Hello everyone,
Today I will be
telling you guys more on what I experienced and learned from our group project
for our Introduction to communication course. It started with being divided and split up
into three different groups by our classes professor Sinkoff. All three groups
were given a chapter to focus on and each member of the group given a subject
of the chapter to cover, adding up to a hopefully synchronized and informative
presentation of each chapter. We were allowed to combine definitions, facts,
videos and pictures to provide a more interactive and collage type of chapter breakdown.
Group one was assigned chapter 3: Intercultural
Communications. For being the group to start the class off, they did good job.
Their presentation was informative and organized. The way the information
shared went hand and hand with the videos and photos added really kept me
intrigued and interested in what to listen to next. They started by introducing
important key Terms (the system of shared values, beliefs and norms) with their
definitions to understand like culture and values (the commonly accepted
standards of what is considered right and/or wrong). Without these concepts being explained we wouldn’t
understand how different cultures communicate between themselves and others.
Group one also brought up interesting facts on universal nonverbal communications
that have to do with facial expressions, gestures, touch, posture and etc.
which I personally found interesting. It’s almost something I feel like a lot
of people look over or don’t notice or sometimes even take for granted how fascinating
it is that many people from different areas and places can communicate with
these simple easy gestures. The group continues to talk about Dominant Cultures
(A learned system of norms held by the majority group of empowered people in a
society) and co-culture ( A group within the larger culture who hold common
values, beliefs and customs that differ from the dominate culture). The presenter
for these few slides was extremely insightful and brought a way to pull
together religion and dominate culture. They continue through their chapter
with differentiating race and ethnicity. As explained Race; is based on any or
a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color and facial form.
Ethnicity; is referred to a shared cultural heritage that is learned and you identify
with most. After this topic they also touched on masculinity and femininity and
gender inequalities within societal standards and jobs. Group one overall did
an amazing job given the task at hand. It really did open up the class
properly.
Group
two was assigned chapter 9: Communicating in Groups. I was personally divided
into this group so I will be sharing a little more into the process on how what
we did behind the scenes on preparing our presentation. Once we created our group
chat we instantly decided between two members who would be best to lead us. We chose
to separate the chapter by terminologies within and split it up into 3-4 words
per group member. Once that was decided the team leader created a list with
each person and their words to confirm and also made up a google slide pre
decorated and organized according to the list created we were given a set time
to turn everything in to ensure we’d all be done by our due date and time. Overall
I believe everyone in my group did a great job and had really good work ethic
and team work skills. My group went over group communication, different forms
of conflicts, several types of groups and the group development cycle. The
slides I was in charge of covered the fifth and final stage of group
development. It was fairly easy not only to understand what I was assigned but
also explain it. In short my first two words were adjourning and transforming. Adjourning;
is basically the part of the group development stages where the group is done
with their assignment and they were reflecting and celebrating their finished
tasked and transforming; the part where they continue to new task and
objectives together or apart. My final word or concept was the Pseudo Conflict,
this personally really interested me to learn it is a type of conflict that doesn’t
really exist. Something that can be easily solved or fixed. The example I used
in my slide was “You make dinner in order to give your spouse the night off; he
or she interprets the message, as you don’t like his or hers cooking.” So as you see the conflict isn’t really there
and the situation was just misinterpreted. This was the end of slides and was
the second to last to present. After it was all done I was really happy with everything
and how it came out and look forward to continue working with my group.
Group three was assigned chapter 10:
Group Leadership and Problem Solving. Again I believe this group did an amazing
job as well. I especially enjoyed the videos in this groups slides and how
informative they were and how they tied in a lot of examples to help us in the
other groups understand this chapter a bit better. This chapter teaches us about the role played
by the leader of a group in a personal conflict. They touch on how leaders should
minimize personal relationships. The leader of an organization must know how to
diagnose and prognosis a conflict and rake the pertinent measures to handle
that situation. Having the feeling and personality to be a leader is not for
everyone. It does take a lot of responsibilities and work and confidence to
lead let alone properly. Problem solving is never easy but knowing these things
does help in a group environment.
Overall all three groups did a great job at presenting
chapters 3,9,10. I do see that everyone of us did come together and pull off 3 presentations’
all through group chats and working from home which to me is the biggest
accomplishment. I can’t wait to continue to work with my group and to see what
the others have to offer.