Communication in eLearning

Posted on June 15th, 2009 by mkrill

Cross posted from: A&S Reflections

This week members of my program cohort completed a Communication Styles Inventory. I’m generally pretty wary of these types of surveys – I mean it was only 10 questions. Anyway, based on the questions (which, in many cases, had two very good choices), I was found to be a sensor. Some words from this ‘communication character’ were: doer, decisive, pragmatic, independent, assertive, practical, opportunistic… Honestly, I think many of those characteristics can be seen as both negative and positive. I wasn’t sure I was pleased with the outcome of the survey.

However, I also rated high on the feeler scale, which made me feel a little better. Some words from this ‘communication character’ were: patience, perceptive, understanding, respectful, accepting, people oriented…

I do see myself with the sensor qualities, but also felt that single description did not factor in my ‘feeling’ qualities. Therefore, I’ll be referring to myself as a sensor/feeler:) The other two styles were intuitor and thinker, and I also had some of those characteristics. Of course, those rated lower for me and that is an important thing to understand about myself.

The reason for completing the communication styles inventory was to determine my communication style for the purpose of later using the information to build teams for coursework activities. As a sensor/feeler, I’ll need to pay attention to the characteristics of the other two styles: intuitor and thinker and be sure I’m incorporating those characteristics into my work. Also it seems I’m looking for some thinkers (avoids emotionalism and speculation, can be overly cautious or conservative, even rigid ) and intuitors (excel in imaginative tasks, see the value of continuous probing and re-examination ) to be in my group. Although I know combining these other communication styles to my style might mean that it will be more challenging and maybe take longer to get things done, I bet they’ll be deeper in content and contain more vision than I could on my own. I guess that equals a collaborative team!