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February 25, 2008

Contents 1 Today's in-class activities 2 Homework assignments 3 What we did last week

Today's in-class activities

• Individual "Sculpture" Warm-Up (After Dachau)

• Schein Teams "Prep" for Observation and in-class Reports (five minutes to get organized)

• FISHBOWL F: Content & Process ~ return Self and Peer Evaluations #3 (from 11 Feb). Question #1 has items underlined relative to the stages of group development; Questions #2 and #3 have items underlined that might compose criteria for the course wiki site.

define the gist of the content

identify the criteria for evaluation

• Schein Teams: Reports on "What to Observe in a Group" {submitted by email but not yet added to the wiki}

Tootsie Rolls (task and maintenance behaviors)

Fireballs (decision-making processes)

Peppermints (communication skills)

Caramels (self-oriented behaviors)

{* not done Team Sculptures (After Dachau)}

• Peer Evaluations #5

• Powerpoint from Steph on Giving and Receiving Feedback

• Distribute anonymous ratings from peers
• Test #5

Homework assignments

A. Read The Group: A Cycle from Birth to Death by Richard C. Weber. Reading Book for Human Relations Training (Arlington, Va.: National Training Laboratories, 1982), 68-71. (Handout distributed in class. If absent, xerox a classmate's or come to Steph's office hours for a copy.)

B. Read and comment to Steph's post, Getting to Gist. Per usual, write in a word-processing document, save, sign-in to Wordpress, then paste in your comment. Using the important elements in Steph's post as your starting point, describe which stage(s) of group development the class seems to be in according to the four dimensions identified by Weber: authority relations, interpersonal relationships, group behavioral patterns, and group task. Include specific evidence! Use first names only, please, if referring to in-class "strips of activity" or instances of interaction, use blognames if quoting from a blogpost or blogcomment. (Remember we know among ourselves who each other is but the rest of the world does not need to be able to identify anyone in particular.)

C. Finish reading After Dachau.

D. Meet in your Schein Teams and figure out where everyone is in relation to "process" and "content" for the Course Wiki. Select pairs of representatives to join next week's Process/Content Fishbowls: we will conduct a series of fishbowls to further define the gist of content and the criteria for evaluation - if the group is ready, we will start to consider steps toward implementation.

What we did last week

Major theoretical concept: Erving Goffman's framing.

The notes from the board are hopefully sufficient to jog your memory, or otherwise make sense in combination with notes that you took, yourselves? (We have not been utilizing the board very well, recently. Hmmmmm.) Steph^(talk) 19:10, 2 March 2008 (EST)