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March 3, 2008

Contents 1 Today's in-class activities 2 Homework assignments 2.1 Reports and Application: Critical analyses of cultural terms 3 Additional online resources 4 What we did last week

Today's in-class activities

• Complete peer evaluations on Schein Team members.
• Review the feedback to Steph.
• Steph's feedback to the class-as-a-whole (e.g., Wordpress, use of CourseWiki, hypothesized stage of group development, and re-configuration of Schein Teams)
• FISHBOWL G: After Dachau (did anyone click through and read the background provided on why I selected this book as a text for this class?)

(first content/process pair)

What is interesting about this story?

What lessons from the story can be applied to this course?

• Test 6
• FISHBOWL H: Getting to Gist, II

(second content/process pair)

Do you need a question from the teacher to start?

Do you need a question somewhere along the way for guidance?

• FISHBOWL I: Evaluation, II (?)

(third content/process pair)

Do you need a question from the teacher to start?

Do you need a question somewhere along the way for guidance?

Homework assignments

A. Read, and analyse critically all four "first reports" from the Schein Teams:

Tootsie Rolls (task and maintenance behaviors)

Fireballs (decision-making processes)

Peppermints (communication skills)

Caramels (self-oriented behaviors)

Take notes to bring to class. Compare and contrast both the content (substance) of the reports and their presentation (appearance). In class, you'll be given some time to discuss and plan your next report - this one (officially, "the second report") will include observations from March 3 (After Dachau fishbowl and the two fishbowls following) and from March 10. Steph^(talk) 16:57, 4 March 2008 (EST)

B. Read What are you/we going to produce? Post a reply back, speculating what may have been different about your behavior if you had read this post before class (as suggested). If you did read this before Class #6, then explain and provide evidence for how this additional knowledge influenced your decision-making processes during class. (Be sure you're signed in and all that jazz: do I need to keep reminding you to save a draft before posting?) Include specific references to Weber's combined model of the Stages of Group Development (handout, Class #5).

Reports and Application: Critical analyses of cultural terms

C. Read How Words Create Reality, "Cross-Cultural Re-Entry Seminar" (Honors 491G), Fall 2007.

D. In your Schein Teams, select among the student papers (listed & linked below) so that everybody reads and reports on ONE (no duplication within your Schein Team, someone from a different Schein Team may select the same label, that's ok). Remember the context (i.e., the specific assignment) for the following papers (which follows), and read them for ideas/inspiration concerning the ways we have been talking in our group.

HOW WORDS CREATE REALITY: This is an exercise in deconstruction. Your job here is to unpack, so to speak, a "cultural" label - that is, a word which, for some reason or another, encapsulates something that you think is very representative of the "culture" in which you have lived for a while. You have a lot of freedom in terms of how you unpack your chosen label. The point here is to show that there’s a lot hiding behind “a simple word,” that choosing a label over another has real consequences in terms of the behaviors made possible (or impossible) by that label. The first part of this handout explains why this exercise is important and offers a few suggestions about how you might go about completing it. The second part of the handout is an example of a deconstruction (i.e., of the expression “to intimidate”). You do not have to write as much as I did in that example; some three or four good paragraphs will do.

"Arab"

"bitch'
"busy"
"fuck"
"green"
"hate"
"hippie"
"liberal"
"love"
"opinion"
"queer"
"religion"
"shame"
"western"
"wicked"

E. "Report" on your reading about one of the preceding cultural labels by posting in your own Wordpress weblog. First, give a summary of what learned. Second (most important!), apply that learning to us/our group dynamic: What phrases, labels, terms, descriptions, or other patterns of speaking do you recall or recognize from in-class discussions, weblog postings, and any of your Schein Team meetings?

F. Finally, return to Steph's weblog entry and post (as a comment) a link to the entry-report in your own Weblog. Identify the gist of your report so that readers can decide if they are interested in reading what you've written - or not! (Yes, you will post two times as "a reply" to the same entry, first considering time/information/knowledge ("B" above) and second here ("F").

Additional online resources

a syllabus for learning about groups.

group processes quiz

my assessment Group Dynamics COM352

What we did last week

Do you remember? Did you take notes? Check out the missing picture! Here are the board notes, with additional commentary, from two weeks ago (Class #4), specifically the lecture on "framing."