Introduction to Communication

• An online course with lessons related to: reducing speech apprehension, improving public speaking, effectively communicating in small groups, resolving interpersonal conflict, and understanding nonverbal and intercultural communication.

Public Speaking

• An online course that teaches students how to find research and prepare speeches, develop speech outlines and organize different types of speeches, and improving their speech delivery and distinguish their professional voice.

Critical Thinking In Public Argument

• An online course that improves critical thinking by emphasizing the skills required to develop and test arguments in public. Students of this course learn: critical reading tactics, methods of modeling complex arguments, strategies for presenting persuasive messages, techniques for recognizing and refuting weak reasons, and tips for creating values propositions that resonate with distinct audiences.

Survey of Communication Studies

• This online course provides a survey of the contexts, principles, and values of human communication. The course is divided into three areas intended to overview areas of communication scholarship beginning with the history and foundations of the discipline, followed by a survey of rhetorical approaches to public argument, and finally an overview of interpersonal theories of communication.

Digital Persuasion and Design

•  This online course challenges students to understand how media technologies are conceptually, visually, and functionally curated for particular clients and audiences in new media environments and technological interfaces. This course teaches students a number of rhetorical operations integral to structuring ethical and effective user-centered designs. The course overviews the essentials of direct response copywriting and provides a very brief introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Principals of Persuasion

• This course introduces students to theories of persuasion and argumentation. In addition to studying the structure and uses of persuasion and argumentation in various spheres and contexts of communication, students will have an opportunity to practice and apply course skills through various individual presentations, collective deliberations, and persuasive papers.

Rhetorical Criticism

• The purpose of this course is to introduce students to various methods of textual analysis. The course opens with a general introduction to critical reading and a brief history of the development of rhetorical studies. Following this introduction, the course is set up to offer a unit-by-unit focus on various approaches to rhetorical analysis and criticism. Approaches include; narrative and genre analysis, fantasy theme analysis, mythical criticism, as well as applications of critical theory, and considerations of philosophical understandings of space, place, and memory.

The Rhetorical Tradition         

• The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the foundations of rhetorical theory. Students will be engaged in an overview of how rhetoric was taught and practiced in different historical societies and develop an understanding and appreciation of the evolution of rhetoric as a disciplinary pillar of communication studies. The course tasks students with becoming stewards of the tradition as we move from Ancient Greece, to he Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and into periods of Modernism before briefly closing with a consideration of post-modernism and the perpetual search for meaning-making.

Famous Speeches           

• The course seeks to complicate students understanding of famous speeches by widening its focus beyond the most “classic” speech texts to better understand how a range of forms of public address influence or create social change. Forms detailed include; presidential and political addresses, eulogies and celebration speeches, examples of celebrity advocacy and endorsement speeches, and corporate and collective apologies.

Argumentation and Advocacy

• An online course with chapters related to: argumentation theory, public argumentation, deliberation, and debate. Students write and delivery a number of individual persuasive speeches and work together in teams to develop a multi-media campaign. This course requires engagement in multi-person collaborative deliberations and debates. 

Speech and Debate

• Dr. Tschirhart coached and mentored a team of 15 – 30 students through several competitive speech and forensic events including debate, informative speaking, persuasive speaking, rhetorical criticism, and dramatic interpretation. He is proud to have coached one student to a second place championship finish at the National Forensics Association’s Lincoln-Douglas national debate tournament