Assignment 1:

Business Communication - Self-Reflection Essay

Purpose:

The purpose of this assessment is to encourage you to think, learn, and critique how you communicate with others within an organisational context. To do this you are asked to self-reflect. Self-reflection is a particular way of learning. It involves exploring, interpreting and understanding the implications of your behaviours.

Task:

In this task you are asked to write an essay based upon two significant communication incidents that you have experienced in the workplace. The first incident should be one in which you feel that you communicated successfully. The other should be one in which you feel that you communicated in a way that was unsuccessful. In thinking about what constitutes successful or unsuccessful communication you should focus upon such issues as: were the goals of communicating achieved or not, were interpersonal relationships/networks enhanced or diminished, was teamwork effective or ineffective, was the communication clear or ambiguous e.g. In this part of the essay you need to establish what happened and the context.

Having described the incidents, you will then analyse and interpret them. This means that you will need to break the incidents down into their constituent parts in order to assign meaning to your behaviours (i.e. demonstrate an understanding of what has happened). Specifically you will need to describe particular behaviours in terms of how it made you feel (use your Emotional Intelligence) and the consequences of your behaviours. It is important to include data (i.e. specific aspects of the incident) and academic sources to support your interpretations.

Next you will address what you learned and what would you do in the future. This will require you to think critically. In the context of this essay this means that you must synthesise (i.e.) bring together all that you have learned in a logical and persuasive manner and evaluate your behaviours. Specifically you will need to address what you did well and how these actions have strengthened or honed you competency as a communicator. In addition, you should talk about areas that need improvement and what you would specifically do to ensure more successful future communicative interaction.

Other:

This essay is should be 2000 words in length (excluding references) and should cite five peer reviewed journal articles.

References should conform to either Harvard or APA format.

Assignment 2:

Business Communication - Training Presentation

Purpose:

The purpose of this assessment is to demonstrate your ability to research, write and orally present a training presentation. Training is a planned effort by an organisation to facilitate employees' knowledge of and ability to perform job-related competencies. This training session is based upon a presentation brief which will demonstrate your ability to analyse your audience and create a training presentation. In addition you will produce one written piece of peer-feedback as a means of demonstrating your listening and written communication skills.

Task:

Your task is to present a training session to your audience members designed to improve their communication in the workplace. For example, you could provide a training session on how to write effective business email. Your training session must build upon and extend the knowledge that the audience has and should logically argue why/how the information applies to or benefits the audience's work-related activities. Your presentation must contain information reflecting relevant industry standards and/or academic knowledge about the topic. To do this you will need to use primary source materials. The presentation should sequence information in a logical manner. It is expected that the delivery will be extemporaneous (limited notes/note cards) and will use presentation software. The training sessions time you will need to hand in a presentation brief consisting of a needs assessment and training learning goals and objectives, an outline and a reference list.

Other:

The presentation must be 8-10 minutes in length and should cite five academic references (Does not have to be peer-reviewed materials)

The presentation brief should be around 1000 words

The written peer-feedback should be around 500 words

References should conform to either Harvard or APA format