One of the greatest skills that teachers strive to foster in their students is to simply be good citizens and contributors to society. I have been rather disheartened recently by the trends in social media and on the news especially regarding the American election.
At the beginning of the year, I made a twitter account because it was recommended in our Digital Teaching course. I think I'm ready to deactivate it because of all the negative, ineffective, one sided "dialogue" I'm witnessing on that platform. I've seen this communication trend trickle down into regular conversations as well. There are many examples where people are speaking but not listening therefore effectively kiboshing any chance for having a healthy dialogue with others.
When I saw this video on CBS I was happy to see how well this problem was illuminated and how the guest dissected the problem.
In the Ontario Curriculum for Language Arts, the first overall objective for oral communication is:
1. listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes; (Page, 9)
Listening is an important foundational skill for one of the 21st century competencies, communication! Communication within a 21st century context is not only the ability to “communicate effectively, orally, in writing, and with a variety of digital tools” but also refers to “listening skills” (Fullan, 2013, p. 9)
One of the most provocative resources that we encountered during this class and the greatest source of discussion for my group's PLC was an article on the power of debate in the classroom.
Debate: Where Speaking and Listening Come First
Debate is an excellent medium to help students grow and develop in their ability to communicate AND listen while critically evaluating an argument!
I think before we can teach students the foundations of debate, we need to tackle critical listening. A commonly taught music course for introductory undergraduate students is the "art of listening," I have seen the course referred to with this title at three different institutions. The name also graces the often used text book used for the course. I am used to referring to listening as an art in a musical context, but I hadn't referred to it in this way in a daily context... but it is an art. Students need to be given a chance and a context wherein they can develop the skill of listening critically with empathy for another person's perspective.
I love podcasts and I think there is certainly potential to explore critical listening in that avenue. I was recently exposed to an American resource, Listenwise, which was developed to be used in the classroom. Once you create a free account on the website, you can access podcasts and news stories that have been curated for use within the classroom setting.
I have also included a few other podcasts that could be used to teach effective listening and communication skills.
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