Week 16 D-3

There were many concepts that I enjoyed in this class this semester. If I had to pick one though, I would have to say that, feedback/group observer feedback would be my favorite concept. Feedback is when someone observes your groups and gives you critiques on your group. I believe that this is an important concept because it will help the group improve and become stronger. And a group observer see’s the group in a different perspective and they can help the group succeed more.  Within the group observer feedback concept, the book gives us 10 different guidelines for the observer feedback. These guidelines help to give appropriate and useful info to the group. They are all important. They are:

1.       Avoid generalizations. Give more specific feedback. You want to give details on things and not just one to two words answers like, “great job”, “well done” be more specific

2.       Watch for behaviors that can be changed. If someone is being negative, let them know and try to help them become more positive.

3.       Don’t argue or debate with the group. You want to help them and not give your ideas pr analysis. Just give them your observations, insight or opinions but remember that they sont have to accept them.

4.       Don’t micromanage the process of the group. Pick out a couple of specific areas and develop them well.

5.       Remember your role. Provide specific explanations to things that you think the group can benefit from.

6.       Accentuate the positive aspects.  Try to spend most of your time finding things the group did right. Always start with the positives.

7.       You should end with specific suggestions for improvement.

8.       Be concise and clear with your observations.

9.       Compliments should be given in public and criticize in private.  You don’t want the public to know all of their mistakes/things that didn’t go well.

10.   While in an organizational setting,  you should develop positive relationships during the feedback process. Your goal isn’t to find faults, blame individuals, or criticize the efforts, but to help the group or team develop and improve.

These are great guidelines to go by.  The reason I choose this concept was because I think that feedback to a group really helps the members. It helps with the pros of a group and the cons to. It will give info back on ways to improve, and that can be hard when you’re in a group to tell people what to change. So if you have an outsider giving you that info on what to change, then the members in the group might listen more and actually do things to change it.

Week 16 D-2

I have learned a lot about small group communication in this class. I was able to learn new concepts and relate them back to past experiences. I also learned new things that I will put to use the next time I am in a small group. Learning how to communicate in small groups in an important thing to know. It will help with work related groups, as well as school related ones too. Knowing how to get everyone to participate and share their ideas is key when working in a group. Also asking for feedback about how the group did from an outside source can be helpful to making improvements for future group work. My favorite part about this class was all of the discussions and our group observation project. I believe that the discussions helped a lot with fully understand the concepts and having to explain things that we read. Also commenting on other classmates blogs and being able to relate your experiences to them also was helpful. I think that my least favorite part about the class was nothing actually. I really enjoyed the class and thought that everything we did was useful and it really helped me understand everything better. I don’t think that anything can be improved, maybe add in another project or do a group project could be fun. I mean the teacher was always there to help when needed, the content of the class was easy to understand and apply and the quizzes were all on things that we read. This class was great!

week 16 D1- Group Observation Project

For my Group observation project, I observed the Pioneer High School’s Service Learning Leadership class. I was able to go to their class and sit in a couple of times. I noticed that they do many things for the school and service related projects.  I believe this was a useful exercise, since I was able to see firsthand some communication concepts that we had learned. I learned about the way small groups work, and how you can cut down a group of people into smaller groups, and they work great as well. I was able to see how different groups in the class worked together on their projects and how everyone was engaged and worked well together. One thing that stuck out to me was the diversity of the class. Even though the class was very female heavy, and about a handful of males, the class was very diverse.  I think diversity is a good thing for groups and it helps with ideas that might have been over looked. I think the part that was the best about this project was, I learned things that I didn’t know before about service learning. I was also about to see concepts and how they play out, and that helped me with learning and understanding more about the concepts. I don’t think anything can be improved for this project, I enjoyed doing it and believe that I got a lot out of it also.

Week 13 D-3

One concept that I found interesting this week was, brainstorming.  Brainstorming is popular and a useful technique for creative problem solving. There are four guidelines that are helpful in facilitating brainstorming, they are:

1.       The more ideas, the better. Quantity is desirable.

2.       All ideas are welcome. The wilder the idea, the better

3.       No criticism of ideas at this stage. “freewheeling” is welcome

4.       Hitchhiking on ideas, using someone else’s idea as a springboard for additional thoughts, and combining and improving on ideas are encouraged.

Brainstorming is helpful when thinking of ideas. It can also be a fun icebreaker for groups to get to know each other. I know that from previous experience, when I have been in a group, we have used brainstorming to come up with ideas. When have tried it as an ice breaker for our group. We had everyone write an idea down and then out it in a hat, then one person reads them all. Once they were all read, we tried hitchhiking off the ideas for more. It was a fun activity and it worked for our group.

Week 13 D-2

Collaborative conflict has to do with a win-win situation. A time that I have been involved with a collaborative conflict that was resolved would be the other day. Me and my cousin couldn’t figure out where to get breakfast and we were both annoyed with each other cause we were hungry and wanted to eat, but couldn’t agree. We were finally able to settle on getting coffee and bagels. The best part was there was a Starbucks right next to a Noah’s bagels, so we were both happy with that, it was a win-win situation. 

A competitive conflict has to deal with a win-lose situation. One person is happy while the other is not. The book says competitive conflict strategies can be constructive. It can be a good thing to have a little competitive conflict in a group. It can push others to complete what they need to quickly. I prefer and think that collaborative conflict is more satisfying. I like being in a win-win situation, where everyone is happy.  I also think that the other party would be happy with it too. When everyone win, it helps to eliminate conflict altogether.