When teaching the principles of interpersonal and small-group communication in discipline-specific courses, use many examples that relate specifically to the field. Often students in these disciplines are required to take communications courses without understanding why and what is gained from studying communications. Real-life or likely scenarios that are specific to the field can help students recognize the value of communications principles and motivate the students to apply the principles in their daily work.
It's easy for education students to focus on lesson plans and assessment structure and forget that their primary job is working with people. Apply a lesson on active listening to interactions that may occur when the learners become teachers. For example, create a worksheet that highlights teaching scenarios and asks the future educator to write a clarifying question and a paraphrase she could ask in each scenario. A possible scenario is: (Student) -- "I hate math! I'm so stupid in it. I'll never get a good grade in this class!" The typical response from a teacher is often "Oh, you'll do fine. Don't worry about it," showing a lack of active listening. An excellent clarifying question is, "Have you always disliked math, or are you having a particular problem with the assignment today?" A good paraphrase response is "So you're feeling completely frustrated with your math right now, and you're afraid you'll get a poor grade that will negatively affect your GPA?"
Apply both small-group and interpersonal skills to scenarios in information technology. For example, point out to IT students how often they must collaborate in groups to create a program or alter a system to make it usable in a specific company. Remind IT students that they will frequently be the "IT" person in a group project, requiring them to be aware of others' knowledge or lack thereof and necessitating a positive contribution to a group. Remind the students that taking a negative role in a group, even if that role seems natural, could mean losing a job or friendships. Teaching students about maintenance roles, member roles and negative roles in a group will help them be more aware of how their individual contributions or detractions affect the desired outcome. As an exercise, give the students an IT task to accomplish in a small group while secretly assigning one or more of the group members destructive roles, such as the aggressor or the super-agreeable group member. Point out the challenges of working with such people.
In research and development, scientists and experts often work alone in a lab. Students going into these fields may discount the value of interpersonal and small-group skills, but these workers have a supreme need for excellent communication skills. The very basics of competent communication -- being appropriate, effective and ethical -- is crucial to someone who works alone, but whose funding and job are dependent on other people understanding and appreciating the work. A researcher who is unclear, defensive, condescending and hurtful will have a difficult time succeeding, even if his research work is top in the world. One exercise a communications teacher could use in a class of technical or research-oriented students is to have two students do a role play. One student plays a researcher trying to convey the importance of the obscure principle he has just discovered, while the other student portrays the manager who doesn't know anything about the technical side of the business. Encourage the students to practice active listening and competent communicating.