Comm 1010
Communication
A collection of projects completed as part of the class
Communication Competence
Communication Competence
We'll be answering the following:
Based on the assessments, what are your strengths as a communicator?
Based on the assessments, what are your weaknesses? What can you do to start improving your communication competence now?
Interpersonal communication is shown to be stronger. It could also be said that I am decently well versed on methods of communication. Group communication is not an issue, which is good as it's the most important for my pursuits. An issue visibly stems from my unorganized form of speaking, as I struggle to maintain proper composure when presenting. Although I don't enjoy going out much, I tend to really enjoy the conversations that I have with acquaintances, and those more friendly. The fear of the unknown when conversing with strangers presents an issue in the confidence I need to properly maintain communication.
So how do I improve on these questionable results? Regardless of what scores I have received on any of them, habits of mind are likely the solution to most issues. Skills get rusty, and maintaining them is an easily identifiable method of becoming better at encoding and exchanging information.
Total. : 106 PRCA-24 | 89.2 SPCC
PRCA-24:
Group Discussion (31)
Meetings (30)
Interpersonal (25)
Speech (20)
SPCC:
Meeting (83.3)
Group (93.3)
Dyad (96.7)
Stranger (67.5)
Acquaintance (100)
Friend (100)
/ CourseWork _;
Perception And Self
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Verbal And Nonverbal messages
Non-verbal communications are manifested by Encoding/Decoding systems that exclude use of spoken or written Paralanguages (specified code and symbol umbrellas). If you've ever "read" the body of someone, some creature, around you, you are decoding a set of messages given off by that individual. Learning to read this form of communication is highly beneficial in many contexts. Non-verbal communication can be used as powerful predictions of the human stimulus and the resulting action. Judgements of character, market predictions, as well as understanding bias others have towards yourself. That said, it would be unethical to completely assume the outcomes through your own bias. Bias such as racism, sexism, and a negative connection towards disposition are examples of when non verbal communication may be greatly influenced by someone’s personal contexts and cultural influence. Now how would we combat this issue? First, educating yourself on the backgrounds of what you’re biased towards will help alleviate these impulses. How else can you reduce this assumptive view of people? You may lean towards looking at more subtle signs such as eyes, hand movements and posture, as well as the “language” of feet. You can tell when someone is genuine or angry when you stare into their eyes. You can tell frustration, nervousness, anger through the motions of the hand. You can tell where people want to go and what they intend to move towards through the direction of their legs and feet. You should absolutely not assume aggression or kindness just from the disposition or physical presentation of the other communicator. To keep things short, I personally use a tactic that uses the skills above to determine if whoever I’m talking to is interested in the conversation. This is useful, because it saves both communicators from uncomfortable situations and wasting time.
Verbal communication as we are familiar with is not actually just speaking through the mouth. So perhaps verbal is not such a great name… In terms of ethical guidelines, Credos are presented as a standard of use. In terms of rationality, Scott Alexander’s rationality in the Slate Star Codex would also be good to use within your communication system. A good goal of verbal communication is to send out a baseline of mutual understanding. A way for both communicators to make sure that they are on the same page. Someone’s cultural or ethnic background may influence their decoding of your messages. As well as small differences between similar paralanguages that could result in one party miscommunicating, leaving one communicator offended and one confused. The credo become much more valuable when faced with important information that needs to be transmitted clearly and quickly to another receiver… Such as a public health statement. An example, not too personal, from the recent COVID pandemic being the protests against disease control. Stemming from the disrespect and understanding of health organizations.
Interpersonal Communication.
Collaborative communication is a form of group communication where a group of people work to efficiently exchange information and discuss topics with the intent of completing a shared goal. Knowledge of this topic has not changed my perception on anything, it's just a longer way of saying "good teamwork" after all. But because of that... Let's talk about how teamwork can change my life. I am an artist by profession and by passion. But the study of art on my lonesome is tragically slow. Normally, finding friends in art circles is easy but my rate of improvement scares more people than I can make as friends. However, Slowly, I've met people who aren't spiteful, and who are willing to teach me as much as I desire to teach them. A shared goal! And, by working together with these people as a team, I've allowed myself more room to grow with a much faster rate.
