I always thought that working in groups meant one or two people doing all the work and the rest just goofing off. But in our group each individual had a specific task that they had to perform to make sure the group assignment got done. The group consisted of 9 people who are as followed; Christian Clark, Reilyenne Nahulu, Michel Rivera, Hunter Salavea-Timoteo, Kashalynn Vergara, Paola Guadalupe Gonzalez, Kobee Ledward, Bryje Ahia, and Jeremie Saludares. The analysis covers the importance of an interesting topic, preparation needed, roles I played, things that went well in our group, could've done better, and the two important things about group communication. Our group chose 'Ulu Maika an interesting topic. An interesting topic is important …show more content…
Two things that could have gone better in our group. We did not have a gatekeeper so members that were quiet and not putting forth effort to the group messages and conversations on their opinions we would just use people's opinions who did speak up and were more vocal. The book states "A gatekeeper encourages less-talkative members to participate and tries to limit long-winded contributions by other members". In 'Ulu Maika long-winded contributions occurred frequently in conversations since others had very little input that they wanted to put in conversations most people just wanted to go with the flow of things longs as they knew we as a group was taking the correct precautions to prepare for the final product. We did not have agendas for each meeting. Some meeting were just put together when it was a time we felt one was needed. The book states "According to research, groups that engage in free-range discussion without an agenda change topics about once a minute". This would occur very little but at times when it did conversations would get so intense with whatever the topic of discussion was that we would trail away from the meeting about our assignment and into our own conversation longer than expected then we would have to restart the whole meeting …show more content…
I learned two important things about group communication. Sitting in a circle makes talking easier for everyone because then you will have clear eye view of who is talking. This helping eliminate any miscommunication with not knowing who said what and being able to be heard a lot easier with the open space. The book states “An essential task of the meeting facilitator is to orchestrate meaningful interaction during the meeting so that all group members have the opportunity to share”. Having a circle makes it a lot easier for everyone to be heard by going in a order and taking turns with who will be talking next making sure not to skip anybody so everyone will be heard. Working in groups takes much coordination so that everybody will continue to work effectively. The book states "To contact members when questions or issues arise even if you're not in a scheduled meeting". This being a major part of group communication being able to adjust your time to help out somebody who has a question or concern. The group Imessage really helped at times like this to help coordinate with who would be answering the question based off what the question regarded but still including everybody in the conversation so nobody will be left out and everybody would still be updated with everything that’s going
In my opinion, group work is a type of cooperative learning that helps people to accomplish a certain task in a faster and more effective manner. Team working also helps to achieve the tasks that are impossible to finish by one individual. However, if people in a group have a lot of conflicts, group work will not be able to achieve as much as we expected. There are many reasons which lead to dissatisfaction in group work such as individualism as well as conflicts in opinion and time.
Next, the barriers that exist in group communication are premature evaluation of ideas, poor physical surroundings, too many people, poor timing, and stinking thinking. The different ideas made from the group need an evaluation at a certain time; this is done only after all the ideas have been made from the group. Poor physical surroundings can be a problem for group disruption in communication. In some cases the room could be too hot, too cold, too noisy, not adequate enough seating and lack of technological needs for the group to function. If the group is too large then the communication can be lost and equal participation will not occur (Beebe &Masterson, 2006). Poor timing also can be a hindrance to the group by not
This was an issue because some of the group members did not live on campus and could not meet up as easily as others. Our group tried to meet up around once a week so that we did not fall behind on anything or leave something till the end. Also, the times that some members were able to meet, others had class. Some group members also had other assignments that required a significant amount of their time. This hindered their ability to meet up during the free time that they had. The confusion caused a lot of excess work in having to plan around peoples schedules in order to find an ideal time for all group members. We were able to overcome this by meeting on more than one occasion instead of all at once. This allowed for each group member to figure out the next step with another group member. We also created a Facebook group chat to be able to communicate with each other. We used this platform to message about any questions or to discuss anything and to plan meet up times. As it was discussed during lecture, this issue is a result from the barriers of communication. When the assignment was introduced, we were forced to answer the question of what barriers of communication we might see. We thought that for sure we would encounter physical barriers. The major physical barrier we encountered was people living off campus and having trouble meeting up. When looking at how our group worked with each other, what must be considered is our utilization of the four functions of management. These four functions are: planning, organizing, controlling, and leading. When our group first met up, we realized that in order to be successful in this assignment we would need to effectively follow these four functions. Another barrier of communication that was encountered was language barrier. One of my group members was still learning
Group work and required tasks are to be distributed evenly or by specific strengths of a given member. Responsibilities are to be balanced by how much one is capable of doing and how adept or willing they are towards working on a given task. All members are to put their best efforts in any given task assign that is assigned to them.
At the first meeting, the group underwent the forming stage, becoming reacquainted with one another (as many of us have worked together in previous classes) and we familiarized ourselves with the project that the group would be undertaking this quarter (Connery & Vohs, 2006). The group established group norms initially, discussing the roles of coordinator, time keeper and recorder and agreeing that those roles would be rotated every week at the beginning of the group meeting (Connery & Vohs, 2006). We agreed that everyone will be respectful of others and everyone will have an opportunity to voice their
Humans are social beings who organize themselves into groups that share a common interest and are essential for discovering, developing meaning, and self-worth. Groups are important for everyday work, and they work toward achieving a goal. Groups increase the information of one person by combining ideas and knowledge. They can also help people in their social life through interacting with other people and bypassing their comfort zone. Not much work can be done alone, whereas a group can help solve problems and assist each other in work. Our group shows example of docile, zealous, humble, and diligent whether it be in our group or each members and everyone contribute to keep the group working.
