Students in Professional Communication class finished the semester with a “How To” presentation on it. From live presentations to pre-recorded videos, students showed their skills and talents while teaching classmates how to try it on their own.

“At the end of the semester, it’s an assignment to put together the skills that we worked on all semester with regards to collaboration and being specific in details at the same time,” teacher Brian Chandler said. “While adding a fun part to the kids’ presentations, so they can maybe learn new things and show off their skills and talents in different ways.”

Though this is a fun little project for his students to participate in, Chandler hopes the students will take away something bigger than learning new skills.

“A lot of people when they have their job, hopefully someday their goal is to be at the top of their profession and when you reach the top and along the way there, you’re going to be put in a position to teach people how to do something,” Chandler said. “No matter what it is you have to teach them, you have to learn how to be specific, you gotta learn how to give details. You’ve also gotta make sure you’re teaching in a way that anyone will understand because everyone learns in different ways at different paces.”

Senior Nathan Chandran used this assignment as an opportunity to teach something that many of his classmates may not have known how to do.

“I chose to show the class how to drive a manual or standard transmission car because it’s something that can be uncommon for some drivers, especially if they’ve practiced driving an automatic transmission car,” Chandran said. “Although I am focusing more on teaching my classmates how to drive manual transmission, I have learned that effective teaching can be established through clear and concise communication.”

For junior Dhruv Maruvada, he chose to show how to make a paper hat, but he saw this assignment as something more than showing his classmates how to do a simple arts & crafts activity.

“Some of the main topics I took from this assignment was that you have to think about what you want to say in the way a child would understand so that everyone can understand,” Maruvada said. “Patience is key when teaching someone, there may be questions about a topic that you may have skipped over or the person just didn’t understand, and instead of discouraging the person from asking questions, take the time to go over it with them until they understand.”