton. I teach COMD 300: Introduction to Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders, COMD 345: Communication and Aging, and COMD 475: Fluency Disorders.

Please provide a link to your university page.
https://communications.fullerton.edu/comd/

Please describe the courses you teach.
COMD 300: Understanding and using professional literature in communication sciences and disorders and using that literature to generate a formal research paper. A passing grade fulfills the course requirement of the university upper-division baccalaureate writing requirement for communicative disorders majors.

COMD 475: Theories of development and remission of stuttering, constitutional and environmental risk factors. Clinical characteristics of stuttering. Contemporary approaches to assessment and treatment. Lecture, demonstration, clinical observations and exercises.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.

• My teaching philosophy is to promote students’ critical thinking and self-efficacy. Through cases, students were exposed with real world challenges and armed with practice skills.  
• The overarching goal of my classes are: “DO NO Harm, be resourceful” and “Join the struggle with being different, grow with them.”
• I have two lines of research. One is the fundamental speech science (“The underly mechanisms of speech rate”). The other is clinical application of the theoretical knowledge (“Pausing strategies in the speech of people who stutter”). 
• For the past few years, my academic focus is on imparting multi-faceted academic training that promotes professional growth and clinical preparation to speech-language clinicians serving diverse populations.