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Learning Communication Skills through Non-verbal
Interactions and Process Analysis – A None-traditional
ICT related Teaching Approach for Teaching Education
Gunnar Andersson, Sissel Larsen, Hong Wu
Østfold University College, Norway
Faculty of Education, Halden
Faculty of Engineering, Sarpsborg
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Two major aspects are presenting for this paper:
• Exercising and learning communication skills through an
acting and reacting play as a none-traditional teaching
approach
• Using Learning Management System (LMS) to restore the
course documents, including students’ work assignments,
and generate a virtual classroom for on campus and remote
students
•
The current study exemplifies a case of teaching communication
topic for education students at Østfold University College
•
The course itself is a traditional course related to the organizational
topics, named as “Communication, leadership and interactions”
•
Targeting for regional remote students, approximately 1/3 of entire
class of 30.
•
Focusing on exercising and practicing on communication and
interaction skills for students
•
This will be undertaken and practiced by the stage and acting play
with process analysis to follow with
The organization of course
A combination of
• face-to-face teaching lectures
• individual study (including literature review and assignments)
• project based teamwork and self-conducted studies
Every student has to contribute his/her efforts to the project teamwork,
such as,
• acting and reacting play on video clip
• written analysis documents (reports and assignments)
• oral presentation
Teaching communication and interactions through stage and acting play
•
•
•
•
•
A background description on the persons or actors in the case (their positions
and roles in acting)
A situation description that includes circumstances, where and when this
happened
Topic: Related to the syllabus or theories, for example, different expresses or
signals on lack of communication?
Conflict: What is a conflict? Wherever more than two persons at the same
place, there must be a potential for different or contra-dictionary wishes
A single person’s position and role will always motivate his/her actions
Working process and methods
•
The case through an acting play lasts normally 10 minutes per a
session
•
For multi-aspects learning effects, it is expected that every group
member will act differently and play as vary actors/roles in such a
communicative situation
•
The intention of the stage and acting play is not necessarily for
students to solving the misunderstanding or conflict, but demonstrate
and understand the happening of such a situation
•
An opponent group is involved in so that the interaction process can be
demonstrated “alive”, especially when a “everything went wrong” case
was occurred and discussed
Video session for acting play record
•
A video session in 3-5 minutes to record an acting play
•
The students will analyze what was happened in this video session
•
They will also summarize their analysis for other students
•
Their opponent group will make the same analysis (but might be
same or different views or conclusions)
Technology application and media based learning approaches –
new openings and paradigm
•
It is topic and case focused, but curriculum based reading
•
It deals with pictures, situations and non-verbal communication with
short and repeated video sessions
•
It consists of a number of written documents, mainly analysis
reports and evaluations as the basic corn for the final exam
•
It opens and needs changing options during the process (video
sessions) and interactions (the opponent group’s analysis)
The Need of Flexibility for Learners – Experiences and Evaluations
A survey summary on course evaluations throughout course period
Questions\Evaluation
October 2004
(N=23)
December 2004
(N=6)
January 2005
(N=21)
April 2005
(N=10)
87.0%
0%
69.6%
17.4%
100.0%
16.7%
83.3%
0%
95.0%
9.5%
71.4%
4.8%
100.0%
10.0%
90.0%
20.0%
Ordinary working hours
39.1%
66.7%
33.3%
20.0%
Evening
69.6%
83.3%
81.0%
90.0%
Weekend
47.8%
100.0%
61.9%
90.0%
During gathering
47.8%
66.7%
61.9%
80.0%
Multi-choice answers
I read/work mostly at
My home
My workplace
During the gathering
Other places
Multi-choice answers
I read/work mostly on
The Need of Flexibility for Learners – Experiences and Evaluations
A survey summary on course evaluations throughout course period
Questions\Evaluation
October 2004
(N=23)
December 2004
(N=6)
January 2005
(N=21)
April 2005
(N=10)
5.8 average (N=22)
Ranking from 3 to
8
6.5 average
Ranking from 4
to 8
6.0 average
Ranking from 3
to 9
6.9 average
Ranking from
5 to 8
6.7 average
Ranking 3 to 10
6.2 average
Ranking 3 to 8
5.7 average
Ranking 2 to 8
5.9
Ranking 2 to 9
Single-choice answers
I put my efforts in 1-10 to
read/work with lecture
(1=poorest, 10=best)
Single-choice answers
My expectation reached in
1-10 with course
(1=poorest, 10=best)
•
A great number of students work mostly t home and very few
work at workplace
•
Gathering seems to be an important event, also as working
place and available time for working with lectures
•
Other places such as libraries seem not to be the most common
place for working with lectures
•
Students tend to work gradually more and more in evening or
weekend, and less in ordinary working hours
•
Students tend to make greater and greater efforts for their
lecture work
•
Stduents’ expectations to the course were best at starting, but
down gradually until the last evaluation
A summary of comments from the course evaluations
Comments\Evalu
ation
October 2004 (N=23)
December 2004
(N=6)
January 2005
(N=21)
April 2005
(N=10)
Course was well organized.
