User:Ashooltz04

From UMassWiki

About Me!

I am a junior at UMASS Amherst! I am a communications major and an education minor! I take classes that will help me in both fields by allowing me to learn about new information in the communications field, as well as new theories and supported education methods. When I graduate from college I hope to become a future teacher. I think I would work best with elementary aged kids! I work as a member of the University Child Care Center in the Toddler House for the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During my time spent at the Center, I learned various lessons on how to handle different situations that face child care providers today. It is imperative for child care providers to be familiar with the new theories produced by education scholars in order to provide the best possible curriculum for all children.

I am originally from Michigan and this summer I am taking time off from providing child care and testing my skills at a waitress. I will be going back to the place I was born Harsens Island, Michigan to work at one of the yacht clubs located on the Island. I think this class taught me some new skills when working with people and in a new job setting I think that will be super helpful! So now I'm sure you're wondering what is Communications 352? and Why take it? Well..sometimes I can't even answer that questions, but I'm gonna do my best to explain! Watch out!

COMM 352** During the course of Group Dynamics Comm 352 I have learned about leadership, group members, group formation,and how group dynamics create successful or non successful projects. The readings from Benne and Sheats provided me with excess information on the roles of functional group members. I was unaware that non participating group members could be functional members of the group. However, after their reading and the discussion in class I have realized that in fact any member of the group becomes an important group member. Even tough contributions to the group may seem limited, the members of the group are providing a role that is invisible to other members of the group. I was shocked to learn that answering false to the question,"group members are as important as leaders." As the class has progressed I have learned that in fact group members are just as important as leaders. Without the group members, leaders would not be able to accomplish the strict goals set by guidelines of the assigned project or goal. I've also learned that my "personality" does not necessarily affect the different roles that I assume during group activities. It is possible to assume more than one role within a group. Even though I am frequently unable to identify specific roles I'm assuming during group assignments, I am able to identify more than one role taking place during the given situation or activity.

The class has taken on a few different stages of "group development" according to Weber and his different stages. When completing the chart for the study group, I used Weber's article to help pinpoint different stages of the group according to each class. There were only 2 classes that reached beyond the "forming" and "storming" stages according to my memory and perception. But who knows if that's always right?

So what have we done exactly?? We created anonymous weblogs [http://www.umasswiki.com/wiki/Class:COM352_-_Group_Dynamics_-_Spring_2008/course_outlines_and_in-class_activities/Student_Wordpress_Weblogs. These web blogs allowed the class to respond to steph's website and posts[http://aplaceinspace.wordpress.com/ Steph has provided the class with thoughtful blog posts and students were able to create their on blog name and respond to the questions asked. So besdies only completing work that was done individualy with the wordpress blogs, what else has the class done?

Well for startes the GOAL of the class was originally to create something together and place it in our class wiki space. We spent LOTS AND LOTS of class time in FISHBOWLS discussing different types of projects we could do. When we narrowed it down to this idea of a "survival guide" we took off with the idea. With much hesitation around the title of the project and the overall audience we wanted the project to target we still decided that the general idea was solid. Okay so now you are wondering, what is a "survival guide"? Well we ended up with the idea to create some sort of a guide to future UMASS students, or just anyone who was interested in the area. Students were allowed to chose different areas of interest and create groups addressing those areas. For instance I chose to do a group focusing on NIGHTLIFE IN AMHERST! Which ultimately turned into UMASS Traditions. However, this group focused on the different areas available for some weeknight or weekend entertainment. We created a wiki page with different restaurants and bars in the local area including pictures and captions. Check out some of the work we did [[1]

Overall, between the ideas generated among the group and the finished product I thought it came out pretty good! I checked out some of the other group wiki's and everyone's work was great!

REFLECTION ON CLASS Looking back on the class we had a lot of interesting times together. The general consensus of most class was WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?? But actually that brought us closer together. I made a lot of new friends from doing so much group work etc and started to see some of my classmates outside of class uptown and around Amherst. We were allowed to peer evaluations which were really informative and allowed me to realize some aspects of my group participation that I might not have recognized on my own. Learning about decision making was also something that was a big focus for my experience in class. I was part of the FIREBALL Schien team and we focused on different kinds of decision making, I never knew there were so many different types! Haha! The feedback is supposed to be part of our overall grade but depending on what we decide in the last class the evaluation team (which I am also a member of) will evaluate how we actually get graded. This was one of the strangest classes I have taken here at UMASS, but it has definitely been a memorable one, and at the end of the day thats what really counts, right?