Hello everyone!
My name is Kayla Roche and I am a student at Miami Dade College. In one of my classes, Introduction to Communication, we were separated and assigned a group project by professor Sinkoff to present a certain chapter from our Speech Communication textbook. The class was broken down into three groups with the first group being assigned to chapter 3(Intercultural Communications), the second group being assigned to chapter 9(Communicating in Groups), and the third group being assigned to chapter 10(Group Leadership and Problem Solving). I was placed in group 2 and got the chance to work with 11 other fabulous people. Being given this lovely group project and the opportunity to witness the presentation of the other groups has taught me plenty of things about certain topics and about myself as well. Therefore, I want to take the time to reflect on everything that was experienced and learned, so stay tuned!
The first group that presented was group 1 and their chapter topic was Intercultural Communications. Since they were the first ones to present, the technical part of the presentation was not as smooth as it could have been. This is understandable because not many people have worked with the sharing screen platform of blackboard. However, the presentation as a whole was fantastic. It was well informative and organized. The audience was first introduced with the definitions of important key terms to understand like culture(the system of shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms) and values(the commonly accepted standards of what's considered right/wrong). This piece of information is crucial in understanding the concept of culture and communications. Without it, not many people would understand the idea of the different types of communication within different cultures or between other cultures. Additionally, it was mentioned how there is a universal nonverbal communications like facial expressions, gestures, touch, posture, etc. I thought it was an important factor to add in because it shows that even though there is a constant language barrier between cultures, we are still able to communicate with each other. Then, the presentation moves to the topics of dominant culture(the 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 dominant culture). This is my favorite part of their presentation because I am very passionate about certain co cultures such as the Black and LGBTQIA community. I felt as though that it was well explained and very clear to understand. The presenter example of dominant culture and its involvement with certain co cultures, for example, the discussion of religion was interesting because I never thought about it in that way. The idea that christianity can be considered the dominant culture of religion and the co cultures could be judaism, islam, buddhism, etc was extremely informative. Then, the topic shifts to the discussion of race and ethnicity which is an amazing thing to touch up on because most people do not understand the difference between them or even the concept of them. As explained, race is based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, etc. Whereas ethnicity is referred to a shared cultural heritage that is learned and you identify with most. I was extremely happy with how well put this part of their presentation was because it's something that constantly gets misunderstood. I think that with the explanation and video, it would clear up any misinformation that anyone originally had. Other main points in the presentation that caught my attention would be the information given on masculinity and femininity. The audience was presented with a video and images that goes into depth about the gender inequality within jobs and societal standards. I thought it was wonderful that the general topic of gender inequality was brought into light because it is not discussed often. Overall, I was in love with group 1's presentation because they explained all the points discussed in the chapter. Each individual did an excellent job on providing definitions and examples of the topics to further the audience's understanding. They all provided plenty of pictures and videos which was helpful for those who are visual learners like myself. Everyone was well spoken and keep their audience engaged. There was never a dull moment and I was constantly invested with the information that was being said. There was not a bit of misinformation given with any of the topics that was discussed. I learned so much when it comes to culture and the communications between cultures. Additionally, I am more informed about gender inequality when it comes to breaking the stereotypes. I absolutely love the well put together powerpoint and I am excited for the upcoming projects that group 1 has in store.