Professional lecturers.
Positive about LMS (Blackboard) and
its functions for discussions and
assignments.
Efficient organizing of gatherings
Exciting and interesting lectures in
communication
Exciting (but also scared) with video
filming, which is a good assignment
for us
Self-responsibility for own learning
Spent little bit time for getting familiar
with LMS, appreciated this LMS way
of working which is very flexible. ……
Lectures are fun
and beneficial,
especially acting
play part
Quick feedback
from
lecturers/supervisor
s via e-post
Information on
course plan was
good. Lecturers
were well prepared
for lectures
Interesting
lecture content
I think lecture in
“communication”
part was pretty
good
Good
information from
both lectures
and internet (BB)
Course was well
structured and
easy to follow
Lectures and
possibilities for
working and
debating in
groups in
campus
Freedom to
work
independently
with
assignments
Good
supervising and
following up
process, and
good information
online
Good lectures
Most satisfied
A summary of comments from the course evaluations
Comments\
Evaluation
October 2004 (N=23)
December 2004 (N=6)
January 2005 (N=21)
April 2005
(N=10)
I wished there was not so
much “silent while”
Little bit difficult to work with
LMS/Blackboard, maybe
should add few exercises for
quick learning
It took much time to reach
the information online
Not able to engage in
discussions online
Nothing to complain. Wish to
have weekly lectures, since
this is unusual for full-time
students
We have short days and I
feel the time was not spent
efficiently
Having problems with chat
function
Still feel needs for face-toface meetings and
discussions
Not able to combine the
curriculum/syllabus with real
cases in kid garden. Few
detailed samples to show the
theories
Working together with full-time
and part-time students in a
group, could not make this
works
Too little lectures and little
direct contacts with others in
the class
Group composition as
fulltime and part-time
together did not work
Problems for group
meetings and
discussions online,
maybe we are too
many, so it is hard to
find availability for
everyone. Someone in
my group has poor
online access
No inspiration to work
online, and wish to
have more/longer
lectures
We have
not got
substantial
content
There has
been
difficult to
get LMS/BB
to work in
the group,
as thought
Most
unsatisfied
A summary of suggested improvement from the course evaluations
Comments
\Evaluation
October 2004 (N=23)
December 2004 (N=6)
January 2005
(N=21)
April 2005 (N=10)
Get detailed discussion topics in LMS/BB
Nothing needs to be changed, the
gatherings worked well, wish we start
teamwork online
Wish to have more practice related
assignments at start, since I need extra
exercise to use LMS/BB
I wished more specific and topic related
lectures, rather with cases and samples
More teamwork within groups
Stay in classroom and work in small
groups with cases, since teamwork
online did not work
Try to be self-active and self-engaged.
Individual supervising/guiding
Demonstrating more
cases/samples related
with kid garden
Spend whole days
together when
gathering
Do not combine the
full-time and part-time
students together
Rather work with a
case as beginning,
and that is the way to
learn
Detailed assignments
to work in LMS/BB
Having full days
and more
lectures
Detailed
assignments for
groups will help
us to start
Professional
related short
assignments, so
we feel more
relevance
through lectures
Better
information for
use of LMS/BB
If you use ICT, you
must be active
online
More cases related
to kid garden
professions. Feel
this lecture was
designed for a
“leader”
No suggestion and
happy with harvest
learning this year
More supervising
Suggested
improvement
The Importance of Acting Play for Learning Communication Skills
Citations from the student surveys about acting play:
• “Exciting and interesting lectures in communication”
• “Exciting (but also scared) with video filming, which is a good
assignment for us”
• “Lectures are fun and beneficial, especially acting play part”
• “I think lecture in “communication” part was pretty good”
Acting play seems to be the most exciting, but also efficient approach
for learning communication skills for students
LMS in Non-verbal Interaction Based Learning Approach – Openings and
Challenges
Openings
•
This LMS applied non-verbal interaction learning pattern provides new
openings for pedagogical experiments and debates. The study also opens a
possibility to combine the fulltime and part-time students to attending a
same class and work together.
•
In a pedagogical aspect, this will also create a wider and vary composition
of an online community, and activate the class debates and learning
processes
Challenges
•
Purely technical hurdling of LMS
•
The proper balancing of LMS application and the lecture content