How to Use this Handbook

Understanding and improving our communication, personally and professionally, is an ongoing journey.  This Handbook provides a base understanding of the process and essential elements of communication so you can build what suits you and your situation best.

The content covers the Essential Employability Skills established by the Ontario Government for Hairstylists that relate to communications.

Essential Employability Skills for Hairstylists © 2012, Queen’s Printer for Ontario

  1. Communicate clearly, concisely, and correctly in the written, spoken, and visual form that fulfills the purpose and meets the needs of the audience.
  1. Respond to written, spoken, or visual messages in a manner that ensures effective communication.
  1. Apply a systematic approach to solve problems.
  1. Use a variety of thinking skills to anticipate and solve problems.
  1. Locate, select, organize, and document information using appropriate technology and information systems.
  1. Analyze, evaluate, and apply relevant information from a variety of sources.
  1. Show respect for diverse opinions, values, belief systems, and contributions of others.
  1. Interact with others in groups or teams in ways that contribute to effective working relationships and the achievement of goals.

 

Each chapter starts with a “Check-in”, similar to a pre-boarding for a flight or start of a hotel stay or some other service, to clarify what to expect in the chapter.  At the end, you will find a “Check-out” that reiterates the key points covered.  References and source materials used to create the chapter are located after the “Check-out”, and sometimes places for additional information.

Within the chapter you will find examples of ideas or situations that utilize the example formats or boxes to draw attention to them and to make it accessible for screen readers.  There has been an informal review of the text for accessibility to make it AODA compliant.

This Handbook can be used to augment course materials or for individual use.  Scenarios and Exercises are included and if you wish to contribute suggestions, please email wward@niagaracollege.ca

Basic writing mechanics are covered in Module 5 – What’s Wrong and How to Fix it.  There are many resources that cover grammar and spelling as their primary focus and please make sure to use whichever you find most useful.

Much of this project was constructed with the belief that incorporating visuals, and making content relevant and personal, makes for stronger material retention.  Users are encouraged to visit Doug Neill’s excellent YouTube channel and follow Verbal to Visual.  Incorporating personal drawing when taking notes is a retrieval practice researched and documented by The Learning Scientists Dr. Yana Weinstein and Dr. Megan Sumeracki in their book Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide (August 2018).

An important part of learning is the reflection on what you’ve read or seen, how you apply it, and how you’ve made it yours or incorporated it into your practice.  As a result, you will find questions for reflection at the end of each Chapter “Check-out” and a specific chapter addressing Reflection and Feedback (Chapter 12).

Please provide your feedback.  Please adapt this resource for your use.  The advantage of an Open Education Resource (OER) is the flexibility to grow and respond to need and suggestions.  I welcome your participation.

Sincerely,Brain Wave [R]

Wendy Ward

wward@niagaracollege.ca

January 2022

Resources

Neill, D. ( n.d.). Verbal to Visual. https://www.verbaltovisual.com/

Weinstein, Y. and Sumeracki, M. with Caviglioli, O. (August 2018). Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide.  David Fulton/Routledge. https://www.learningscientists.org/book

Queens Printer of Ontario. Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities. Government of Ontario.  (June 2012).  Hairstyling Program Standards. http://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/pepg/audiences/colleges/progstan/aa/HairstylingCAAT.pdf

 

 

 

Media Attributions

  • Brain Wave [R] © Luc Grenier

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Communicate with Style: A Handbook for Personal Care Trades Copyright © by Wendy Ward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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