Art is a cultural thing, where you can improve your ability just through the exposure to culture. This means that there is a good reason to meet a wide variety of people and learn about their cultures. So, Taking the time to meet people, to communicate with them and explore the world through those people. The Social Penetration Theory. So, Meeting people, working with them... Will lead my life to higher horizons to hopefully become the best version of myself.
As an addition, on the topic of communication fueling growth. Interpersonal conflict is exciting and relatable to people. Having a realistic understanding of this kind of conflict is very useful to me. Because I can take these ideas and turn them into contrasts in characters, worlds, stories... And through these, I can replicate realities in art through a much more realistic and believable presentation.
Listening Skills
I am an effective listener. Receiving information with open arms, Decoding the meanings of those messages. Investigating communicator's interpretations of information sent and received and evaluating what the potential values of all of them. In situations where I'll be communicating... I'll be cooking up responses based on rational perception. My memory is truthfully not the best. But I'll work hard to recall the things we talk about during our verbal dance. The self assessment's results placed my score at 41 to which I once again dont agree with the vagueness of questions. Inversely accepting the implications of being a capable listener.
I am not one who has problems when it comes to listening. Even withholding the mental fortitude to tune out noise when necessary... Rather, I have trouble forming sentences digestible through speech instead of paper. Luckily, for my own understanding, I am very good at asking questions to deepen my understanding of a topic. Reflective listening, though not yet talked about in this course, is a skill I obtained mainly through an interest of "getting to know someone". It used to be a fairly frequent hobby of mine to meet strangers on CSGO surf servers. People relaxing and having small chats about random things, their immediate actions preoccupied by silly sliding. Some days, we'd find a topic that interests everyone, leading to a lovely and breathing communication that ties into the experiences of everyone. It's a little like magic... And it'll always be fluttering there for the next moon. Communication without the concept of proxemics is strange like magic of course.
Now let's talk about my experience with empathetic communication. Empathy is not the same as ethics... And some conflicts in my life arise when communicating with someone who will tie morality/empathy with ethics. This is a difference in cognitive complexity. And this difference can cause a complete inability for me to communicate with others in some circumstances. For the better or for the worse I am a rational and logical communicator, the creos for ethical communication naturally fitting into how I communicate normally. But there is also an emotional side to communication that I struggle to come to terms with. Leading to a preference to set a point of conversation that I refuse to cross when it comes to communicators of that type.
Final Summary
So, what has this class taught me? This class has informed and warned rather than teach. To teach good communication would be to help someone build the habits of communication to fruition. This class has not taught me communication, it taught me the pathway I'd need to walk in order to be a good communicator. I have been warned what bad communication is. And I have been informed on what good communication looks like. Knowing this, I'll work hard to build habits, adhering to the creos of communication we've discussed before.
I know that You asked me how my scores had changed, But the change was so negligible that its not even worth putting them here... I think I just need more time to practice communication!
Before this class I have been a communicator that spurts out stirred thoughts. Though this isn't something immediately subject to change... That's not actually an issue. I know how to form strategies to combat this. Verbal tactics where I can organize my thought before I need to call upon them. I know what kinds of things I have a bias against as well as the things that are something I should avoid. I listen well but respond worse... Reflecting upon the assessments taken previously, I would greatly benefit from slowing the tempo of the conversation down so I can properly encode the messages that I desire so dearly to send.
I know what I need to improve on the most. Although I'm very skilled at group communication, I am not one who is practiced in many types of group communication. Training myself to become even more flexible is something that is paramount to my future success. It's almost at the zenith of what's important to my learning. With this new outlook provided by COMM1010 I'll work on myself in order to be a better person than I will be when I wrote this page.
