Public Relations is also being showcased as a CDL “Featured Course” this month. According to Chukhlomin, “Effective public relations is part of every business’s long term success. The last time you turned an unhappy customer into a loyal patron – that was public relations. The last time your company sponsored a charitable event or a local sports team – that was public relations. The last time your favorite donut shop gave you thirteen donuts when you only paid for twelve, that was public relations. Not following a proper public relations process can quickly ruin a career – just ask Tony Hayward, the ex-CEO of British Petroleum.”

The new Public Relations course will familiarize students with best practices to establishing and maintaining clear, precise, and ethical communications. “People from all types of industries and from all areas of study can learn life-changing lessons from a course in public relations,” said Chukhlomin.

Successful courses are those designed to work in collaboration with learners. Underlying the design of CDL course learning activities is the understanding that our students are adult students, and that it is essential that the activities engage them in meaningful ways. Following current research in the field of adult learning, (Wlodkowski, R. J. 1993), our activities are designed for adult learners who need to:

• know why the learning is required;
• direct their own pace/style of learning;
• contribute their personal/professional/life experiences to the learning environment;
• apply what they have learned to solve real-world problems, and
• feel competent and experience success throughout the learning process.

For example, the Global Climate Change course engages students in a self-directed project called the “CO₂ Calculator”. This activity requires students to directly observe their own daily routines, and then to assess how they might contribute to CO₂ reduction by changing their daily behavior. This hands-on activity invites students to contribute to global energy conservation while also developing an individualized and very personal understanding of the effects of climate change.

Scaffolding activities: A series of role-play introductions to specific work environments, where each work environment is introduced by a first -and report from current employees and business owners (via video).

Collaborative social environment: A course blog was created specifically for the course, while also being open to the academic community. By placing the students in a collaborative social environment like a blog and scaffolding the activities, the students can role-play authentic learning activities.

Glogging allows the expression of opinions, feelings and ideas in a way that isn’t possible with the use of mere words. Students can add background images and themes, graphical representations, photos, titles, audio, links and videos.  After a Glog is created, students publish and share theirs with classmates.