Effective Communication and Course Facilitation

Effective communication is key when it comes to instructing a seminar, but also to just everyday life. The beginning of the class was spent discussing times when communication has failed. I only used a recent example in class, but there have been several times in the past where communication has failed for me. Either somebody had taken something the wrong way, not everybody was informed of everything, or people were given false and/or misleading information. If communication fails, oftentimes the given task at hand fails and that is very nonconducive to our purpose. We want the incoming Hixson Scholars to be successful and to benefit from the Hixson Program as much as possible...that can't happen if communication isn't successful so we need to be careful to communicate properly.
We talked about the most effective ways to communicate material in the class. We discussed several different techniques: Think/Pair/Share which was pretty much TTYP, Q-SPACE(otherwise known as Q-Spot according to Cody), and lecture. There was pretty much a mutual agreement that TTYP was the most effective technique, and it is the technique we primarily use in class. TTYP allows for people to make a personal connection with somebody else and to engage in higher-level thinking and deep conversation, as opposed to just passively listening. It also holds people accountable for listening when they have to report back on what their partner has said. Q-SPACE I think will also be effective, since it allows people to discuss their ideas in more of a public forum and listen to the entire group, however it runs the danger of people just passively sitting there as well. Lecture is probably the least effective and will probably be used the least...only for logistics and information the students may not be able to get themselves. Plus lecture is the most boring and I wouldn't feel like standing in front of a room and talking for 50 minutes straight (I also find it hillarious that Chelsee, Heath, and I are all Psychology majors, ENFP, and expressed the most dislike for lecture-based classes.)
There are also some other things about communication that we didn't really talk too much about in class that I think are important, mainly having to do with speaking technique. Articulation and speaking clearly is very important...it's important that the students actually know what you are saying and aren't confused about what you actually said. Projection is very important as well...although it won't really be too much of an issue in the seminars since everybody will be close together, it's still important to make sure everybody can hear you. Eye contact is important as well..it makes everybody feel included and also makes more of a personal connection as opposed to just standing there staring into space talking.
I think I will end the entry here. I look forward to next week's class and attending the ISCORE conference. I hope everybody has a nice week!