DE Oracle @ UMUC

A Faculty Guide to SkillSoft Business Skills Courses

Center for Teaching and Learning

Staff of Center for Teaching and Learing

Center for Teaching and Learning

Published: July-August 2005

Category: » Fac-resources » Faculty-development

UMUC faculty currently have free access to 2,180 different self-paced, online courses offered through UMUC's partnership with SkillSoft. Many faculty may already be familiar with the SkillSoft courses aimed at improving technical skills such as those on Microsoft Office or other software programs. But faculty may not be aware that the SkillSoft Business Skills curriculum features instruction in a number of  "soft skill" topics (e.g., communication skills, time management) that also have relevance for issues that faculty confront in their online and f2f classes.

To help faculty navigate through the many SkillSoft courses available in the Business Skills curriculum, CTL asked one of our UMUC SUS computer studies faculty, Ms. Robin Bush, to review and annotate a selection of courses available through SkillSoft.

Below you will find three of the 11 courses that Ms. Bush has reviewed. The information she has provided for each course includes the title, number, duration, faculty reviewer's comments, description, and lesson objectives. The full review list of all 11 recommended courses will be posted on CTL's website mid-July. In subsequent months, we will follow up by posting a review and annotated selection of the Technical Skills curriculum.

You can register for SkillSoft courses from the CTL webpage. Once you have registered and accessed the UMUC SkillSoft Website, you can search for specific "soft skills" courses under their "Search-and-Learn" feature.  Topics to use for finding courses of interest are:  time management, presentation skills and interpersonal communication skills.

Faculty Reviewer's Comments

This course clears up misconceptions regarding the terms 'negative' and 'positive' feedback. Feedback is classified as 'reinforcing' or 'corrective'. It is clear that the purpose of feedback is to improve performance. A five step feedback model is presented. Extensive examples demonstrate the importance of clear communication, good interpersonal skills, and an understanding of the needs of the adult learner. The appropriateness of time and place are also considered. All of the concepts presented in this class can be easily applied to an educational setting. It is likely that doing so would improve student performance. This course easily bridges the gap between the boardroom and the classroom.

Course Description

The performance of any business depends upon the performance of everyone within the organization. To ensure that all staff are meeting their potential it is essential that there is a culture which enables feedback to be given and received. This course enables you to become familiar with the key aspects of giving candid, constructive feedback about performance. The purpose of this course is to enable you to enhance your skills in giving feedback. The course starts by exploring the nature of feedback, and it then develops a practical approach to the feedback process. Giving feedback is not always straightforward however, and so the final part of this course looks at barriers to giving feedback and strategies for dealing with situations where your feedback is challenged.

Lesson Objectives

he Basics of Giving Feedback

• recognize the benefits of incorporating the four key aspects when giving effective feedback.
• differentiate between the characteristics of positive, negative, corrective, and reinforcing feedback.
• match the type of feedback required to a given situation.
• identify the most appropriate time and place to give different types of feedback.

Giving Feedback--the Process

• recognize the benefits of using the five-step process in giving effective feedback.
• decide which criteria are appropriate for analyzing a subject's performance.
• match the appropriate feedback style and approach to the situation.
• adapt the core feedback model to a specified feedback situation.

Communicating Feedback

• recognize the benefits of identifying the appropriate communication strategy to use to make your feedback effective.
• identify effective communication strategies for giving feedback to adults.
• recognize potential barriers to giving feedback.
• identify the most appropriate strategy for dealing with challenges to the accuracy of feedback.

Faculty Reviewer's Comments

UMUC has a presence in the US, Asia and Europe. Its distance education program attracts and connects students and teachers from all over the world. We are a university on a global scale. This course will help instructors to understand the impact of cultural differences on communication. The course covers the basic building blocks of culture. Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Model and Edward T. Hall's Contextual Model of Culture are presented. The role-playing scenarios in the class are quite complex so taking notes as you work through the first two sections of the course is recommended.

Course Description

Everything you say is influenced by culture. You operate with a set of invisible beliefs, values, and assumptions that become apparent to other people in the way you behave. Culture is important to the way you communicate, even though it is often hidden. Understanding more about culture can be a real bonus when working as part of any global organization. Showing your customers and coworkers in different countries that you are in tune with them, and that you appreciate and value the differences between you, can help get your working relationships off to a flying start. In this course, you'll examine what culture means and what it doesn't, and look at some of the barriers relating to culture. You'll also consider different cultural theories including Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Model and Edward T. Hall's Model of Culture. You'll go on to learn more about direct and indirect communicators, and different communication styles.

Lesson Objectives:

Understanding How Culture Affects Communication

• recognize the benefits of understanding what culture means and the barriers involved.
• recall definitions of culture.
• differentiate between universal, personal and cultural behaviors.
• distinguish between examples of the barriers that cause problems in cross-cultural communications.

Cultural Theories

• recognize the benefits of understanding more about cultural models.
• match the different stages in the building blocks of culture to examples.
• match the cultural dimensions in Geert Hofstede's Model to examples.
• apply Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Model to communicate effectively in a given situation.
• differentiate between examples of high- and low-context cultures using Edward T. Hall's model of Culture.

Direct and Indirect Communication

• recognize the benefits of understanding about direct and indirect communication.
• distinguish between examples of direct and indirect communicators. use the right approach when responding to clients and/or coworkers in a specific situation, according to whether they are direct or indirect communicators.

Faculty Reviewer's Comments

This course builds a solid background in Communication theory. It describes the stages of the communication process and introduces steps needed for effective communication. The real value of this course comes in recognizing the differences involved when communicating with auditory learners, visual learners, and kinesthetic learners. Specific recommendations on tailoring your communication to each learning style are presented. The feedback portion of this course is similar to but less detailed than the information presented in "An Essential Guide to Giving Feedback", Course Number COMM0521.

Course Description

It is almost impossible to be productive in today's business environment without being an effective communicator. This is particularly true if achievement of your goals depends on your ability to influence others. You need to be able to communicate your ideas, instructions, thoughts, and feelings accurately. This is not as easy as it may seem, and ineffective communication is often at the core of a high proportion of the errors, misunderstandings, and conflicts that occur in the workplace. This course is designed to give you an understanding of the prime causes of poor communication, and, more importantly, the skills required to minimize their impact.

Lesson Objectives:

The Communication Process

• identify the benefits of improving the effectiveness of interpersonal communication.
• sequence the stages of the communication process in the correct order.
• identify the objectives for the aiming, encoding, and transmission stages of the communication process.
• analyze the details of an interaction between two people to determine which communication objective(s) were not achieved.
• characterize the various types of feedback which can be given in relation to a communicated message.
• give probing and understanding feedback in response to a communicated message, in a given scenario.
• determine the methods of building rapport to improve the clarity of interpersonal communication, in a given scenario.

Using Communication Styles to Connect

• identify the benefit of being able to recognize and respond to the preferred communication styles of staff, colleagues, and clients.
• identify the characteristics of people with a preference for the auditory communication style.
• respond appropriately to a person with an auditory communication style, in a given situation.
• identify the characteristics of people with a preference for the visual communication style.
• respond appropriately to someone who prefers the visual communication style, in a given situation.
• identify the characteristics of people with a preference for the kinesthetic communication style.
• respond appropriately to someone with a preference for the kinesthetic communication style, in a given situation.