The day began with work groups exploring critical questions around the theme of miscommunication. Each table received questions relating to the common causes of miscommunication and discussed solutions and methods that might aid in fostering effective speaking and writing in the classroom and the workplace. Today, we are sharing notes from Table 1. Notes from other tables will follow in subsequent posts.
TABLE I
Facilitators
Virginia Malone, Dean, Reuters Academy, Reuters America Client TrainingGeorge Otte, Professor of English, Urban Education, and Technology and Pedagogy, CUNY Graduate Center; Director of Instructional Technology, CUNY; Academic Director, CUNY Online Baccalaureate
Discussion Questions
1) Think back to an instance of miscommunication that involved you in some way. How did you recognize the problem? Why did it arise? How might it have been avoided? What common themes arise in your discussion of this question?
2) How have electronic gadgets (mobile phones, Blackberries, iPhones, clickers, etc.) and the various means of communication they enable(text and instant messaging, voice mail, email, etc.) affected how we communicate (and miscommunicate) in both business and academia?
Opening thoughts:
The goal for the morning is a discussion that will percolate into a concern, an issue, a challenge…
Professionals have the need for sensitivity towards avoiding miscommunication. They communicate in short pieces, packets, inadequate communications—words don’t always connect with underlying feelings. There are different rules between business and personal communications. Overall passion is important, yet how do you convey that with a BB? Professional success can be made from turning what one heard into what one wanted to hear… prompting employees towards what they “needed to hear,” students should learn to do that earlier…
It seems that miscommunication is a step towards effective communication…
Listening is inadequate; we’re really talking about interpretation. The point of discourse is to achieve absolute clarity; the goal in writing law, for instance, is absolute clarity. Listening is a creative act. Passion is a constant presence in online communication. Yet there is a generational thing; electronic communication business, virtual work, you often never meet folks you work with, and passion is hard to express. Technology should is connective rather than disconnective for the next generation; for example, Chinese villagers who move to the big city are given cell phones by their communities to stay in touch.
Protocols need to be developed with gadgets, which don’t exist right now; there is impact in the workplace. Challenges in the workplace are different than the challenges in the classroom. For example the NY schools controversy over cell phones.
So a question comes to mind, what is pedagogy?
It is misused…
It is the philosophy of teaching.
It would be great to see case studies of miscommunication… and competing modes of communication. We need to encourage students to be versatile… Its better if teachers don’t teach the same way, are forced to synthesize…
But there are so many difficulties in teaching, including challenges in bringing real business experience into the classroom.
Let’s look at construction issues; ePortfolio, this is good for professional reasons… staged writing assignments, bringing students towards being “portfolio ready,” team editing, assessment and more.
And we have to pay attention to our own fear of allowing them to use their own tools. In that case we’re actually not helping them prepare for the outside world.
It all comes back to nurturing critical thinking
In addition to generational concerns, there’s cultural interpretation. Language nuances can be a critical issue in communication clarity.
After reading the posts from tables 1, 2, and 3 I’m left with the feeling that that academic point-of-view is prevailing.
It seems to me that the majority of our graduates end up in the business, not academic, community. Or, perhaps better said, in a non-academic society. This suggests that we ought to be preparing these students for life in this society. This may require the creation of learning experiences that may be at odds with generally accepted practice.
By the way, a table 9 retrospective is in development. Stay tuned.
Jim Drogan
I am interested in your analysis of the 3 posts so far, Jim. As I actually found table 2 to talk a great deal about the process of communicating in the professional world. Their discussion on how audience actually reads and processes information seemed quite different from what we think in academia.
So I am wondering if it is the overall vocabulary that we all seem to use, which might make the tone seem academic…