May2014

TEACHING ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURYcommunicators. There are also many journals in these disciplinesthat deal with this topic exclusively. Relative to theconcerted and clearly defined efforts and goals of the aforementioneddisciplines for establishing programs that highlightcommunication skills, archaeology lags behind. I havedrawn several suggestions and insights from their approachesto teaching communication skills, and I describe thesebelow in the context of effective higher education practices.Educators and employers often classify skill sets of potentialcandidates into two major groups: hard skills (including thetechnical expertise and knowledge needed to do a particularjob) and soft skills, that is, interpersonal modes of engagement,people skills, and emotional intelligence 1 (Evenson1999; Sigmar et al. 2012). Communication is among thehighest ranked form of all the so-called soft skills (Klaus2010; Robles 2012). Importantly, soft skills enhance a person’sinteractions, job performance, and career prospects,and the application of these skills is not limited to a particularprofession. Workers today must be able to function andcommunicate effectively in a “global workplace with its complexinformal networks, intercultural issues, and teamemphasis” (Sigmar et al. 2012:301). Job candidates who havestrong soft skills and excel in written and oral communicationare highly sought after in the professional community,in heritage management, and in academia. It has becomeclear that technical skills are not enough to ensure employmentand long-term job security in the contemporary workforce(Robles 2012). Given the demand for talented communicatorsinside and outside of our discipline, how can webest prepare our students using archaeology?Teaching Communication Skills in the 21st CenturyModeling social skills, as anthropologists know well, is animportant teaching tool, and we have a long tradition in ourdiscipline of teaching via this mode. While the lecture/modelingapproach certainly has value (and may even be themost appropriate method of teaching in large classes), thishas been referred to as a passive teaching mode (Smart et al.2012; Stage et al. 1998). This is because lectures are teachercentered,where knowledge is delivered from instructor tostudents, and students are expected to receive and assimilatethe knowledge with little contextual understanding or actualengagement with the material. Modern learning theory,however, advocates for teachers to move into the role of facilitatorsand to allow students to learn within a social contextin which students actively construct knowledge, often ingroups; this is what is known as a social constructivistapproach to learning (Stage et al. 1998). 2In an effort to move beyond teaching by showing, and toengage in constructivist approaches, modern pedagogicalresearch has identified teaching methods (such as ProblemBased Learning and High-Impact Practices) that map nicelyonto the seven principles of curriculum reform in archaeologythat Bender and Smith originally identified. Anyone whohas engaged in a field school will quickly recognize that, forstudents, learning by experience is powerful and provides fordeep knowledge and understanding. This kind of activeexperiential engagement is collectively referred to as High-Impact Practices (HIP) by the Association of American Collegesand Universities (Kuh 2008). Examples of HIP include:first year seminars, learning communities, common intellectualexperiences, undergraduate research, writing-intensivecourses, internships, collaborative assignments, capstoneprojects, and service learning. The learning outcomes associatedwith PBL and HIP are impressive, suggesting that studentswho engage in these approaches have higher gradesand “retain, integrate, and transfer information at higherrates” (Kuh 2008:14). 3In a classroom setting, Problem Based Learning (PBL) scenariosare effective means to teach writing skills (Smart et al.2013), and they provide valuable methods to engage studentsin meaningful discussions. PBL scenarios that emphasizerhetorical principles (rather than content or format) serve toimprove communication abilities while motivating criticalthinking. In most workplaces, communicators are requiredto explain new or relevant information to people who areunfamiliar with these ideas and to draw conclusions, solveproblems, and make informed recommendations. Highlevelskills are needed to determine what information andmessages are appropriate for a particular audience, context,and purpose. Conversely, traditional academic writing hascultivated an environment where students write for the purposeof illustrating how much they know about a particulartopic. This mode provides little room for complex authenticthinking and communication suitable for varied audiences.Writing-intensive coursework has been found to improveundergraduate perceptions and confidence in their abilitiesto read scientific literature and communicate about science(Brownell et al. 2013). Researchers have found that popularscience journalism can be used to teach communicationskills in a process that incorporates peer review, exercises tolink ideas from separate disciplines, and critical thinking(Tuten and Temesvari 2013). In archaeology, as in many disciplines,writers often struggle to transfer their knowledgeand skills to new and different contexts (Mascle 2013). Manypeople do not consider themselves to be “writers”; therefore,it is necessary for instructors to foster writing self-efficacy (or24 The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2014