After several months of conducting interviews and producing the videos, I am excited to announce the completion of my creative component titled The Professional Connection: Videos from Industry Leaders to Improve Student Communication. I developed the video series to complete my Master of Arts degree in Rhetoric, Composition, and Professional Communication (RCPC) at Iowa State University. I chose to develop a creative component because my academic interests and professional goals are leading me towards a career in industry. In addition to RCPC, I am pursuing a minor in Curriculum and Instructional Technology (CIT) and work at Engineering-LAS Online Learning (ELO) as an instructional designer. I wanted to create a product in which I could exercise my skills in instructional design, as well as take advantage of the many practical skills I’ve developed throughout my RCPC studies and work at ELO. I also wanted to develop a product that would improve the field of technical communication, focusing specifically on improving student communication.
Effective communication is a skill that involves learning, comprehension, application, and synthesis of new knowledge. Effective communication entails successful communication in various media—including visual, oral, and written formats. Communication is essential to students as they progress through their studies, as well as advance in their careers. Often the connection between effective communication skills and the workforce is largely overlooked, especially in more technical fields, such as engineering and the sciences. More specifically, students encounter the following problems:
- Students often overlook the connection between effective communication skills and the workplace.
- Students fail to see the importance of communication as it pertains to their success in other disciplines and the workplace.
- Students are not presented with sufficient evidence of the importance of communication skills to their future careers.
One course in particular at Iowa State University strives to educate students on the importance of communication in the workplace: English 314: Technical Communication. This course emphasizes the theories, principles, and processes of effective written communication of technical information. Throughout this course, students participate in projects, creating instructions and procedures, proposals and reports, websites, presentations, etc. Technical communication classrooms often implement a wide range of educational approaches that represent the work world, including case studies, guest speakers, collaborations, simulations, and internship experiences, to help bridge the gap between the classroom and the workplace. The Professional Connection: Videos from Industry Leaders to Improve Student Communication is a project that focuses on implementing perspectives from guest speakers, or industry leaders, into the English 314 course through a series of videos. The Professional Connection is a series of 13 videos that cover a range of topics that coincide with the English 314 curriculum. The topics in the series include the following:
- The Resume
- Preparing for the Interview
- The Importance of Communication
- The Writing Process
- Writing to an Audience
- International Communication
- Teamwork and Collaboration
- Professional Genres
- The Genre of Email
- Oral Presentations
- Women in the Workforce
The Professional Connection: Videos from Industry Leaders to Improve Student Communication will be integrated into the English 314 curriculum, and may be used in other contexts at Iowa State University and other communication initiatives as necessary.