User:Comm352user1

Welcome to my wiki page. I was a member of the informed consent study group. My time in this class has been awesome. I wish that more classes at UMass and in higher education everywhere could be conducted using this model. I can liken it to the Linux open source technology. It's certainly not for everyone, but it's awesome for some. Some of my peers probably didn't like this class because of its ambiguity. At times, I was definitely disgruntled. However, the open source architecture allowed for students' feedback about the structure to hold weight with the instructor. Therefore, I(we) was(were) able to tell Steph "this is not working". Here is an example of Steph responding to my constructive criticism after one class session. I mentioned to Steph that I would have liked to measure individual satisfaction levels at the end of each class session. Among other things, I would hypothesize that people would feel increased satisfaction after telling Steph that they weren't happy with the way things were going (assuming she responded positively). This kind of group satisfaction is not really available in a closed source architecture, like most other classes.

In the wiki outline of our first class session (for which I was not yet signed up), Steph got the ball rolling on what would eventually become the informed consent study group (see the informed consent section). In the formative stages of our group's (the class') development, I participated in many of the fishbowls. I guess that I saw myself in an organizational and moderation role in an otherwise unorganized mess.

Throughout the class, it was continuously challenging for me to deal with the disorganized nature of the class. I am used to working in groups with an implied set of rules, but our class, by design, had none. My background with the military continually caused me to feel friction between the principles espoused in the class and what I am used to. For instance, when we were told to arm wrestle each other and count how many times we could get each other's hand down, I naturally took that as how many times can I win, rather than how can I work cooperatively with my partner to achieve a high number of matches.

[edit] Schein Team

Operating as a member of the communication Schein What To Observe in a Group team, I became used to observing what was going on in the fishbowls regarding communication. Mainly, I noticed how the lack of mediation hindered the productivity of the fishbowl. I guess I made it my mission to try and get things done with efficiency whenever possible.

[edit] At the end...

Looking back, I am glad that I took this class. I've fervently avoided classes lasting three hours, but I was always surprised at how fast time seemed to move. Here is a link to the finalized Informed Consent section of the class page. I'm glad we got the page up, but the product of our class' efforts is less important than the process and content that got us there. I've learned a lot from the class about dealing with others in a collaborative setting. I've learned that without structure, a group can still accomplish something, albeit far less productively. I've learned that my initial membership strategy (how I planned to conduct myself in group activities) was a good one. My peer feedback indicated that people like my role of participation, which as I mentioned above, was centered around organization and mediation. When class members were required to list their individual skills, I listed project leadership and organization...

Below is some of the work I contributed to the informed consent study group.