The Micro-skills of Collective Communication Design Work: An Academic Team’s Development of Sensebreaking Messages

ABSTRACT

This case study documents how an academic team of mathematicians engaged in collective communication design work (CCDW) in order to improve how they communicated a process innovation to student stakeholders. The study, supported by interviews and observations, explains how team members worked together to develop structural and verbal strategies for sensebreaking student stakeholders’ preconceived notions about how college-level math should be taught and learned. Findings identified two micro-skills, which were especially useful for CCDW on verbal communication: The ephemeral and situated nature of verbal communication means that communication innovations have to be recounted to the team – labeled backstage recounted piloting – and then later personalized by team members in their own spontaneous and ongoing flow of talk – labeled frontstage personalized mimicry.

KEYWORDS:

• Communication design
• team learning
• sensebreak
• process innovation
• math redesign

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jasmine T. Austin

Jasmine T. Austin (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma) is an Assistant Professor of Organizational and Interethnic Communication in the Department of Communication Studies at Texas State University. Her research examines topics of social justice in organizations and how organizational culture, interpersonal interactions, and the intersections of personal identities can influence the experiences of organizational members.

Brittney S. Wallace

Brittney S. Wallace is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma whose research centers on family and organizational communication. Specifically, her research examines the intersections of concepts such as gender and culture within each context. Brittney also studies the group dynamics and behaviors influential to the meaning-making processes of families and organizational teams.

Britney N. Gilmore

Britney N. Gilmore is a doctoral candidate at the University of Oklahoma. Her research examines how issues of identity in groups and organizations, such as competing identities, influence learning. Specifically, she studies the multi-level complexity of identity in the workplace, ranging from occupational identity to micro-level interactions.

Ryan S. Bisel

Ryan S. Bisel (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is Professor of Organizational Communication in the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma. His research interests include leadership communication, organizational culture change, and behavioral ethics.