communication skills and the assurance of learning
TRANSCRIPT
Communication skills and
the assurance of learning
Rowena Harper
Associate Director, Curriculum Development and Support
Teaching Innovation Unit
November 2017
What do we mean by
assurance of learning?
Demonstrating that students have achieved the
learning outcomes for their program
What do we mean by communication?
An example
Task
Reflect on the academic readings provided and comment on the
role of developing communication skills during your
postgraduate accounting studies.
Source: Moore, 2007
An example
Communication is significantly important in the current accounting field. With
the ability to communicate, an accountant should be able to prepare &
distributing accounting information for users to have a wider perspective of
economic financial in one’s company.
Developing comm. skills is a part of study process which mainly consists of skill
of social comm., skill of presenting ideas, skill of speaking in the public, skill of
writing & make reports, skill of problem solving, skill of decision-making, and
many others.
Comm in accounting is assessed as a whole picture of Genetic skills, it’s very
important to have comm. skill in accounting as right now accounting is not only
depends on 100% of technical skills but also depends on ability to analyzing
and interpreting (which only available when someone develops his/her comm.
skills.
∴ comm skill is very important to develop, it helps us with broder range of ability
(besides technical one).
Source: Moore, 2007
An example
“Poor sentence structure (including incomplete sentences)”
“Grammatical errors that affect readability and meaning”
“Limited vocabulary (repetition of words)”
“You need to work on your English”
“I strongly recommend that you visit a language and learning adviser in
the learning support unit”
Source: Moore, 2007
What do we mean by communication?
English language proficiency
Grammar
Vocabulary
Remedial skill
An example
Task
Reflect on the academic readings provided and comment on the
role of developing communication skills during your
postgraduate accounting studies.
Source: Moore, 2007
An example
“he doesn’t demonstrate any understanding of what he’s
really supposed to do”
“he doesn’t look as though he’s read the texts”
“he’s saying communication skills are important but he doesn’t give any
explanation of why, giving examples”
“[there’s] constant restatement … [with] no development”
Source: Moore, 2007
An example
Reflect does not mean ‘think about’
Reflect means systematically and critically analyse something, and
apply it to your own relevant personal experiences
Comment on does not mean ‘share some thoughts’
Comment on, in this assignment, means demonstrate your reflective
thinking (see above) in relation to the texts provided
Source: Moore, 2007
What do we mean by communication?
English language proficiency
Grammar
Vocabulary
Remedial skill
analysis of texts and ideas
showing wide and relevant reading
relating theory to experience
criticality
Exposition / explanation /
argumentation
An example
Communication is significantly important in the current accounting field. With
the ability to communicate, an accountant should be able to prepare &
distributing accounting information for users to have a wider perspective of
economic financial in one’s company.
Developing comm. skills is a part of study process which mainly consists of skill
of social comm., skill of presenting ideas, skill of speaking in the public, skill of
writing & make reports, skill of problem solving, skill of decision-making, and
many others.
Comm in accounting is assessed as a whole picture of Genetic skills, it’s very
important to have comm. skill in accounting as right now accounting is not only
depends on 100% of technical skills but also depends on ability to analyzing
and interpreting (which only available when someone develops his/her comm.
skills.
∴ comm skill is very important to develop, it helps us with broder range of ability
(besides technical one).
Source: Moore, 2007
What do we mean by communication?
English language proficiency
grammar
vocabulary
remedial skill
analysis of texts and ideas
showing wide and relevant reading
relating theory to experience
criticality
exposition / explanation /
argumentation
audiences
written / spoken / visual / graphical / numerical
purposes
contexts
Less successful writing attempts [miss] the mark not just in
some communicative sense, but in the sense of doing the
analytical work of the discipline. So teaching history writing
is in fact teaching [the discipline of] history.
(Beaufort & Williams, 2005)
Communication is part of how we
practice our disciplines
Communication as an outcome
Quality assurance = entry standards
Quality assurance = outcomes
Assurance of learning
We claim graduates have communication skills: what do mean, and
how do we know?
