Review the learning objectives for this course. What's one thing you've learned that connects to an objective and to your future job?

Review the learning objectives for this course. What's one thing you've learned that connects to an objective and to your future job?

One of the course objectives that I am naturally drawn to is the communication skills objective: 

Communication skills. Understand how to present a proposal orally, using appropriate visuals. Measurement: successfully create, manage, produce, and report on artifacts through collaboration, including active participation in classroom discussion and blogs.


During this course, I have learned how to appropriately begin discussions, engage in discussions and respond to others both as a student and as a teacher. I think the term "communication skills" is a bit too broad though, and that is something that I've learned from this course. 

Obviously, I knew there was formal and informal communication, but I've learned and developed more steadily my knowledge and use of different types of informal and formal communication. While I learned many years ago that I cannot speak to my professors as I speak to my sisters, and I cannot speak to my students as I speak to my peers; this course has helped further develop my conscious awareness of these different types of communication. 

This will help in my future job because it teaches me to think more fully about what I want to say before speaking or writing. It also will help me communicate more effectively with my students, my peers, and my employers, and do so in different situations. For example, if I and a peer are casually sitting in one of our offices just chatting, I can communicate more informally with them, but I must also keep in mind of where I am, and that I still need to be aware of who might overhear our conversation. The same goes for communicating in my classroom as the authority figure versus communicating as a student. Moreover, it is interesting to see the different types of communication that occurs in different classrooms. For instance, in one of my classes, I feel it is critical to be genteel and professional, but in our composition classroom I feel it I can speak more freely and not fear retribution. 

I think the most important part about our learning objective for communication skills that will help me in a future job, is becoming consciously aware of how I am communicating.