At
Alverno College many of the courses have an interactive final group
project requirement. Students have to demonstrate the concepts they have
learned throughout the semester by applying their knowledge to a final
group project to earn course validations. Being an Alverno College
student for five semesters; I have had my fair share of doing group
projects. A majority of the group projects I have done were fantastic
experiences, but some of them were not. However one group experience l
remember being fantastic is when I did the final group project for a
behavioral science class called BSC 215 during my third semester.
To
examine this fantastic group experience I had while doing my final
project for this class I will apply several of the group/team concepts I
have learned about in COMM 200. From watching the class PowerPoint presentations and reading the article called Managing Groups and Teams/Communication;I
identified my group experience was based primarily on the concepts
shown in the "Group Problem Solving" PowerPoint and the "Small Groups:
Rules and Norms" PowerPoint. This was due to having a diverse group for
the project and having to solve several problems to create our final
group presentation skit.
Small Group: Norms
According to Effective Problem-Solving Techniques for Groups: (http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/cd/other/fs9726.pdf) "Every
group at one time or another has the task of problem solving...One of
the reasons groups encounter difficulty in solving problems is that they
fail to follow an organized procedure. For working groups to be
effective, they should have an agreed-upon procedure for problem
solving." When I looked back at my fantastic group experience I had in
BSC 215 I remembered my group developed a plan by using the "Problem
Solving Method". In addition one of the group members created a video
script so each of the members knew what role they had in the
presentation skit ahead of time. Having a script made it easier to solve
several of the problems the group originally had. For example one of
the group members was on a sports team so they had to miss a few
classes. Therefore by creating a skit each member was prepared ahead of
time to do the skit. However, if a member was not there another member
of the group could step in because they had read information from the
script.
Small Group: Roles
The
group problem solving method which was used in the group also helped
each group member to establish their own role for the project. For
example there were a few individuals in the group who did not like to
talk a lot since they were more introverted. Therefore instead of having
them have speaking roles for each skit; they worked as "runners" and
"scribes" behind the camera by developing the lines and bringing in the
props. By respecting members who had different personality traits and
group roles our group was acting cohesive. In addition our group was
abiding by social norms in a small group setting such as: participating
actively and respecting other group members and their thoughts. Overall
our presentation video skit turned out well and it received positive
feedback from the professor. This result is attributed to the majority
of the group members being active problem solvers and being respectful towards the variety of roles and norms present within the group.
No comments:
Post a Comment