Regardless of one’s job, communication is essential in the workplace. Employees must communicate with their coworkers, managers, customers, and others in the community, in support of the work performed by the District. These classes are offered as a way to expand and improve communication skills, both oral and written.
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| Abbreviating, Capitalizing, and Using Numbers (Writing Skills) | In this course, participants will learn the basic rules of capital letters, abbreviations, and numbers. They will learn how to correctly abbreviate titles, names, locations, and countries, as well as how to capitalize direct quotes, titles, names of organizations, and product names, among other elements. In addition, participants will explore other key elements for better writing – the forms and uses of numbers with dates and time, money, fractions, and symbols. | 33 minutes |
| Audience and Purpose in Business Writing (Writing Skills) | To write effective and appropriate business messages, one needs to know their audience and purpose. In this course, participants will discover how to identify readers and create messages that convey the appropriate tone for different reader roles. Participants will also explore how to write effectively for the three most common purposes: to inform, respond, or persuade. | 29 minutes |
| Building Your Presentation | Effective business presentations need to have a sound structure. To ensure that a presentation has this structure, one needs to consider its overall purpose, the audience, and the key points being presented, and then put them all together into a plan of action for guidance. In this course, participants will learn how to write the key parts of a presentation so they're memorable and effective. They will also learn how to select and use eye-catching visual aids to bring PowerPoint presentations to life. Finally, they will learn how to rehearse the presentation – a key step for public speaking that will improve verbal communication skills and build confidence for the real thing. | 30 minutes |
| Business Writing Skills Made Easy (Writing Skills) | Good writing skills are arguably the most important requirement in today’s working world. With the growing number of daily emails, reports, social media posts, and instant messages, good writing skills can build relationships, improve job performance, and enhance collaboration among teams. Topics covered in this course include: writing basics; writing strategically; using an active voice; common writing problems; editing and proofing; Emails; reports; presentations and more. | 102 minutes |
| Clarity and Conciseness in Business Writing (Writing Skills) | In this course, participants will explore techniques to make their writing more clear. Specifically, they will learn about the importance of using short and familiar words, appropriate connotations, concrete and specific language, and transitional words and phrases. Participants will also explore tips for being more concise in their writing and best practices for organizing content. | 31 minutes |
| Communicate for Business: Write, Email, Close the Loop (Writing Skills) | Clear communication isn't always as easy as it sounds. This course will help participants express ideas in traditional genres as well as digitally. Course goals include learning how to: choose words for their precision and ability to engage the target audience; focus on the message to determine grammatical choices; tailor emails based on purpose and recipient; and create a plan that supports an upcoming change initiative. | 47 minutes |
| Communicating with a Cross-cultural Audience | Cultural differences affect how people communicate in business. This impact examines pitfalls to avoid when communicating with a cross-cultural audience. | 6 minutes |
| Communication & Social Skills | The Communication and Social Skills range is designed to help staff become more confident and effective in their communications, when speaking, listening and writing. | 41 minutes |
| Creating Well-Constructed Sentences (Writing Skills) | In this course, participants will learn some of the fundamentals for better writing – the parts of a sentence, such as the subject and predicate, as well as phrases and clauses. They will examine subject-verb agreement, as well as agreement between pronouns and their antecedents. They will also discover some techniques for writing well, such as how to identify and fix common types of sentence errors. | 36 minutes |
| Deliver Meaningful Feedback & Inspire Performance | Effective leaders know how to communicate with their team members to keep morale and productivity high. Participants will learn the crucial communication skills needed to have as a leader. First, they will learn best practices for delivering meaningful feedback in any situation. Then they will discover how communication in general, and performance feedback in particular, will increase their team’s productivity. | 28 minutes |
| Difficult Conversations | All of us are occasionally faced with difficult, uncomfortable, or potentially contentious situations with our colleagues. This course provides the tools to handle these interactions as calmly and effectively as possible. The course will cover: How to create environments conducive to swift and satisfying resolutions to difficult issues; How to (and not to) approach various types of difficult conversations (odor issues, personality conflicts, communicating a low performance review, etc.); What to expect from your conversation partner during difficult conversations, and how to effectively defuse anger or other negative emotional responses. | 42 minutes |
| Editing and Proofreading Business Documents (Writing Skills) | This course describes how to edit and proofread effectively, covering key areas, such as tone, structure, clarity, and accuracy, as well as common grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes to watch out for. | 30 minutes |
| Effective Listening | Being well informed is crucial to leading and managing. But how well do people listen to the information they are exposed to? This Challenge Series exercise explores how developing listening skills can help achieve business goals, prevent misunderstandings and unnecessary work, facilitate problem-solving, improve client and coworker relationships, and foster self-development. | 15 minutes |
| Effective Team Communication | In this course, participants will learn about different verbal barriers to effective team communication and strategies for overcoming them. But speaking is only one part of communication; effective team leadership is about listening too. So they will also learn about some active listening techniques that can help be a better listener when managing teams. | 31 minutes |
| Encouraging Team Communication and Collaboration | In this course, participants will learn how to demonstrate team leadership by encouraging effective communication and overcoming communication problems. They will explore strategies for encouraging team collaboration and will learn about tools and technologies that are commonly used for virtual teamwork and key considerations for establishing virtual communication guidelines. | 30 minutes |
| Ensuring Successful Presentation Delivery | In this course, participants will learn how to set up the right environment for a business presentations. They will also learn techniques for managing stage fright and using verbal communication skills and body language to deliver a message clearly and effectively. Finally, participants will learn about how to deal with audience questions in a Q&A session and the impact this has on one's credibility. | 31 minutes |
