Communication is like Pictionary

First of all, I need to apologize again to Chels, Brandon, Silas and Allie. I lost track of time at work making me late. I’m usually more aware but I slipped up. Using myself as an example for your recitations next fall, after class just pull your student aside and see what was going on to make them late and reinforce the importance of responsibility and being on time. Sorry again and I’ll do my best to not let it happen again!

Moving on, class Tuesday was all about communication. We started out with a Twitter exercise were prompts were given and we were all to respond to them via Twitter. It honestly isn’t my preferred method of communication, but I can see its usefulness for some using the streaming chat method between faculty to exchange several thoughts and ideas in a short amount of time over a distance. I like scrolling through the news posts too, just for a short idea of what’s going on since I don’t take the time to read about it otherwise. But overall I don’t think I’ll ever be big on it myself. Just a personal preference…

The second part of class was led by Chelsea and Brandon. I really liked the quote they chose that said “the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” It really sums up what I think happens a lot of the time. What we try to relay information to others but what makes sense in our mind may not to the other person. When we go away thinking everything is understood by everyone without room for questions, problems often arise. We just need to make sure we always leave room for questions and encourage them from our students in the fall and even from others in our everyday lives. People aren’t mind-readers, no matter how much it would sometimes be helpful, and that’s something we need to keep in mind as well.

I prefer to communicate face-to-face with most people. It leaves less room for misinterpretation most times I think. I am more formal with professors than friends, out of respect for their position and for the fact that it’s sometimes easier to be comfortable with someone I know well and talk to on a regular basis. I text a lot more now, but for long conversations I would rather just talk on the phone or in person. I think the more convenient the form of communication is, the easier it is to misinterpret information using it. It’s something I try to keep in mind when I use them.

The Telephone Pictionary game is always a good one to demonstrate how easily communication can be misinterpreted and lacking. It’s more of an extreme version than sometimes I think, but it really relays the point well. No one is perfect in how they relay or interpret information; it’s never done the same way between different people.

What we should have taken from this class is that there are several forms of communication and for our classes next fall we need to figure out what form our students respond to best or if several forms will be needed. We need to encourage questions and don’t treat any as a stupid question. We were all in their position at one time. And when presenting a new topic, even if we don’t necessarily like it, we should be excited about it for them, or at the least act like it. Our enthusiasm will transfer over to them more than you would think.