Class talk:COM352 - Group Dynamics - Spring 2008/course outlines and in-class activities/eighth day of class
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Change in Authority Relations, Fishbowl J
The teacher speculates that being nominated by one of the students for inclusion in Fishbowl J represented a "leveling-of-the-field" (Paragraph 2, "Why are you writing sideways?") Students reflect on this hypothesis with observations and interpretations:
Will everything be easy after "Storming"?
Not! :-) We clarified the singularity of our progress and distinguished between intra- and inter-group dynamics. (Paragraph 3, "Why are you writing sideways?") Most students are focused on the intergroup subdivisions among our class/group-as-a-whole, rather than between our class and other classes or groups on campus (clubs, departments, administration, faculty - to name some of the groups which have been invoked in coursewiki planning). We did not delve into intragroup dynamics. Yet. (!)
Mimesis?
This term came up at the end of an extensive discussion about Paragraph 4 ("Why are you writing sideways?") More on it, later - except to note that there may be a mimetic quality to the selections of what students say for textual recording on the chalkboard, and further mimesis may be divined (?) by closer analysis of the relationship(s) between the photographs, the actual talk, and the discursive trajectories of our class/group.
Tangent! and fascination
Emma happened to be reading this paragraph, and she did great until she got to the sunwheel. She not only stumbled over the words, it was as if she wasn't even sure what she was reading; she actually shifted her position and said she was having difficulty seeing. And this difficulty, even though a shift was flagged by the warning phrase, "Just to give a wild example," and even though the content of the paragraph was the idea of teaching, learning, and experiencing life "sideways", when the actual unexpected turn came there was an obvious (and I would argue probably unavoidable) glitch in the flow.
I give this moment attention because this is the way you recognize clues to group dynamics; something unusual has occurred. A person who normally proceeds very smoothly suddenly got surprised: I would suggest that a quality of anticipation failed and Emma had to doublecheck what she was reading. Not only that, when she had completed reading the paragraph outloud, the first question engaged the glitch - even though, as the following conversation demonstrated, there was more collective energy involved with the reference to John Robison's book. (I'm thinking that the group's attention to the glitch first is a strength; a sign of attentiveness to group process, in other words, maintenance behavior. Way to go, gang!)
Look Me in the Eye
I keep capitalizing the Nouns in the book's title, but you may notice that the actual title is lowercase. (This reminds me of a debate about naming which I witnessed, and commented upon - just yesterday (!) - between two faculty members. I mention this here because I used the term "naming" to label the experience of being identified as someone who operates sideways, and because my "comment" involved thinking I've been doing about the differences between "representational analysis" and "symbolic analysis" - of which more below.) Students were intrigued by "John's situation," characterizing his early social difficulties as a problem of prevention, and framing the problem (at first) in permanent terms.
I cut off the spontaneous conversation because I plan to have a dedicated fishbowl on the book, and also because so many people either were not present or hadn't finished reading it yet (which meant much of the conversation was explaining 'what happened' rather than investigating meaningfulness). What I did not tell the students (!) is that John Robison had contacted me by email a few days prior. I received permission from John to post the full record of our email exchange in my blog, A Conversation with John Elder Robison.
Representation and Symbolism
Well, I was thinking something (that seemed clear!) when I wrote
and then when the students and I began to talk more we found that the distinction is not so easy to grasp! (We are still discussing Paragraph 4.) The action of my writing sideways (in the moment when I did it) was me-doing-my-thing. When Tony asked why, me-doing-my-own-thing became an object, and as an object, the behavior became a representation of who I am (which I embrace because I experienced it as naming; alternatively, if I did not recognize myself in his question, I may reject the representation as stereotypical or a projection of some type). The object is gaining symbolic value every time I refer back to it, and will gain even more if/when/as students and others engage it as meaningful, i.e., as meaning something, potentially anything, but if we pursue it eventually we will reach a limit of the range that seems plausible/possible/"real" or "true" to the situation and context in which it occurred.
We toyed with the idea that representational analysis may be more inductive (e.g., going from an object deeper into some presumably core or essential meaning) and symbolic analysis may be more deductive (such as building on an object as a producer or generator of a larger meaningfulness. Obviously the variety and distinctiveness of each individual's discrete perceptions influence the way the situation or event is understood, setting some parameters for what the objectified action can now come to mean (what possible meaningfulnesses it can contain/convey).
Somewhere along-in-there, Amanda asked about mimesis, and we got into a bit of discussion about the power of language, the action potential of naming, synonymously the performative dimension of language use that goes toward the co-construction of reality. For instance, there is the example that once a group calls itself "pro-life", it has restricted the range of possibility for a counter-group's self-naming.
How to Recognize When Something Important is Going On
A crucial skill that I discuss in Paragraph 7 ("Why are you writing sideways?") is the ability to move back and forth, as necessary, between the maintenance and task aspects of the group's dynamics. We are working on developing a precise distinction between these two equally vital activities of a group, and - in particular - the decision-making skills to know when to do which.
ap1115 comments: "topics were brought up about why people have been quiet when they didn’t agree with the decision to make a 'survival guide' and what the 'norms' are for voicing your opinion." I am not sure we actually labeled norms? But a few people (more than one, yes?) shared their surprise at the rush to vote and wariness not to offer dissenting opinions - these intrapersonal experiences (which the group learns now, after-the-fact) are the kind of information that group members can recognize and reflect upon as indicators of the group's generic stage of development and/or particular concern in the moment. Sharing or not sharing this information with the group influences the way knowledge about ourselves is structured (there is no value judgment on this, no "good" or "bad," rather something for each one to consider in terms of participation (i.e., belonging, membership, or resistance/indifference to such) and goals (desires to persuade, have influence, remain peripheral, etcetera). Temporality remains a theme, and is linked to knowledge: preconceived notions may be insufficient, recent experiences may have a disproportionate resonance.
Applying Discourse Analysis
Paragraphs 9-13 ("Why are you writing sideways?") propose a way to start to make sense out of a specific group's dynamics. Notice that the most basic assumption is that "sense" must be made. There is no automatic "meaning" or undebatable common "understanding" of what talk about cultural terms says about our particular group-as-a-whole. We, together, construct meaningfulness from our interactions with each other. The assignment asked students to be both "critical" and "cultural" (see Paragraph 11). Why?
In this instance, an assignment created a certain parameter for action: only terms on the list could be selected for summary and application. Most students completed the assignment; some did not. Of those who did the task, a pattern can be imposed on the products produced. "Imposed" because there is only a quantitative logic (at this point) that justifies the three groupings of terms. As more students (and possibly others, who knows?!) read and engage the words and ideas of the whole discourse (following through on the links to read each students' completed assignment), these relatively arbitrary groupings may become strengthened, deconstructed, or reconfigured. In paragraph 14, some phrases were created as examples of ways one could "make sense" of the particular pattern of groups. What is the purpose of doing this?
Just like the question of learning - as a group - to recognize when the immediate task requires relational maintenance (attention to process) or incremental decision-making along a path to a final product (the content); groups also need to learn when culture is a factor in mis/understanding.
Attention to Detail: Evidence of Intention
In addition to clarifying the easy-to-confuse distinction between "intra" and "inter," we also dealt with some other grammar concerns: when is it proper to use a colon? (As a former writing instructor, the asking of such questions is delightful!) We also checked out:
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Cooperation or Competition?
Just to check out the cultural mindset, we did a small icebreaker activity (also to shift us from the long time it took to talk our way through that thick blogpost toward a few other activities).
armwrestling
stalemate
work it!
try harder!
going down :-/
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