| Getting Ready to Present | This Challenge Series exercise explores how to prepare a relevant, focused, and engaging presentation. In it, the learner must get ready to present to an anxious audience at a critical juncture in a project. | 15 minutes |
| Getting the Details Right: Spelling Basics (Writing Skills) | Spelling errors are all too common, and are one of the main culprits behind poor business writing. In this course, participants will learn how to spell words with prefixes and suffixes, and how to form the plural and possessive forms of words. They will also learn general rules on how to spell correctly, as well as some handy tips for better writing in general. | 28 minutes |
| Giving Appropriate Feedback | Effective feedback requires consideration and forethought. This challenge focuses on methods for giving appropriate feedback. | 15 minutes |
| Giving Feedback to Coworkers | Giving effective feedback requires skill and tact. This Challenge Series exercise focuses on the formal process of offering guidance to coworkers. | 15 minutes |
| Handling Difficult Questions as a Presenter | Presentations are an open dialogue between the presenter and the audience. So what can a presenter do when faced with a difficult question? This Impact series product examines strategies for dealing with challenging questions. | 6 minutes |
| How Culture Impacts Communication | With so much business happening on a global scale, cross-cultural communication is more important than ever before. Communication is always a challenge, and when diverse cultures interact, good communication can be even more challenging. In this course, participants will learn about the importance of achieving a proper mindset for cross-cultural communication. They will explore aspects of cultures that affect how people communicate across cultural boundaries. Participants will also learn considerations for speaking and writing in cross-cultural environments. | 30 minutes |
| Improving Your Technical Writing Skills (Writing Skills) | In this course, participants will learn techniques for better writing that will help them avoid common pitfalls and structure their business writing more effectively. They will find out how to tailor written communication to the specific requirements of different types of technical material – so that whether they want to persuade or to instruct, they will be able to achieve their writing goals. | 22 minutes |
| Listening to Improve Conversation | Getting the most out of conversations at work is an acquired skill. This Business Impact explores what's required to make these exchanges as meaningful as possible. | 6 minutes |
| Listening with Skill | Effective listening requires focus and active concentration. This challenge explores skills and methods for listening for comprehension and productive communication. | 15 minutes |
| Planning an Effective Presentation | In this course, participants will learn how to define and understand the audience's characteristics, knowledge, needs, and responses. They will also learn how to organize a presentation's timing, purpose, key points, and approach so that it is engaging, focused, and relevant. Finally, participants will learn about different presentation methods, such as PowerPoint presentations, and when they're most effectively used. | 29 minutes |
| The Art and Science of Communication | In this course, participants will learn about the art and science of communication. They will explore techniques for connecting with the audience and building trust with them so that their communication intention is clear and understood. Participants will also learn the basic principles of assertive communication that is positive and not aggressive. | 21 minutes |
| The Invisible Meeting | “The Invisible Meeting” demonstrates 6 effective techniques for making your conference calls more productive. This engaging program reveals the “challenges” and the “virtual rules” that both participants and meeting organizers need to know. “The Invisible Meeting” will make your conference calls more effective, saving your organization time and money. | 18 minutes |
| Troublesome Words and Phrases: Common Usage Mistakes in Writing (Writing Skills) | The many nuances and conventions in the English language make it diverse and interesting; however, when it comes to writing well, they can also cause some difficulties. For better writing skills, one must familiarize themselves with some of the most common errors of usage. In this course, participants will learn how to use commonly confused words correctly, including word pairs that sound alike and those that have related meanings. They will explore often misused verbs – for example, affect and effect or apprise and appraise – that can impede professional business writing. Participants will also learn some idiomatic combinations of verbs and prepositions that can be confusing and will put communication skills to the test. | 29 minutes |
| Trust Building through Effective Communication | Communication is most effective when one builds and maintains the trust of the people one communicates with. In this course, the participant will explore how a clear intention is the basis of an effective communication, and how understanding one's audience ensures that the message gets delivered. Participants will also learn how body language, vocal tone, and managing emotions can influence communications and build trust with the audience. | 25 minutes |
| Using Communication Strategies to Bridge Cultural Divides | In this course, participants will learn about dealing effectively with cultural diversity to improve cross-cultural communication and build rapport. They will also learn about the misunderstandings and behaviors related to a culture that can hinder good communication and ways to overcome them. Finally, participants will learn strategies for giving effective presentations to people from low- and high-context cultures | 30 minutes |
| Writing Effective E-mails and Instant Messages (Writing Skills) | Email has become an indispensable communication tool for organizations, and plays a vital role in how they conduct business and maintain their operations. As a result, one of the most important communication skills to have in the workplace today is email etiquette. It can help ensure that messages get across quickly, appropriately, and concisely. In this course, participants will learn some tried and tested guidelines for writing emails. They will explore the fundamental elements of written communication that every email should contain, and the importance of keeping emails concise. The course also covers the etiquette associated with using instant messaging programs as an extension of email. | 28 minutes |
| Writing for Business (Writing Skills) | Now, more than ever before, professionals use written communication, so mastering the skill of writing clearly is essential. This Business Impact explores the importance of keeping in mind the audience and purpose of any written communication. | 6 minutes |
| Written Communication (Writing Skills) | A strong writer has the power to inform, persuade, and inspire others using nothing but ideas and words. In this Challenge Series exercise, participants will do all of those things and more, as they analyze and improve an important piece of written communication. The learner plays the role of an employee charged with writing a submission essay for an award competition. | 15 minutes |