Integrating Communication Skills and Planning Techniques

Hemalata C. Dandekar, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Gerald R. Clark, City of Ann Arbor, Michigan

Article comments

Copyright © 1992 Sage Publications. The definitive version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0739456X9201100206.

NOTE: At the time of publication, the author Hemalata C. Dandekar was not yet affiliated with Cal Poly.

Abstract

Practitioners have long stressed the need to teach professional commumcations skills to planning students. This paper describes ten years of experience in teaching a course in which communications skills and techniques of gathering and analyzing information are taught concurrently while investigating a problem of importance in the community. The course involves an ongoing collaboration, a "marriage of convenience," between an academic and a planner, casting city/county planning staff as clients for students This has proven useful for pedagogy and has had some positive impact on the community.