Week 4

Shrugging your shoulders is one form of nonverbal communication. It can mean so many things. " I don't know" is a common meaning, "I don't care", or you could shrug your shoulders as part of a dance move. Depending on the context, whether you are in a good mood or bad mood, "I don't know" can even mean two different things. It could be an "I know but I don't feel like answering" I don't know, or it could be an authentic "I don't know". Either way, shrugging your shoulders is one form of nonverbal communication that can be misinterpreted. Nonverbal communication is important because it can either ad to a point, or distract from it. Can tell us if someone is lying or sincere, and can speak words even if we don't say them. Everybody uses nonverbal communication in everyday life and it is one of the most important types of communication.

"The person who controls and possesses information has power." I think this means that people who know things get more out of it, such as a teacher knows more than the students about a particular subject, and therefore has power over the students. Or a doctor has more medical knowledge than a patient so he has a higher labled status (power) than the patients or ordinary people. We need to be aware of this information because as speakers, we hold a certain power over our audience. When we give a speech, whether about a personal subject, or based on research, we have certain knowledge that our audience does not, therefore we have the power to control their interest. If we learn how to control and use this information to somewhat apply to everyone in the audience in an effective way, then we have the makings of an effective and interesting speech. Nonverbal communication is also a part of this factor. By the motions of our hands, face and bodies durring a speech we can give a certain tone to the words we are saying that further supports our speech.
Question of the week: WHy do you think nonverbal gestures are so much a part of everyday life?

Week 3 Post

I am often an active participant in the classroom, which means, I like to raise my hand and comment on or question the lecture. Sometimes this goes over great with the class and triggers great classsroom discussions, other times, people tune me out and don't listen to a word I say. I am usually pretty adamant about keeping my comments relevant to the topic in discussion, so when I get ignored or get blank stares or rolled eyes from my classmates, it frustrates me. The way I see it, by actively participating in the discussion, I am exposing myself to new points of views, getting my questions answered, and getting the best out of my education. I love to learn new things and have my thoughts and feelings challenged. I do not think that some people understand my reasoning sometimes, and they feel that I am just a know-it-all who is trying to get a good grade from the professor. I understand that perspective as well, so I try very hard not to over-take the classrooms, and I challenge my self to keep my input to a minimum, but I always love to ask questions!

I have sat through many presentations that have been very disorganized. My Biology professor for example, is very disorganized. Her syllabus had spelling and factual errors, her presentation is sloppy, she often comes to class unprepared and loses things. She mapped out the class discussions on the syllabus, but it is disorganized and they do not match up with any of the chapters in the book so it is hard to follow along. All of these issues together create a bad image for her, and they give us students a reason to tune out her lectures (especially when she strays off topic, which happens very often). Her lectures are the same way, she will explain one concept using words or discriptors that we have not learned yet and simply say "i will come back to that" and she never does. She offers notes online, but there is no order to them, and we never know which to print out before class because we really have no idea what the class is going to be about.
I think that presentation is important, especially organized presentations. If you are going to teach students, whether at a collegiate level or younger, you have to clearly explain your expectaions and present it in an organized manner. In her case, a simple outline of what we will cover that day, or even week, would help us out a lot.

Week 2

My Middle School and High School had this program called ETS (educational talent search) where some old guy would come in and talk to us about our future and tell us how unprepared we are for it. We would do a whole bunch of career planing activities and short evaulations that would place us in our ideal job settings. Although I found some of thier advice useful, the speakers were often dull and boring. Most were monotonous, and a lot did not speek of the age-group. They would often speak to us like we were done and did not understand everyday English. I do not feel that they properly analyzed their audience before preparing their presentations and speeches. One good thing did come out of those boring ETS sessions however, I realized that when i present or speek to a crowd one of the first things that I will do is make sure to analyze my audience. I am planning on being an elementary school teacher so this will come in handy. It is a lot harder in my oppinion to talk to children in an educated way than to address an adult or some one my age, because I cannot assume that the child knows the same big words that I do. I have to generalize my speeking to match their abilities, and that is all a part of analyzing the audience.

As far as some presentations in the past, many have caught my eye, and most of the good ones I remember well. A lot of them had incredible verbal support. One in particular that I remember was in Middle School. In History class we were learning about the Hollocaust and they hired a speaker to come and talk to us. This guy was incredible. He was able to undoubtly catch the attention of 200 middle-schoolers for his hour long presentation. His speech ran over part of our lunch time and we were free to leave whenever we wanted; we didn't. We were so impressed with his knowledge and speech that we would not dare to leave in the middle of his story. He did not have any visual representations, nor did he do anything fun or wierd with his body. He simply sat in a chair and talked about the Hollocaust; but it was the most beautiful and horrifying story I have ever heard. He used details that put us at the seen and revealed the tattooed numbers on his wrist that placed him there too. By the end we were all in tears, and some of us had nightmares about it that night. I will never forget what I learned from that speaker as he touched my heart forever!