Transforming communication skills instruction: the conference approach

From the social constructivist perspective of education, learning is best achieved when students face complex, real world problems in which there are no clear answers. Faced with a sizeable common goal, students work collaboratively towards outcomes and maintain ownership over key decisions. The role of staff is that of facilitators whose role is to challenge learners to explore multiple aspects of the problem as they go about reaching viable solutions. Such a role contrasts, for example, to an approach which sets out to lead students to a presumed correct solution that is already possessed by the instructor. Based on these principles we designed and implemented a course on communication skills in Computer Science. Here, we describe our experiences using a student-run conference as a means to teach communication skills. In this approach, students were charged with the task of planning and organising a conference, including peer review, publicity, budget, sponsorship, web design, conference program, presentation schedule, speaker support, and catering. We describe the principles and their implementation and reflect on the outcome.