Reposition communication in higher education teaching and learning:
• From international to all students
• From entry to exit
• From a deficit/preparation approach to development and
assessment
Source: Arkoudis, 2014
Communication as an outcome
Source: Arkoudis & Harris, 2016
What are your communication learning
outcomes?
Purposes
ContextsAudiences
Discipline learning standards, Accounting
OLT website
What are your communication learning
outcomes?
Discipline learning standards, various
OLT website
Do you have stated, agreed upon learning outcomes for
communication at program level?
• What are the contexts for communication in your discipline?
• situations, audiences, purposes, topics
• What forms of communication does your discipline use?
• reports, essays, memos, research papers
• negotiations, clinical handovers, interviews
• tweets, graphs, video-conferencing
What are your communication learning
outcomes?
Useful/key reference points
Discipline learning standards
Professional standards
Graduate qualities
Institutional priorities
What are your communication learning
outcomes?
Discipline learning standards, Accounting
OLT website
O’Loughlin & Arkoudis, 2010
1. Social/everyday communication
2. Academic literacies
3. Professional communication
Macken-Horarik et al (2006)
Harper, Prentice & Wilson (2011)
What are your communication learning
outcomes?
Communication as an outcome
Source: Arkoudis & Harris, 2016
• How do we ‘unpack’ the program learning outcome/s
into course/assessment learning outcomes?
• What levels do we expect students to reach in years
1, 2, 3 etc.?
• What do students need to learn first?
How do we plan/map milestones?
Level 1 outcomes Level 2 outcomes Level 3 outcomes
How do we plan/map milestones?
Discipline learning standards, Accounting
OLT website
How do we plan/map milestones?
Discipline learning standards, Accounting
OLT website
Communication as an outcome
Source: Arkoudis & Harris, 2016
• What do students need to learn to meet the
objectives and milestones?
• What are the explicit and implicit expectations?
• Communication is typically positioned as the last part
of a complex literacy process (Wingate 2017)– Finding and filtering information
– Making sense of information
– Summarising and synthesising information
– Formulating a decision, response or position
– Choosing an appropriate form of communication
– Constructing the communication appropriately
How do we teach it?
Think about what good communication looks like in your
discipline.
Where are these forms of communication:
• Observed by students?
• Modelled for students?
• Taught?
• Practiced?
• Assessed?
How do we teach it?
How do we teach it?
Texts for learning Texts students need to produce
Lecture notes Scholarly reports
Online videos Essays
Textbooks Business letters
Quizzes Presentations
Scholarly texts Short answer questions
Popular texts
Learning materials typically don’t model what we want
students to do
Communication as an outcome
Source: Arkoudis & Harris, 2016
Moderate assessments
Every now and again we have discussions about how
should we mark an assignment that is good in content but
where you really have to dig around and work out what
they’re saying. So if you can understand it, do you ignore
the English?
(Program Director)
Source: Harper, 2015
Moderate assessments
When you’re marking, what’s the criteria? What’s the
trigger? What’s the point at which we say ‘no, this needs to
be reworked by the student’.
(Course Coordinator)
Source: Harper, 2015
Moderate assessmentsI had another colleague that I coordinated a course with
once … and she would insist on failing a student if she
couldn’t get the message in the assignment. I differed, and
this is a debate that we never resolved. She would say that
if the sentences aren’t well constructed the student fails.
Her argument was, ‘I can understand what my four-year-old
granddaughter says, but that doesn’t mean she’s speaking
well’ … we literally fought over it, because I refused to fail
the student if I could understand what they were saying … I
speak five languages and I speak English, so for me
English isn’t something sacred … Whereas for her, abuse of
English, or what she perceived as an abuse of English, was
something unforgivable … she would literally throw the
assignments on the floor.
