Defining Communication Skills

What do we talk about when we talk about

communication? Students and staff had a well-defined

concept of communication skills that included a keen

sense of audience awareness, the presence of personal

attributes such as confidence, an appreciation of the

differences in modes of presentation and an identifiable

set of desired outcomes such as concise report writing.

Specifically, they saw effective communication skills as

the ability to:

1. Convey ideas to people who don't necessarily

understand a particular concept.

2. Be concise, confident and adaptable in presenting

yourself and your ideas.

3. Take criticism and listen to conflicting

views/ideas.

4. Conduct a productive meeting; be diplomatic in

small group situations.

5. Effectively utilise a variety of modes of

presentation, such as face-to-face/remote,

written/spoken, public/private, group/individual.

6. Construct reasonable, rational, logical arguments

and to arrange evidence appropriately to support

an argument.

7. Ascertain what information needs to be conveyed

and thus provide what is requested.

8. Listen or read others' communications and

comprehend and understand.

9. Have a keen sense of audience awareness,

including giving technical presentations to both

fellow students and non-technical friends and

family.

10. Write clearly and concisely.

11. Use language that is appropriate for both the topic

and the audience at hand.

When asked to identify the three most important skills

needed to communicate effectively, respondents singled

out audience awareness, critical thinking and presentation skills

Public articulations

Two senior representatives of the Human Resources (HR)

department of a leading employer of IT graduates were

asked a series of questions about communication skills,

work placement practices and desired attributes of

graduates. As far as the industry representatives were

concerned, an ideal student candidate for a responsible

position would have the following attributes:

· Achieve high academic results;

· Demonstrate a positive attitude;

· Involvement in extra-curricular activities;

· A willingness to be flexible and pro-active;

· Show maturity and focussed work style;

· Be social and able to be part of social activities;

· Think for self and have initiative; and

· Consistent ability to work in a team.

One innovative suggestion focused on making greater use

of digital media. By recording the lecture material, one

respondent wrote, the tutorial groups could discuss the

problems at hand and thus pave the way for a ‘problembased

learning’ (PBL) approach to instruction. PBL

tutorials would thus be more student-centred, and the role

of tutors would be to facilitate group work and provide

occasional help.

This student’s comment is telling of the need for effective

communication skills:

I am not a lecturer or tutor, but I feel I can be of use

here, personally I feel that most tutors/lecturers are

poor communicators (hence poor lecturers and

tutors!), the reason I say this is because if they

communicate poorly, you just give up on

understanding and tune out. The best lecturers and

tutors that I have had were excellent communicators,

and in my opinion perhaps helped others learn by their example.

(2nd year CS student)

Adjust your minds…………

In your minds, an ideal dynamic curriculum should:
•Prepare students to work in teams;
•Develop an ability to think critically and
independently;
•Absolutely develop client focused skills; and
•Encourage students to be flexible.
In a similar vein, the representatives specifically
recommended that students learn to write in a number of
genres. These forms included bids, expressions of
interest, formal letters to clients, and both inter-company
and inter-team communications that could effectively
communicate with sales personnel, technical staff and
sub-contractors. Audience awareness was deemed crucial,
specifically in cases where a topic is presented to both
technical and non-technical personnel. They also
suggested a need for reports to be written in an engaging
and enthusiastic style. Further, they added that extensive
experience in the collaborative writing of long documents was a necessary skill.
Useful communication skills references :
2 http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/courses/generic_skills.html
3 http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/csd/
4http://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/eng/BENG0001/LEARNING/S
ustainable_Engineering/index.html
5http://www.ipenz.org.nz/ipenz/forms/pdfs/Entry_Form_2004-
Communications_Award.pdf