Communication in Instruction

Book excerpt: Communication in Instruction: Beyond Traditional Classroom Settings explores the various challenges we face when trying to teach others in various contexts beyond traditional classroom settings, as well as the possible strategies for overcoming them. Instructional communication is a research field that focuses on the role communication plays in instructing others. Although many resources focus on effectively instructional communication strategies within a traditional classroom setting, this book expands the scope to include diverse settings where instructional communication also occurs (e.g., risk and crisis situations, health care contexts, business settings), as well as new directions where instructional communication research and practice are (or ought to be) headed. Whether we are trying to teach a youngster to ride a bike, to help a friend evaluate the claims made on an advertisement, or to conduct a safety drill with colleagues in the workplace, we are engaging in instructional communication. If we want to do so effectively, however, we need to equip ourselves with best practice tools and strategies for doing so. That is what this book is intended to do. In it, you will read about how to teach advocacy to health care practitioners, guide others to become socialised in a new workplace setting, employ strategies for teaching digital media literacy to nondigital natives, and use artificial intelligence (AI) and robots when instructing and engaging strategies for instruction around socially relevant issues such as religion, politics, and violence. Together, they point to some of the ways instructional communication scholarship may be used to explore and inform best practices across communication contexts. The chapters in this book were originally published in Communication Education.