(Course Coordinator)
Source: Harper, 2015
• Stated, agreed upon learning outcomes
• Rubrics and exemplars to explain and illustrate
standards
• Conversations, discussion, consensus building
• Always subjective to some extent, but we can make the
judgement more transparent and more fair
Moderate assessments
Communication as an outcome
Source: Arkoudis & Harris, 2016
• Health Sciences – clinical communication modules
• Civil Engineering – developing meaningful assessment
Two examples of communication
embedding
Clinical communication project
• Small internal T&L grant to work on communication in
health sciences disciplines
• Wanted to develop online modules that could be used in
any discipline
• Sonography educator brought together lecturers from
physio, dietetics and nursing, and a language and
literacy coordinator
What are the learning
outcomes?
Clinical communication project
Clinical communication project
Adapting your own communication to the level of understanding and language of the patient, avoiding jargon
Building and maintaining rapport and an empathetic relationship, and ensuring that the patient feels attended and listened to
Relating to the patient respectfully, including ensuring confidentiality, privacy and autonomy, and recognising the patient as a partner in shaping a relationship
Clinical communication project
What are the milestones?
Student demonstrates
awareness of each aspect
of communication
Student identifies how
each aspect of
communication affects the
success of observed clinical
interactions
Student practises and
reflects on their own use of
each aspect of
communication in role-play
or clinical simulation
Student effectively uses
each aspect of
communication in a clinical
setting
Staged pedagogy, based on Miller’s pyramid
Aspects of communication1. Body language – reading it, responding to it, using it
2. Words and phrases – interpreting, selecting, adapting
3. Reflective listening
4. Proxemics
5. Voice
6. Supporting materials (handouts, notes, equipment)
Awareness of their
role in communication
Ability to use these
as tools to achieve
clinical aims
Clinical communication project
What are the milestones?
Clinical communication project
How do we teach it?
Video scenariosTeaching
packagesRubrics
Civil Engineering project
https://lo.unisa.edu.au/course/view.php?id=9637
Course
coordinator
Program
Director
Course
coordinator
Course
coordinator
Academic
developer
Language and
Learning
Online ed.
designer
Communication
as an outcome
Library
Students?
References
Source: Moore, 2007
Arkoudis, S. (2014). Integrating English language communication skills into disciplinary curricula: options and
strategies. Report for the Office for Learning and Teaching. Retrieved from:
http://www.olt.gov.au/resource-integrating-english-language-communication-skills-disciplinary-curriclua
Arkoudis, S. & Harris, A. Graduate Communication Skills: Distributed Expertise Model. Funded by the Office
for Learning and Teaching. Retrieved from: http://melbourne-
cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/2318523/OLT-Grad-Comms-Skills-web.pdf
Beaufort, A. & Williams, J.A. (2005). “Writing history: Informed or not by genre theory?” In Herrington, A. and
Moran, C. (Eds.) Genre across the Curriculum. USU Press: Utah. 44-64.
Harper, R., Prentice, S. & Wilson, K. (2011). English language perplexity: Articulating the tensions in the
DEEWR “Good Practice Principles”. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education,
2(1). 36–48. doi: 10.5204/intjfyhe.v2i1.51
Macken-Horarik, M., Devereux, L., Trimingham-Jack, C. & Wilson, K. (2006). Negotiating the territory of
tertiary literacies: A case study of teacher education. Linguistics and Education, 17(3), 240-257.
Moore, Stephen (2007), ‘Exploring Accounting lecturer perceptions of ‘good’ and ‘poor’ NESB student writing’,
University of Sydney Papers in TESOL, 2, 61-82.
Murray, N. L. (2010). Conceptualising the English language needs of first year university students. The
International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 1(1), 55-64.
O'Loughlin, K. & Arkoudis, S. (2009). Investigating IELTS exit score gains in higher education. IELTS
Research Reports, Vol. 10.
Wingate, U. (2017). “Opening the doors to the disciplines: developing curriculum-integrated academic literacy
instruction.” Paper presented to the 13th Biennial Conference of the Association for Academic
Language and Learning, Geelong VIC, November 1, 2017.