Course identification
As an educationalist having big ambitions and aspirations to excel in my teaching professional, I am always motivated to bring change and improvement in education. As a teacher, I would like to develop a course known as communication as an aid to effective teaching practices. Though I have never taught the course before, I find it interesting and important as well in equipping students with skills and knowledge on how they can use effective communication to enhance their teaching.
Teaching in most cases involves oral communication between the students and their instructor therefore making it easier for the learners and the teachers to understand each other. As a result, the students benefit from the instructions given by their teachers (Reinhart, 2010, p. 230). There are various aspects in communication showing the way a teacher is required to present himself/herself before his students in order to create a good mood for the learning.
These aspects in communication are very crucial since they determine the level at which the students conceptualize and retain various facts. Therefore, it is important for the education fraternity to be aware of the impact or the repercussions communication can have on the learning environment especially the students. However, there exist some courses related to communication for instance the managerial communication.
Related Course Syllabi
The managerial communications course entails contents like who, what, when, where and why of effective communication, the seven C’s mechanics in communication, and global shrinking. It also addresses issues like how the communication have revolved since nineties, its culture, ethics and technology, strategic planning and aesthetics in communication including visual aids, various approaches including the direct and indirect in communication, the art of Friendly persuasion with style, in class oral presentation, short reports, proposals, interviewing and job application and many others. Another course being offered is the “business communication”.
In this course its syllabi consists of techniques available in business communication, strategies for various businesses situations like presentations, memo reports, electronic communication and memos amongst others. Other syllabi are on the methods of organizing and presenting information for professional communication.
Analysis and critique of the courses
The business communication course is well structured going by its syllabi. The contents incorporated therein are vital and relevant to the course as they meet the standards. Business communication has nowadays improved and therefore requires many skills in communication especially when it comes to writing of reports and letters. They count a lot where by a student should be able to express the ideas in a good manner to enhance understandability (Sharifi, 2009, p. 180).
However, the course does not provide a good base of knowledge on different business situations that students may be expected to deal with. Therefore, it has some limitations in that it has not highlighted salient issues that could assist the students in understanding it fully and with ease. The course aims at enabling students understand the importance of communication in any business setting as well as understanding and putting in use the various basic forms of communication like email, letters, informal and formal presentation used most often in business communication. However, how to meet such a crucial objective has proved difficult based on the poor approach of the aim by teachers.
In the managerial communication course, the course offered actually is geared at enabling the students to effectively carryout their operations in any environmental settings. The 5W questions about effective communication for instance provide the students with different perspectives of applicability of communication. The course has a wider array of syllabi, which actually exposes the students to a wider scope of knowledge in their future careers.
However, it does not describe to the students the history of communication at least to give them a better understanding of how communication has been developing thus making it hard for them to understand it well. It also fails to offer practical courses that best suit the students like the interviewing and job application course. Therefore, it denies the students skills to carry out effective interviews and issues of job applications. On the other hand, the course has a long syllabi which may not be covered adequately hence leading to poor understandability.
Objectives of the Courses
The identified course of communication has a wide range of aims and objectives, all of which help in cultivating good communication behaviors in teaching, as students will be able to master good communication approaches hence demonstrating competency and efficiency in their teaching practices. The course further targets at equipping the students with skills in communication aspects in general but with a specific application in their teaching practices when they graduate and become teachers (Oliver, Kellogg & Townsend, 201, p. 60).
The students should be able to understand the various issues in communication showing how they need to teach to their students about various aspects affecting them without causing any misunderstanding. Another objective is to bring attention to the students about various factors in their environment, which they are going to serve like culture, language, social issues among others and how they need to deal with them at the schools. The course will also touch on various areas of human communication processes like perception, listening, conflict management, and problem solving among the learning environments. All these processes are important and they can be addressed effectively through use of appropriate and effective communication.
The course is also meant to instill in the student’s skills in interpersonal communication. This will enable the students to understand how to carry themselves when communicating with other peoples (Ziegenfuss, 2008, p. 155). In this case, the course is relevant putting in mind that the students are training to be teachers a profession that requires close relationships with the learners hence calls for good skills interpersonal skills.
The course will also help the students in understanding the barriers, challenges, or things that leads to failure or breakdown in communication hence derailing mutual understanding. For instance lack of concentrations, stress, hearing impairments, use of semantic , environment are also noise which may hinder or frustrate effective communication in an interaction process. Such issues should be clear to the learners in order to make them aware in order to make sure that they engage in communication process in an environment, which is conducive to foster understanding.
It is also important for the learners to beware in order for them to answerer questions that are asked to them correctly as the questions states without contradicting themselves. The course objective is also to introduce the learners on various modes of communication available for them in the teaching and communication process. These modes will enable them to employ appropriate ones at an appropriate time hence achieving their goals.
References
Oliver, K., Kellogg, S., & Townsend, L. (2010). Needs of Elementary and Middle Schoolteachers developing online Courses for a Virtual School. Distance Education, 31, pp. 55-75.
Reinhart, J. (2010). Graduate Students’ Communication Practices and Perceived Sense of Community: An Examination of Information Sources. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 11(4), pp. 223-238.
Sharifi, M. (2009). Structuring a competency-based accounting communication course at the graduate level. Business Communication Quarterly, 72 (2), pp. 177-199.
Ziegenfuss, D. (2008). Collaborative Course Design: Changing the Process, Acknowledging the Context, and Implications for Academic Development. International Journal for Academic Development, 13 (3), pp. 151-160.