Climate Change, Persuasion, and Social Influence offers a high-level tour through the barriers and facilitators of effectively communicating climate change to (1) a range of audiences, via (2) a range of mediums, and (3) with a range of persuasive outcomes in mind. This course is also designed to guide students through the development of strong academic writing skills; over the course of the quarter, students will iteratively develop an original campaign proposal that explores a topic of their choosing related to communication and climate change.

Instructor of Record
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Northwestern University

View my syllabus here.

Communication and Misinformation explores the factors that make people vulnerable to misinformation and the reasons that corrections so often fail to change their minds. Students analyze how those tendencies are enhanced by media technologies or exploited by various stakeholders and consider possible remedies that could be employed to combat misperceptions.

Teaching Assistant
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Northwestern University

Instructor: Dr. Nathan Walter

Risk Communication investigates the nature of risk and provides an overview of effective (and ineffective) risk communication strategies. Through readings and lectures situated in the contexts of health and the environment, students examine discoveries in social psychology and communication that inform our understanding of how people interpret risk information and use it to make decisions.

Teaching Assistant
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Northwestern University

Instructor: Dr. Courtney Scherr

Introduction to Public Speaking is a student-centered approach to public speaking with an overarching emphasis on improving critical listening, thinking, and speaking skills. Over the course of the quarter, students learn the basic principles of (1) rhetoric, persuasion, & storytelling; (2) the importance of audience analysis; (3) strategic message design and preparation; (4) the art of effective message delivery; and (5) methods for speech evaluation.

Instructor of Record
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Northwestern University

View my syllabus here.

Difficult Conversations uses a case-study approach and a design perspective to explore difficult conversations in health communication. In this course, students explore a variety of factors that make conversations in health “difficult” and identify message-based strategies for overcoming them. By the end of this course, students are able to critically examine a difficult conversation in health, articulate the factor(s) causing the difficulty, and identify an appropriate theory to inform a message-based solution.

Teaching Assistant
Master’s in Health Communication (MSHC) Program
School of Communication
Northwestern University

Instructor: Dr. Courtney Scherr

Human-Computer Interaction provides an introduction to the role of technology in healthcare and health communication. The class draws on the multidisciplinary insights from human-computer interaction (HCI), sociotechnical systems, and interaction design to explore the application, the design, implementation, and evaluation of information technologies in health contexts.

Teaching Assistant
Master’s in Health Communication (MSHC) Program
School of Communication
Northwestern University

Instructor: Dr. Stefanie Demetriades