Professional Development Seminar: Improving Interpersonal Communication Elizabeth Lufrano SPED 854

Topic: Improving Interpersonal Communication by Planning and Evaluating The focus of today’s seminar will be how to increase the effectiveness your interpersonal communication skills during team meetings, co- planning sessions and other workplace interactions.

Planning Ahead: What You Can do to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Communication Part 1 Determine the aim of your communication. Determine the most appropriate setting for achieving your communication goal. Think about the message to noise ratio.

Planning Ahead: What You Can do to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Communication Part 2 Choose an appropriate channel through which to send your message. –Determine how much information you need to send to your colleague(s). –Think about how quickly you want to be able to receive feedback. –Think about the level of control you want to have over your colleague(s)’ attention. –Think about how much control you want to have over the composition of the message. –Think about the ability each possible channel provides you in determining whether your colleague(s) has understood your message.

After the Meeting: What You Can do to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Communication Reflect on your interaction. Were you successful in communicating what you wanted? Did you run into any difficulties or problems during the interaction? Summarize the behaviors you demonstrated that were helpful with regard to achieving your goal and those that were unhelpful. Write a summary of your colleague(s)’ concerns and main talking points.

Additional Communication Tips Think about both the nonverbal and verbal messages you are sending/sent. –Is your paralanguage, spatial relations, and body language congruent with your verbal messages? Think about the overall importance of the messages you are sending. –Individuals tend to invest less time and effort into communications that do not interest them or that they do not see as important. –Think about the amount of information you are sending? –Are individuals likely to tune out while you are speaking? –Are individuals likely to read your s carefully or to not read them at all?

References Friend, M., & Cook, L. (2014). Interactions: Collaboration skills for school professionals. New York: Longman, Chapters 2 and 3.