Communication Skills

Dear Reader,

As the academic term begins, our communication most likely increases, making our communication skills highly important. You may be engaging more with peers, students, and colleagues. Here are some ideas to consider.

Take advantage of opportunities

Communication skills are considered a key area of skills proficiency for the workplace. This includes verbal, visual, and written communication for diverse audiences.

Verbal communication (able to speak to different audiences)

Take advantage of situations where you can give a presentation, whether required for a course or volunteer to share knowledge you have with colleagues through a workshop or other venue. Further, offer to share what you know at a community event or set up one up. It is important that you show how you can speak with diverse audiences. This will help you build your oral and visual skills. Lastly, through group work and other opportunities to collaborate, you will build your oral skills by having to clearly communicate with a diverse audience. If able, take the lead in setting up projects to lead and collaborate with colleagues. You could involve others on campus or at your work to offer a range of individuals for you to showcase your skills in collaboration and communication.

Written communication (writing in various forms for the public and across cultures)

If you are in graduate school or working, you will have the opportunity to engage in building and refining your communication skills. For example, you will most likely be required to submit several written assignments and receive feedback from your instructors, or write reports and receive feedback from a supervisor. This is an excellent opportunity to learn how to communicate effectively. Take every opportunity provided to engage in a range of written communication, not just what is required for your degree or work. For example, if there is a college or university publication or work newsletter, submit an article. Look for journals to submit to within your discipline or other mediums to publish. Prior to submitting, consider volunteering to review articles for different journals. In addition, consider starting a blog about your graduate research, work experience, or other topic of interest. This is a great way to show that you can communicate through the written form in different mediums to diverse audiences.

Visual communication

Besides giving presentations, you can demonstrate your ability to communicate visually by creating an infographic. There are many tools online to help you with this task and it is a great way to show how you can summarize information and provide it in a visual format. If there is the possibility to submit an assignment through visual means, use that opportunity to show what you can do. Look for ways to demonstrate your visual communication skills for your current or future employer.

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication constitutes much of our communication. However, it can be hard to illustrate. When you ask for letters of recommendation from professors for future positions or from supervisors at work, ask them to comment on your non-verbal communication. For them to do so successfully, provide them with a video showing your interactions as you collaborate with others. Include a video with any job applications where this would be important, such as being an instructor in post-secondary education. If teaching, create a recording to show how you communicate both non-verbally and verbally.

Digital literacy

As with some of the suggestions above, make sure you have some evidence of your ability to communicate professionally online.

Communication skills in a variety of mediums is increasingly important. Ensure you can demonstrate the range of your experience in communicating effectively.

If you would like more information about professional development skills, go to https://www.iteachhe.com and download the free guide Graduate Student Professional Development.

To your teaching success!

Dr. Cynthia Korpan, Director, ITeach: Certification in Higher Ed Inc.

With thanks to Dr. Heather Merla, School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs, Queen’s University for her contributions.