Interpersonal Skills in an Internet Era

Welcome back everyone! I know it has been a few weeks since my last blog, so I am so excited to be back this week talking about the importance of practicing interpersonal skills in the classroom.

It is no secret that students today essentially live their lives online. It is easier to connect via text or Snapchat instead of trying to make in-person plans, and completing group projects can quickly be done in a shared Google Doc. These improvements in technology are wonderful and they connect the world in amazing ways, however, with this being said, certain interpersonal skills are being lost on this new generation of learners, such as active listening, reading body language, sharing ideas, and problem solving.

According to an article from Harvard Graduate School of Education, “Professions requiring high levels of social interaction — such as managers, teachers, nurses, therapists, consultants, and lawyers — have grown by nearly 12 percentage points as a share of all jobs in the United States economy in the last 30 years.” Even though there might be a shift towards online communication in our personal lives, the work world is increasingly demanding jobs that require interpersonal skills. Because of this, I feel educators should strive to include as much collaboration time in their classes as possible. Whether it is for five minutes, or an entire class period, students should be practicing face to face interpersonal skills.

Here are just a few easy ways to help foster these important skills with your students…

-Think-pair-share: In this activity, students will take a few minutes to consider a particular question, then they will find a partner and discuss their individual answers. After a few minutes the class will regroup and see what each partner group had to say. This engages the interpersonal skills of active listening, offering opposing viewpoints, and problem solving.

-Team review games: Group review games are great because it doesn’t matter how many students are in your class, you can create teams of any size and have them answer review questions. As a team they will collaborate to problem solve, listen to suggestions from peers, and develop teamwork.

-Wagon-wheel discussion: In a wagon-wheel discussion, half of the students will sit in a circle facing outwards and have a question on an index card, while the other half of the students will form an outer circle around them facing inwards. Students on the outside circle will then rotate around the inside circle answering the questions. This activity helps students to actively listen, think through educated responses, and consider different answers. While this is a very brief explanation of the activity, this link will take you to more information if interested http://schoolreforminitiative.org/doc/wagon_wheels.pdf .

-Group projects: I know this is a touchy subject for some people who feel group projects distribute work unevenly, but with the right structure in place, it is a great chance for students to develop interpersonal skills like communication, delegation, problem solving, teamwork, and personal accountability.

Even through all of the technological changes our world has faced over the past few years, certain skills will always stay relevant. Helping our youth cultivate strong interpersonal skills will help them down the path to success later in their adult lives.

Thank you all for reading! I hope these suggestions will inspire you all to try some collaborative activities in your classes!

For anyone interested in more information on the growing need for interpersonal skills in the work world, here is a link to a great article from Harvard Graduate School of Education https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/17/10/interpersonal-skills-and-todays-job-market .