Scholarly Roots of C-I Pedagogy
Historic Origins
The scholarly roots of Communication-Intensive pedagogy all the way to 4th century BCE, to Aristotle, and what we refer to as one of education science’s oldest infographics: the rhetorical triangle (see figure). Put simply, the rhetorical triangle highlights that effective communication requires careful consideration of the sender, the receiver, and the message, itself. For communication, each point of the triangle requires adjustments making communication both an art form and a science. And because teaching is so closely connected to communication, these foundational principles have been used by teachers of varied disciplines, levels, and auspices. More recent pedagogical approaches to communication became widely known under the banner of Writing across Curriculum (WAC) or Writing in Disciplines (WID).
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), Writing In the Disciplines (WID), and C-I Pedagogy
Teaching communication skills in the classroom is not a new idea. Long ago, a language-intensive approach to instruction developed out of concern for students’ learning (Britton, 1970). Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) programs recognized that writing should not be relegated to English departments and writing programs, but was a responsibility for all parts of campus. Writing in the Disciplines (WID) programs sought to integrate the skill of writing in and across the disciplines. Communications across the Curriculum programs build upon the WAC and WID, expanding the number of modes taught, as well as allowing for nuances of multimodality to make their way into the lessons.
The tumultuous times of writing instruction in the 1970’s and 80’s led to attempts to break free from traditional pedagogical paradigms. Higher ed saw a shift to more student-centered teaching, including many well-known iterative, active-learning techniques (Elbow, 1973, 1981, OTHERS). WAC, WID, and C-I all value active learning classroom experiences that “are designed to facilitate interactions between students as they work collaboratively on interesting tasks” (Beichner, 2014).
Communicating to Think, and Thinking to Communicate
Beyond helping students become better communicators within the discipline, C-I pedagogy is designed to deepen content learning and foster critical thinking. Critical thinking involves the ability to identify important issues and reasons, consider multiple perspectives and judge the quality of their argument, ask clarifying questions, approach, and support conclusions and reasons, and reconsider a viewpoint in light of new information (Ennis, 1993). When reviewing that list of the elements of critical thinking, communication skills are central to each of these. Critical thinking leads to better learners and better citizens, and ultimately, a better society.
Every industry needs graduates with strong communication skills; however, new forms of communication work, those leading to job creation and the evolution of markets and workforces, require hybrid communication and critical thinking skills to address energy sustainability, environmental challenges, population demands on transportation and urban planning, ethics of technology policy (e.g., misinformation, privacy, bias), economics, health crises, and any other looming challenges.
Citations:
Beichner, R.J. (2014), History and Evolution of Active Learning Spaces. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2014: 9-16. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20081
Britton, J. (1970), Their Language and Our Teaching. English in Education, 4: 5-13. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-8845.1970.tb01012.x
Robert H. Ennis (1993) Critical thinking assessment, Theory Into Practice, 32:3, 179-186, DOI: 10.1080/00405849309543594