Course Descriptions

Meets MnTC Goal Areas 1 and 2. This course is designed to provide individuals with basic communication principles for positive relationships in career settings. This is accomplished through oral, written and intra/interpersonal communication skills which are valued for life and work experiences. Changes in the life/work environment are characterized by greater cultural diversity, the performance of more work by teams and the need for greater ability to cope effectively with life/work issues and problems that require extensive knowledge of human relationships.

Meets MnTC Goal Area 1. This course clarifies the process of oral communication, clarifies the basic principles of public speaking and allows the student to increase the application of these principles while both speaking and listening.

Meets MnTC Goal Areas 1 and 2. This course focuses on communication issues in small groups and the importance of small group work in business today. An emphasis will be placed on improving communication skills for successful teamwork, group cohesiveness and the responsibility to group goals and tasks. Students will be provided with opportunities to build their group communication skills through practice.

Meets MnTC Goal Area 1. This course will focus on improving students' abilities to communicate effectively in one-to-one dyadic encounters by providing experience-based instruction. Extensive in-class and out-of-class analyses allow the student to examine his/her own and others' informal social interactions. The long-term goal is for the student to apply interpersonal communication theories to daily interactions and draw his/her own conclusions about the effectiveness of interpersonal communication.

Meets MnTC Goal Areas 1 and 7. This course explores the nature of communication within and between cultures and co-cultures. This class will challenge students to think about their own cultural assumptions and explore ways in which these assumptions differ from those held by people in other cultures. Students will review theories of communication and culture and will examine how culture is evident in languages, behaviors, rituals, norms and worldviews. Students will observe and describe their own cultural background and will learn to respectfully communicate with members of other cultures.

Meets MnTC Goal Area 1. This course is designed to analyze the relational and social dynamics of computer-based communication in a global society. Using a variety of contemporary technologies, students will identify strategies to communicate messages to diverse audiences for multiple purposes, thus learning to use mediated communication more effectively.

This course provides an introduction to understanding construction drawings, specifications, processes and building codes.

This course provides the student with the basic knowledge and hands-on skills necessary to lay out a building site and establish elevations for construction.

This course provides an overview of the construction management industry and introduces the students to the duties and responsibilities of the construction professional. The emphasis of this course will be on the importance of the industry, the industry's impact and responsibilities to society, and career opportunities for successful students.

This course focuses on the basics of material, labor and equipment estimating. Students will learn to calculate the quantities of material comprising a project. These quantities will determine the primary portion of the direct costs used in a construction bid. This process will be the first step in completing accurate bids for construction projects of all sizes.

This course is a comprehensive treatment of the various techniques, systems and methodologies utilized in the construction industry and will help the student prepare for the responsibilities of supervision on a modern construction project.

This course covers inspection techniques, methods of material measurement, documentation, material sampling and testing methods for soils and concrete.

This course is designed to introduce the Uniform Building Code to students in the construction field, where a basic knowledge of the code's requirements is needed. Emphasis will be placed on the development and proper use of the code.

This course will explore standard construction contract documents and project estimating procedures and their use in building a competitive bid.

Planning and scheduling are important management tools. In this course students will work with scheduling techniques commonly used in the construction industry to bring projects to timely and economically successful completion.