The following class meeting, my group had to present our powerpoint on Communicating in Groups. Before I get into how the presentation went, I will discuss my personal experience working with the group and what I learned about myself. When we were first assigned this project, the group was a bit disorientated. Not everyone was on the same page and there was a bit of confusion with how we were going to organized the power point and who will talk about what. We eventually came to a conclusion that separating the chapter based off of the words would be better and easier than dividing up the pages. Based on the number of words that was in chapter 9 and the amount of people that we had, everyone was assigned to about 3-4 words. After the word picking was settled, we had one of our group member send the google slides to everyone and another individual picked out a pretty theme color. Since our group was not presenting right away we had plenty of time to properly plan on how our slides are going to look and how it would be formatted. Personally, I wanted my slides to have no words on it or any sort of definitions. I only wanted a couple pictures that represented what I was going to be talking about. I felt as though its always best to have no words because it shows that you have a good understanding about your assigned topics. Given the way that I wanted to format my slides, I did a good amount of googling to find the right pictures that accurately presented my topics which were synergy, forming, and storming. Luckily, it did not take me extremely long to find exactly what I needed and I was able to complete my slides quite early. A couple of days before we were going to present, my group thought it would be a good idea to rehearse our slides to make sure that everything runs decently smooth and to avoid any sort of technical difficulties. It was a good idea because we were soon informed that someone was not going to be able to make it to class due to jury duty, which is completely understandable, so we had to form a plan to ensure that member would still be included. The best suggestion would have been to record their part during our practice. However, plans had changed last minute due to some not being able to attend the practice or some not yet completing their slides. At that point, I was a little nervous because I wanted the presentation to go as smooth as possible and not doing the practice could have put it in jeopardy. Adding to my nerves, there was a bit of miscommunication with the group with some not being present for class ahead of time. This led to a bit of scrambling because it's necessary that everyone was present and those who would not be should have a recording of them presenting their part. It was a bit stressful, but luckily everyone who could not make it to class pulled through and inputted the recordings on time. Even though we had a good amount of complications, I absolutely loved my group's presentation. All of the slides looked beautiful with plenty pops of color that catch the eyes. There was not a single dull moment in anyone's part. I was constantly invested that I forgot I had to present as well. I felt as though everyone explained their parts well and used amazing pictures/videos that represents exactly what they are discussing. The topics included different types of groups, social information processing theory, norms, the stages in the group development, etc were all explained very well. I learned plenty of information about many groups from my fellow teammates that I had no clue about before. I learned about multiple types of conflicts that I never knew existed. With all that being said, I also learned a couple of things about myself. I learned that I can be extremely patient with people and that I am very understanding of people's circumstances/situations, but I am also focused on making sure the assignment gets done. There was never a moment where I felt annoyed at someone because they are not getting the slides done fast enough. I understood that people have things going on in their life and that they just need a bit more time. However, I did ensure communication was given on making sure things were completed in order for us to succeed. Even though our group faced some challenges, I could have not asked for a better team. We all worked so hard and created a lovely master piece. I loved the experience and extremely proud of the final product of the presentation.
Finally, we have group 3 who presented Group Leadership and Problem Solving. I thought that the presentation was also well put together. I thought it was really interesting how group 3 had the same concept/idea of assigning certain words to the people in the group. I thought it was as informative as the other presentations. I thought the videos were wonderful, as well as the pictures used. Every single one of the pictures correlated to what was being presented and discussed. Adding on, I like their addition of bulletin points that very briefly explains what was on the specific slide. I loved the examples that have been used throughout the presentation. One usage of it was when the first presenter talked about the concept of being a formal leader and what they do. An example that they used of a formal leader is the president of a club, which I thought was interesting because it means that anyone could be a formal leader if they put their mind to it. Another example given by one of the presenter is the concept of roles. The idea that if there was an assigned artistic group project, each person would have a different task to complete. One would do the cutting, others would do the gluing, some might help give advice and guidance to others, etc. It never really came to my head that every single person has a role assigned to them. Every example that was given from the presentation gave me a different view that I never really processed before. Additionally, I learned about the question of value. I never thought about how some things can be considered as morally incorrect when it comes to solving a problem. Everyone has questions about plenty of things, but now I realized that there are certain ways to solve those problem and it is something that people must take into consideration. Thanks to this presentation, my eyes are opened to a different perspective on solving a problem. Another thing that stood out to me is the explanation of oral formats/reports because I would have thought that I had not done it until recently. However, the example of science fair proved me wrong because I have done multiple of those. It is fascinating how many oral reports we have done throughout childhood. I would have never known that and I am glad that it was mentioned. Overall, this group did amazing minus the slight bit of technical audio issues. I thought that each slide was well explained and the presenters made the topics easy to understand. I did not have a confusion and I learned a lot from their power point. Beforehand, I did not know much about the different types of leaderships and roles. However, I now have a clear understanding of what those are now. I was invested as well in this presentation because they made it entertaining with the lovely pictures and videos. They did a fantastic job and I am excited for their future presentations.
All in all, this experience was amazing and I would have not swapped it for anything. I loved working with an amazing group and I enjoyed all of the other group's presentation. I was intrigued throughout all of the presentations and I never had a moment of boredom. Everyone explained their parts so well that everything was crystal clear and had no room for confusion. The pictures and videos used by group 1 and group 3 presentations were wonderful as well. All the slides fit great and you could tell that everyone put their time and effort into them. Besides the other groups, I am proud of mine as well. My group worked tremendously hard and did amazing in every part possible. The overall experience was a 10/10 and I can not wait for what else Professor Sinkoff has planned for this class!
