Course Information

You may want to reference module titles, topic areas, or specific learning outcomes in your syllabus.

• Topic List for Business Communication
• Business Communication: Detailed Learning Outcomes

Sample Syllabus

This visual syllabus is designed to help you convey openness and connection from the start of class. It includes sample language to describe Lumen One.

• Download a Sample Visual Syllabus – for digital use
• Download a Sample Visual Syllabus – for print

Pacing Guide

This pacing guide provides a suggested course schedule for instructors adopting Lumen One for the first time. It offers a starting point for structuring the course and ensuring coverage of essential concepts while allowing flexibility to accommodate different course formats, student needs, and institutional requirements.

• Pacing Guide for Business Communication

Video List

Videos are incorporated throughout the course to support student learning. To keep the text focused and streamlined, Learn It pages include only select videos that help explain key concepts. Additional videos are available on Apply It pages to support deeper engagement with the material and on Fresh Take pages to reinforce essential concepts through alternative explanations. Some presentation slide decks also include videos that can be used to enrich in-class discussions.

• Business Communication Video List

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Instructor Guides

Instructor Guides are provided for each module to support active learning, conceptual investigation, and collaboration. Each guide includes an overview of the module content, a summary of what students encounter in key sections, and a list of learning outcomes. You’ll also find engaging classroom activities with accompanying materials such as handouts and worksheets. Activities come with a suggested instructional plan, alignment to evidence-based teaching practices, discussion prompts, and an online variation that can be integrated into your LMS for hybrid or asynchronous classes.

Module 1 Instructor Guide: Communicating in Business

Module 2 Instructor Guide: Business Writing

Module 3 Instructor Guide: Channels of Written Communication

Module 4 Instructor Guide: Using Research and Information Tools

Module 5 Instructor Guide: Visual Media

Module 6 Instructor Guide: Business Reports

Module 7 Instructor Guide: Public Speaking

Module 8 Instructor Guide: Presentations

Module 9 Instructor Guide: Social Media

Module 10 Instructor Guide: Written Messages in the Workplace

Module 11 Instructor Guide: Collaboration In and Across Teams

Module 12 Instructor Guide: Communication Challenges in Virtual Environments

Module 13 Instructor Guide: Communication Challenges in Multicultural Environments

Module 14 Instructor Guide: Career Development Essentials

Module 15 Instructor Guide: Recruiting and Selecting New Workers

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Presentation Slide Decks

Google Slides are available for each module to help you introduce and reinforce key concepts in class. Each deck of slides aligns with learning outcomes, providing concise explanations, visuals, video, and opportunities for active engagement. They’re designed to complement the Instructor Guides, offering a flexible framework you can adapt for lectures, discussions, or group activities.

Some slides contain notes or links to our Instructor Guides. If you share slide decks with your students, we recommend providing the links to the Accessible Companion Documents (on the first slide of each deck). These contain all the slide content without the speaker notes, decorative images, and formatting – the perfect place for students to take notes, or to use with a screenreader/voice over to listen to the content!

Module 1 Slides: Communicating in Business

Module 2 Slides: Business Writing

Module 3 Slides: Channels of Written Communication

Module 4 Slides: Using Research and Information Tools

Module 5 Slides: Visual Media

Module 6 Slides: Business Reports

Module 7 Slides: Public Speaking

Module 8 Slides: Presentations

Module 9 Slides: Social Media

Module 10 Slides: Written Messages in the Workplace

Module 11 Slides: Collaboration In and Across Teams

Module 12 Slides: Communication Challenges in Virtual Environments

Module 13 Slides: Communication Challenges in Multicultural Environments

Module 14 Slides: Career Development Essentials

Module 15 Slides: Recruiting and Selecting New Workers

Guided Notes

These guided notes serve as a flexible, scaffolded tool to support student learning throughout the course, whether for note-taking in class or working through the Study Plan. Though not comprehensive, they do provide a minimal outline for students to follow and may also be useful as a study guide for students.

Guided Notes by Module

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Assignments and Discussions

In addition to the online variation of the classroom activities found in the Instructor Guides, here are alternate assignments that you can choose from. These are already linked within the Instructor Guides above.

Note about AI use in graded work:

We recognize that there is a wide range of opinions about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education. The approach of these assignments and discussions is to embrace the use of AI because it’s a powerful tool that is here to stay. In a study of over 750 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) consultants, the results indicated that using OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 for ideation and content creation improved 90% of participants’ performance by an average of 40% compared to those who did not use AI. The degree of improvement with the use of AI was greater for lower performing participants than higher performing ones. In contrast, use of AI for complex problem solving resulted in poorer performance compared to human-only output.^[1] The AI-assisted component of these assignments and discussions focus on those ideation and creation tasks rather than interpretive tasks that involve more nuanced problem solving. A summary of the study is available on the BCG website. Each AI-assisted assignment includes:

1. introductory instructions on the use of AI
2. a component stressing the importance of human review of AI content
3. a reflection on the use of AI and the student’s decision-making process in incorporating AI generated content

Assignment Package

This document contains a collection of written assignments and recommendations about how to incorporate them into your course. All major assignments include an optional component where students use an artificial intelligence tool as part of their work process.

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Question Banks for Midterms and Finals

Lumen One provides access to outcome-aligned question banks that you can use to build your own exams. We provide these banks as QTI files, a standard format that allows you to import questions, build, and customize quizzes in most learning management systems. These files cannot be opened outside of an LMS. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is your responsibility to handle question banks and answer keys securely and appropriately to prevent them from being widely available.

How to Import

You must download the question bank specific to your LMS, open the file on your computer, and follow LMS-specific instructions for importing each module.

Please use the import instructions in our Lumen One knowledge-base for Blackboard, Brightspace, Canvas, and Moodle.

Available Question Banks

The question banks include at least 4 questions for every learning outcome throughout the entire course.

• Canvas
• Blackboard/Moodle
• Brightspace D2L

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Offline Content Access

NOTE: the epub contains the Learn It and Apply It content only. There are no interactives, videos, practice questions, or assessments included in these files and some images will not display in this format. You will need to download and open the epub within an e-reader, such as iBooks or ReadEra.

Business Communication EPUB

This epub is designed to assist you in preparation for your course(s) using Lumen One or as a resource for students requiring accessibility accommodations.

If your students are interested in a printed version of the Learn It and Apply It content, we offer 3-hole punched copies which can be ordered through your bookstore or directly by students here.

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