The Medgar Evers College standard under Effective Communication is defined as a Teacher candidate’s ability to speak and write in appropriate registers depending on audiences and purposes and demonstrate comprehensive fluency in numeracy. The evidence that I have included to best fit this standard is a power point presentation assignment given in my Art 100 course (Introduction to the world of Art). This particular assignment required students to form groups and do research on a selected work of art from ancient Africa, China, or Egypt. Because my group was chosen to write about the art of ancient Africa: Emblem of Leopard-leopard spirit society, we decided to visit the Brooklyn Museum in order to gain a better understanding of the style and concept of this selected piece. Not only were we required to deliver a speech on what we learned about the Emblem, we were also required to write a five page individual analysis.

By using the museum as a part of my research, I was able to write in an appropriate register that was focused on the actual style and concept of such a profound piece created by such an interesting culture. The main purpose of the presentation was to demonstrate to my fellow students my overall comprehension of ancient Africa, the culture, and the significance of this particular piece. Since I am well known to be an extremely timid person, this assignment has indeed helped me to develop skills in effective communication. Primarily, I noticed that I was better able to deliver a speech to a classroom audience due to having a complete understanding of my topic. Not only did I learn how to demonstrate comprehension on a subject different from what I was used to, I learned that communication with others has great effect on how well one is able to transform their thoughts into speech and writing.

As a teacher, I would want my students to have skills in communication in order to help them express their understanding of a topic through speech. As opposed to solely grading my students based on how well they completed a written assignment, I believe it to be more beneficial if they were also required to demonstrate their comprehension through the use of spoken words. Such demonstration would help each student develop skills in public speaking, as well as give the other students an opportunity to learn and understand a topic different from their own.