Active Listening Skills
Active Listening Skills Reflection Paper
EDL/531
Tonya Dean
2/17/13
Paula Baucom
I interviewed Ronnie Macko, a nurse educator at Select Medical Corporation and Chris Schillig a high school and college level English instructor. I had to conduct the interviews at separate times because of schedule conflicts. The interviews were conducted using the list of coaching/ mentoring questions that our team had developed in week 3. I will attach each instructor’s individual responses to the end of the paper for review. During the instructor interviews active listening skills were used. Listening is used for many purposes. Listening is used to gain important information, gain understanding, learning, and also enjoyment. Most people retain approximately twenty-five to fifty percent of what we hear. In reality this translates to when we speak for about ten minutes we are lucky if the person we are addressing remembers half of what we have said. On the flip side, when we are the listeners we can easily see how we aren’t receiving the whole message. This can be a disaster if the part we are missing contains important information such as directions. Working at improving listening skills is very important. Improving listening skills and becoming a better listener can help increase productivity and also help avoid misunderstandings and conflict. A way to improve listening skills is called active listening. Active listening involves making a conscious effort to hear as well as understand the message that is being sent by the person speaking. This involves paying close attention to the person as they are speaking. It is important to stay focused and engaged in the conversation. It is important to avoid becoming distracted and bored with the conversation.
During the interviews I practiced active listening skills. I also tried to show the instructor I was engaged in the conversation and wanted to hear and understand their responses to my questions. Ways of
EDL/531
Tonya Dean
2/17/13
Paula Baucom
I interviewed Ronnie Macko, a nurse educator at Select Medical Corporation and Chris Schillig a high school and college level English instructor. I had to conduct the interviews at separate times because of schedule conflicts. The interviews were conducted using the list of coaching/ mentoring questions that our team had developed in week 3. I will attach each instructor’s individual responses to the end of the paper for review. During the instructor interviews active listening skills were used. Listening is used for many purposes. Listening is used to gain important information, gain understanding, learning, and also enjoyment. Most people retain approximately twenty-five to fifty percent of what we hear. In reality this translates to when we speak for about ten minutes we are lucky if the person we are addressing remembers half of what we have said. On the flip side, when we are the listeners we can easily see how we aren’t receiving the whole message. This can be a disaster if the part we are missing contains important information such as directions. Working at improving listening skills is very important. Improving listening skills and becoming a better listener can help increase productivity and also help avoid misunderstandings and conflict. A way to improve listening skills is called active listening. Active listening involves making a conscious effort to hear as well as understand the message that is being sent by the person speaking. This involves paying close attention to the person as they are speaking. It is important to stay focused and engaged in the conversation. It is important to avoid becoming distracted and bored with the conversation.
During the interviews I practiced active listening skills. I also tried to show the instructor I was engaged in the conversation and wanted to hear and understand their responses to my questions. Ways of