Universities across the world are increasingly confronted by a common challenge: how can they provide convincing evidence that graduates can communicate, reason, collaborate and perform effectively in professional contexts?
For more than two decades, communication skills have been a core component of medical education, where effective professional interactions are recognised as fundamental to quality practice. Focused on these very skills, A/Prof. Taylor’s work led to the development of simulated patient programs, workplace-based assessment approaches, and digital platforms designed to support authentic assessment of communication and professional performance at scale.
When he first presented these ideas to a university-wide audience in 2019, they were largely viewed as solutions to problems unique to medicine. Since then, however, the higher education landscape has changed dramatically. Generative AI, growing expectations around graduate employability, increasing emphasis on authentic and secure assessment, and new requirements for program-level assurance of learning have brought similar questions to the forefront across the sector.
This lecture traces the arc of that work – from its local beginnings within UNSW Medicine & Health to emerging university-wide initiatives in oral assessment, work-integrated learning, communication capability and graduate readiness. Drawing on developments at UNSW and beyond, it will explore communication not simply as a graduate attribute, but as a means through which professional expertise becomes visible and effective.
The lecture will propose a framework for thinking about communication capability across a degree program and invite discussion of a broader question: what evidence should universities provide that their graduates can explain, defend, apply and communicate their disciplinary expertise in the complex professional environments they will enter?
Associate Professor Silas Taylor is a UNSW Faculty of Medicine and Health Nexus Fellow, Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA), Fellow of the Scientia Education Academy, and recipient of a UNSW Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence. His work focuses on communication, performance, assessment and graduate capability development across higher education. Drawing on more than two decades of experience in medical education, he has led initiatives in simulation, workplace-based assessment, oral assessment, digital assessment platforms, and technology-enhanced learning. He is currently involved in cross-disciplinary work exploring authentic assessment, graduate readiness, and the role of communication in assuring professional competence.
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