Words That Motivate: Increasing Your Teaching Communication Effectiveness
Session Type
Workshop
Session Location
University Hall, ADP Center 1120
Start Date
31-5-2019 9:00 AM
End Date
31-5-2019 11:00 AM
Key Terms
learner, instructor, engagement, retention, writing, online, hybrid, communication, discussion
Brief Abstract
The way you communicate with your students and colleagues impacts your professional presence and their motivation level to learn from and work with you. In e-mail messages and discussion boards, where we lose the visual and vocal cues humans often rely on, the words we choose are key.
Proposal
“Tone” in writing can be easy to misinterpret and easy to create a less-than-positive response from readers. This interactive session will include real examples from students and instructors where tone was either misinterpreted or de-motivating to the reader. Session participants will have the opportunity to edit real writing samples for their own development or to coach their own students if they sense there is a tone issue. Takeaways include a handy reference guide for creating a positive tone, no matter how difficult the message.
The instructors have a combined 30+ years of experience teaching professional communication skills. They have taught at the undergraduate and graduate level at several universities. They have taught and coached in Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, smaller companies, school systems, and government organizations. Delivery-wise they have taught in person, on campus, online, hybrid, webinar, podcast, you name it. They have reviewed and conducted individual coaching on 1000s of documents and e-mails.
Based on the instructors’ combined years of teaching business, medical, technical, scientific, academic, and professional writing, Regina and Danielle have found that the one topic that comes up most often as a challenge is tone. Tone has created professional communication problems since the dawn of writing.
We will start with the classic communication impression model that shows that approximately 93% of communication is non-verbal (body language, voice tones, etc.) and 7% is verbal. This is what makes e-mails, discussion boards, and virtual communication of any kind challenging.
We have compiled (redacted of course) writing samples of instructors, students, and colleagues who have not motivated their readers appropriately, which is the ultimate goal. Especially when one has to give bad news, nudge a student to complete an assignment, write for an extension themselves, navigate a touchy discussion board topic, or coach a student's writing, word choice means so much.
We will show samples on slides, discuss the potential motivational impact, then pass out printed samples where participants can edit in groups. We will briefly read out edits and discuss best practices. We will also hand out a reference guide that will help participants quickly edit their own writing for motivating tone while still sending clear messages. This topic applies to face-to-face, phone, or video conference communication situations as well as writing.
Words That Motivate: Increasing Your Teaching Communication Effectiveness
University Hall, ADP Center 1120
“Tone” in writing can be easy to misinterpret and easy to create a less-than-positive response from readers. This interactive session will include real examples from students and instructors where tone was either misinterpreted or de-motivating to the reader. Session participants will have the opportunity to edit real writing samples for their own development or to coach their own students if they sense there is a tone issue. Takeaways include a handy reference guide for creating a positive tone, no matter how difficult the message.
The instructors have a combined 30+ years of experience teaching professional communication skills. They have taught at the undergraduate and graduate level at several universities. They have taught and coached in Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, smaller companies, school systems, and government organizations. Delivery-wise they have taught in person, on campus, online, hybrid, webinar, podcast, you name it. They have reviewed and conducted individual coaching on 1000s of documents and e-mails.
Based on the instructors’ combined years of teaching business, medical, technical, scientific, academic, and professional writing, Regina and Danielle have found that the one topic that comes up most often as a challenge is tone. Tone has created professional communication problems since the dawn of writing.
We will start with the classic communication impression model that shows that approximately 93% of communication is non-verbal (body language, voice tones, etc.) and 7% is verbal. This is what makes e-mails, discussion boards, and virtual communication of any kind challenging.
We have compiled (redacted of course) writing samples of instructors, students, and colleagues who have not motivated their readers appropriately, which is the ultimate goal. Especially when one has to give bad news, nudge a student to complete an assignment, write for an extension themselves, navigate a touchy discussion board topic, or coach a student's writing, word choice means so much.
We will show samples on slides, discuss the potential motivational impact, then pass out printed samples where participants can edit in groups. We will briefly read out edits and discuss best practices. We will also hand out a reference guide that will help participants quickly edit their own writing for motivating tone while still sending clear messages. This topic applies to face-to-face, phone, or video conference communication situations as well as writing.
