A frequent complaint of instructors (and employers) is that students lack communication skills that they will need beyond graduation. These skills include everyday written communications, like professional emails or letters, but also presentation skills, ability to simplify complex content, and giving and receiving feedback. These skills are best learned when built over time across multiple contexts. Part of the Durable Skills Initiative at the U is helping instructors build teaching of critical skills like communication into their disciplinary content.
For example, in a lesson about the importance of replication and open science, you can ask students to write an email to a hypothetical research mentor, explaining this movement and why it’s important, and advocating for their own desire to replicate an important finding from the field. This activity requires students to understand and relate the critical content, but they must do it in a way that mirrors a professional communication in which they advocate for their own position on something. Another example is having students do “Dinner Table Presentations” where they must explain a complex concept in terms simple enough for a layman to understand. The premise is that they’re having a conversation over dinner with someone, discussing the issue. Students practice how to deconstruct and communicate complex information in a way that others without the same background will understand. You can also do this activity in groups or pairs, so students can ask questions and provide feedback for each other as part of the exercise. For more ideas about how to teach communication skills, see this list from Pearson or this article on Teaching Communication Skills by Mallet (2026).
However you choose to teach communication skills to your students, make it explicit that this is what you’re doing. Tell students that in addition to learning course content, they will be practicing communication skills that they will need in the workplace and then ask them to reflect on the use of those skills in your assignment. If you’d like to learn more about durable skills, and teaching Communication Skills to your students, sign up for the next session of our Durable Skills Faculty Development Series, on October 22 at 10am via Zoom.
