University of Nebraska Kearney

UNK
UNK Academics
Fine Arts & Humanities
Communication
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L. "Jake" Jacobsen
L. "Jake" Jacobsen

jacobsenjl1@unk.edu
        (308) 865-8407

Background    
I graduated from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and Chadron State College. The bottom line is: everyone can be a good speaker; everyone has it in him or her. You'll always use public speaking no matter what field you pursue. Not only in education, every business needs public relations and public speaking can apply to almost anything. Students need to incorporate what you learn with your talents.
Philosophy    
Students need to be led by example. Through my experience and research I know how to give students concrete examples of what needs to be done. I give the speeches that I assign so that students can see what I'm expecting. I've judged state speech for high school students so I've seen good and bad speeches.

I incorporate service learning in all my semester objectives because I think its important that students give back to the community where they live and sometimes the only way to do that is to give students the opportunity to choose. I offer students various activities for credit so they get the choice of activity, day, time that fits their individual schedules. You can tailor the extra credit to your personal college life. I look for diverse activities that will help the students grow and inadvertently teach them what a good feeling it is to give back their talents.

We do a conversation table: many students thought it was an incredible experience to sit and speak with students from different countries. They can choose to go to the elementary school and I give them the option of two different days and two different times to read to kindergarten and first grade students. The children are so impressed by "big" college students, and love the one on one attention they received from someone reading them a book. The education majors win because that is the discipline of their field. The communication majors also benefit because they're speaking to a different audience than they would have in a college setting. Considering Speech 100 encompasses every major on this campus, the remaining students have an incredible experience working one on one with a child.

Classes    
I teach Speech Communication, Speech 100 for the First Year Program and Public Speaking -- Professional and Business. Within Speech 100, not only do we deal with the basic elements of giving a good presentation, we also talk about the talents you have and how important it is to encourage your talents and educate them and give your talents back.