Teaching Interpersonal Skills

With new author Alicia Alexander joining Elizabeth J. Natalle, two award-winning educators provide all the tools instructors need to develop, teach, and manage a successful interpersonal communication course. Updated throughout, new and seasoned instructors alike will benefit from the new chapter dedicated to teaching online as well as the practical advice, scholarly insight, and suggestions for integrating research and practice into the classroom found throughout the book.

The routine jobs of yesterday are being replaced by technology and/or shipped off-shore. In their place, job categories that require knowledge management, abstract reasoning, and personal services seem to be growing. The modern workplace requires workers to have broad cognitive and affective skills. Often referred to as "21st century skills," these skills include being able to solve complex problems, to think critically about tasks, to effectively communicate with people from a variety of different cultures and using a variety of different techniques, to work in collaboration with others, to adapt to rapidly changing environments and conditions for performing tasks, to effectively manage one's work, and to acquire new skills and information on one's own. The National Research Council (NRC) has convened two prior workshops on the topic of 21st century skills. The first, held in 2007, was designed to examine research on the skills required for the 21st century workplace and the extent to which they are meaningfully different from earlier eras and require corresponding changes in educational experiences. The second workshop, held in 2009, was designed to explore demand for these types of skills, consider intersections between science education reform goals and 21st century skills, examine models of high-quality science instruction that may develop the skills, and consider science teacher readiness for 21st century skills. The third workshop was intended to delve more deeply into the topic of assessment. The goal for this workshop was to capitalize on the prior efforts and explore strategies for assessing the five skills identified earlier. The Committee on the Assessment of 21st Century Skills was asked to organize a workshop that reviewed the assessments and related research for each of the five skills identified at the previous workshops, with special attention to recent developments in technology-enabled assessment of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In designing the workshop, the committee collapsed the five skills into three broad clusters as shown below: Cognitive skills: nonroutine problem solving, critical thinking, systems thinking Interpersonal skills: complex communication, social skills, team-work, cultural sensitivity, dealing with diversity Intrapersonal skills: self-management, time management, self-development, self-regulation, adaptability, executive functioning Assessing 21st Century Skills provides an integrated summary of the presentations and discussions from both parts of the third workshop.

Build skills for lifelong success Many students leave high school without the skills they need to succeed in postsecondary education and the workforce. How can we better equip students for lifelong success? Research demonstrates that intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies impact student behavior and achievement, increase graduation rates, and promote strong post-school outcomes. The Skills That Matter provides middle and high school educators with the resources, tools, and practical examples to teach key intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies, including self-regulation, goal-setting, self-efficacy, assertiveness, and conflict management. Readers will find Competency-specific evidence-based instructional strategies with examples, and Tools such as sample instructional plans, formative assessments, and student-friendly products. This book provides teachers with the practical information they need to better develop socially and emotionally engaged, career-equipped, lifelong learners.

This book brings together recent research on interpersonal relationships in education from a variety of perspectives including research from Europe, North America and Australia. The work clearly demonstrates that positive teacher-student relationships can contribute to student learning in classrooms of various types. Productive learning environments are characterized by supportive and warm interactions throughout the class: teacher-student and student-student. Similarly, at the school level, teacher learning thrives when there are positive and mentoring interrelationships among professional colleagues. Work on this book began with a series of formative presentations at the second International Conference on Interpersonal Relationships in Education (ICIRE 2012) held in Vancouver, Canada, an event that included among others, keynote addresses by David Berliner, Andrew Martin and Mieke Brekelmans. Further collaboration and peer review by the editorial team resulted in the collection of original research that this book comprises. The volume (while eclectic) demonstrates how constructive learning environment relationships can be developed and sustained in a variety of settings. Chapter contributions come from a range of fields including educational and social psychology, teacher and school effectiveness research, communication and language studies, and a variety of related fields. Together, they cover the important influence of the relationships of teachers with individual students, relationships among peers, and the relationships between teachers and their professional colleagues.

What can we do to help those who struggle to develop effective social skills? Social Skills: Developing Effective Interpersonal Communication is a definitive guide to understanding and meeting the needs of those who have difficulty with social skills. Written in a clear and accessible manner, this book provides a theoretical framework to the teaching of social skills alongside a range of practical ideas for practitioners. The book offers a four-step plan that can be adapted for use with young people or adults who are struggling with any aspect of their social skills. A simple model for assessing social skills is provided, as well as ways to measure the impact of intervention. Full of interesting examples and case studies, it includes discussion of how to teach social skills, how social skills develop through childhood, why they sometimes might not, and why social skills difficulties can have an impact on self-esteem and friendships. It includes a breakdown of social skills into the following areas: body language eye contact listening and paralanguage starting and ending conversations maintaining conversations assertiveness Written by one of the most well-known Speech and Language therapists in this field and the creator of the internationally successful Talkabout resources, this book provides a key reference for the study of social skills. It will be essential reading for educators, therapists, parents and anyone supporting others in developing communication and social skills.