First, working with a group can be quite difficult as it leaves you being suspicious of other people abilities because not only you are working with them as a group but their performance also affects your performance as a student in the subject which will be subjected to review and analysis. The group that I was working with was quite the amusing people to be with, and the reason was that everyone knew exactly what they would be doing and we started to talk about how we would approach the issue we were tasked for and how we would be able to not only understand but also be able to express our point of view on the subject to the people who were going to view our message, but the subject was quite hard to express through non-verbal communication so the group were almost stuck to finding out a way which we would be able to approach this kind of problem in a way that would be optimal and easily understandable. The last issue we faced was managing our time. The project required all of us to be present to be able to perform the task but having everyone available at the same time can be quite hard and it is the most common issue when it comes to group presentation and that is managing our time. The group had to talk with everyone to ask everyone if they would be available at this time of day and if that is acceptable to everyone and make sure that there are no issues regarding the subject. Finally,
My CLC team has been effective working together by setting times ahead to work on projects. We’ve been very good about planning and sticking with the plans we’ve made. Also, we sit down and discuss ideas that will fit each project we’ve had to complete, so we have a general idea. As much as our group still worked effectively together, a skill we could improve upon is communication itself. Some of our members lacked adding their input into conversations we’ve had, which in my opinion resulted in some symptoms of groupthink.
"Did we speak clearly to one another? Did we listen attentively to one another? Did we give one another constructive feedback?" Bjorkquist, B. (2011). Chapter 10 Evaluation: Improving Your Group's Performance. In <i>Interpersonal and Group Dynamics</i> (Second Edition ed., pp. 149-151). Toronto. The simple answer to all these questions would be a YES. When we had group meetings, facebook chats, texting chats, we all spoke to eachother in a very clear professional way. Every person spoke in a way that everyone could understand and if someone did not than we explained in a better way. We all listened when one person was talking and did not say anything until they were done. The best part was giving feedback to one another on ideas, written work ect. For example, when we were deciding on a topic, Amanda suggested that we sponsor a panda every month. Everyone liked it, but we gave feedback on how we could involve that idea to the community. Amanda took the feedback and we all came up with the idea to do animal testing. Without her giving us the idea about sponoring a panda, then we would have never been able come up with this idea. No group member was disrespectful when a idea was given, no matter how upsurred it was. Therefore, our dialogue was on the money with one
We had to draw her out by asking direct questions. By our third meeting we flowed well everyone was comfortable and felt a true partnership. I took on the role of the talker, in efforts to help the group come to solid decisions on certain aspects of the role-play and the paper. Yvonne would reflect and summarize the conversation, so everyone had clarity of what was expected. Kiera contributed and took notes because she offered to compile the group paper. We worked well together, everyone mutually agreed on all the decisions. Group two was different we came together and discussed the assignment, however we did not do weekly meeting so there was very little time for observing behavior. Everyone was attentive and asked general questions and we worked individually. On the day of the role-play, we met to do a general review of the assignment and to confirm we had all of the components needed. I do feel our lack of interaction during the planning stage influenced our final
It is no secret that the larger the group, the harder to get everyone in sync becomes. Although being part of a group who had six members, we did manage to work together efficiently, even when one of our members left us for most of the time without saying a word. Our meetings consisted more than just the time we got in the class, we did set aside days where all or most of us could make it. In total, we did manage to make three meetings, only of which I personally attended two of those meetings. Even then, when one did not attend, the group would share the information we gathered or plans that had been discussed to everyone so everybody was in the same boat. As to me when I missed one meeting, I was told through the group chat what had happened and how we were
“Communication is functional up to a point, after which it is possible to over communicate, increasing the potential for conflict”. (Robbins, 2015 p.405) The issues in a work group can be diffused by discussing openly and sufficiently the problem at hand by creating an environment where people feel safe to discuss the problem. By allowing people to openly bring up issues is that are important to them while keeping the group dynamic strong. Also, making sure that the group understands the goals that are important and that by working together would accomplish such goals. Making sure that everyone discusses all of the issues they have when they happen is important to be able to work with each other. If it is important enough to be talked about
Tuckman proposes that groups develop via five stages; forming, storming, norming, performing and finally adjourning (Archee, Gurney, & Mohan, 2013a). The first stage, known as forming, involves clarifying the task and purpose of the group, and identifying boundaries of both the task and interpersonal behaviour (Archee et al., 2013a). For the presentation task we were randomly allocated into groups. This worried me greatly as I have struggled in the past with group members who do not contribute equally or see the task as important as other group members. To avoid this problem, the group collectively determined and agreed upon a number of ground rules. For example, we decided that all group members were expected to contribute equally to the presentation, all group members were expected to attend and contribute at all group meetings, and all group members would adhere to agreed upon deadlines. Having failed to do this in previous group assignments, this clarification stage
Groupwork can be defined as a method of social work that is utilised in order to help individuals to enhance their social functioning through purposeful group experiences and to help cope with their personal group or community problems (Konopka, 1972). The role of groupwork places emphasis on sharing thoughts, ideas, problems and activities, allowing social action groups for instance, to “empower members to engage in collective action and planned change efforts to modify particular aspects of their social or physical environment” (Toseland & Rivas, 2014, p. 38; Pyles, 2009; Staples, 2004). Therefore, reflecting on the processes of groupwork is an essential mechanism for all professionals in order to develop better communication skills, conflict resolution and enhance future performance. This essay will reflect upon the task group processes that were conducted this semester, while evaluating my own role within the group and what was learnt working within a small group.
Most experts on group communication agree that misunderstanding seem to be the rule in groups. On the sender side, many group members lack the skills needed to express themselves clearly. As Spitsberg and Cupach suggest on 2002, “No do all group members have the interpersonal skills that a discussion demands “(Spitsberg and Cupach 2002 cit. in Forsyth., D, 1999).