How can my everyday course communications help students learn to communicate more effectively?
Regardless of the communication modes you choose to emphasize as learning outcomes, the communicating you do in the course leads by example. Here are a few areas where you can set the tone for the class by modeling the type of communication you wish to see.
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The Basic, Professional Email
Often, teachers assume that learners already know professional, discipline-specific communication conventions, but are too lazy or undisciplined to follow them. This is not fair to the students. It expects them to know information that they didn’t teach. Finding time in a busy course calendar to teach every proper method of communication is unlikely, so consider ways you can do this quickly in real time, or proactive in your course materials. (This one-sheeter we developed could be a good place to start.) In class, verbally explain to your students that emails not following the professional approach you model will likely have a longer response time. In your syllabus, explain the expected communication conventions and why they matter, then verbally remind students in class why that info is there and how it helps you respond to them quickly. If a syllabus statement about communication is impractical for you, keep in mind there are plenty of resources available online to point to proper etiquette. Class or syllabus time doesn’t even need to be spent on it, aside from mentioning the place where students might find guidance you deem appropriate.
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Titles and Pronouns in the Classroom and Workplace
Modeling professionalism goes beyond documents. There is value in modeling professional communications in your interpersonal communications in the classroom. Especially since interpersonal communications can be difficult to work into an assignment in a way that is equitably graded. If You are in a field where formal titles are common for the workplace, referring to students by their full honorific, “Mr. Doe” or “Ms. Smith,” can make expectations clear. Explicitly explaining to your students what they can call you, and why, helps them realize those are questions they should be asking in other arenas.
Professional office culture is changing everywhere. LGBTQ+ and women’s movements have made progress in securing a more equitable work environment. But that doesn’t mean that everyone is on board or that all fields have the same standards. Further, we live in a rapidly changing world, and even folks who are committed to those causes are in a constant state of learning and growing. In a classroom setting in any field it is valuable to prepare your students to be aware of the importance of asking questions about pronouns and preferred titles. Pronouns can be insensitive to students in ways that would have been unimaginable to many people a few decades ago, and in today’s industry a lack of awareness that there are more than two gender identities can be what loses a company millions, shifts a grant application to the bottom of the pile, or stifles a person who has tremendous ability to innovate a field or change the world.
As teachers we cannot teach every correct answer—but we can model effective communication that helps students develop a critical thinking toolkit including questions to ask in a changing world. Modeling proper behavior in these areas can be as simple as making sure that everyone is heard. Simple acts that ought to be merely for information, like including your pronouns, can telegraph an expectation that all will be respected and included in the class. If teachers fail to do this modeling in current times, they risk teaching students that unacceptable behavior will be tolerated, which sets them up for real struggles in the future.
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Show them how to present material
Whether or not you choose to focus on effective presentations as part of an official learning outcome in your course, every moment you present or lecture in your course your students are observing two things: the content of the lecture and what you think is acceptable when presenting important material. And why are good presentations important? Because they keep viewers engaged.
When and how you communicate matters, and this is evident from the first thing your student sees (a welcome email, the landing page to your LMS, or the course syllabus) all the way into the little pieces of everyday communication that can seem like an afterthought. In C-I teaching, this is why our role as communicators is paramount, especially when it comes to explaining how what will occur in the course relates to skills that transcend a single class or major.