Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.
User:Sunshine775
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[edit] COMM 352
[edit] A New Experience
“Group Dynamics” I was drawn to the title of the class from the start. As a senior in my last semester at UMASS, I thought this would be a great class to take to gain experience in working in groups. I knew that after graduation I would be taking part in new groups that I am unfamiliar with. I figured it would be a great way to get a jump start into the real world!
After the first day of class, I was unsure of what exactly I was getting myself into! Stef has a unique way of teaching. It was a method that I have never been exposed to before. I was a little wary of whether or not I would like the way she structured the class. However after a few class meetings, I knew I was in for a new experience. For those who have never had a class with Stephanie Jo Kent before she is a pretty cool lady with a new way of going about teaching.
Stef took a backseat and let us the students try to figure things out on our own. She was always there when we were completely lost and needed some guidance. For the most part though she let us truly experience what it means to be apart of a decision making group.
As an American society we look to a leader. I think it was a shock to most students when we learned that Stef was not going to be our ring leader. Instead we had to take it upon ourselves to produce leaders.
If you are sick of sitting in lectures, listening to professors do all the talking and making the decisions then this class if definitely for you. Your voice means something and shapes the way the group behaves.
[edit] The Begining
With no specific leader in place, the class from the start was a little confused on how to procede. One of our first activities was reading What to Observe in a Group by Edgar Shein. We broke up into Shein groups and took one section of the article and we would use it as a guidline on how to observe our group as a whole. It was really interesting to break it down that way.
Fishbowls are very common in this class. Fishbowls are when there is an inner circle and an outer cirle. Maybe 5 or 6 students comprise the inner circle and they are the only ones doing the talking. The rest of the class sits in the outer circle and listens and observes. It was way to have opinions heard and break the class down into smaller groups.
The Shein teams observed the fishbowls the most. We would take notes and then comprise a report to tell the class.
What to Observe in a Group by Edgar A. Schein.
[edit] "The Group: A Cycle from Birth to Death" by Richard C. Weber
As the class started to pick up spead and we were aware of what to observe in groups, we shifted the focus of the different phases that a group goes through. This was the first time that I even really thought about the growth of a group. Th article "The Group: A Cycle from Birth to Death" by Richard C. Weber mapped out how groups evolve. The article identifies the three different stages that any successful group must go through. The stages are as follows:
- Stage I Infancy ("Forming")
- Stage II Adolescence ("Storming")
- Stage III Adulthood ("Norming & Performing")
[edit] The Most Interesting Stage
I found the Storming Stage to be the most interesting. From my past experience working in groups in college everyone is very polite and non-confrontational. This is probaly because the group work is for only about two weeks or so. However in this class, we are working together in a group for a whole semester. People's personalities really start to show and the class discussions become more interesting.
During this stage group members start to show a lot of emotion. People start to find out where they fit in the larger group. With a class of about 25 students, there was a struggle for power. Everyone wanted their voice to be heard and their ideas taken seriously. Little arguments started but it was all for advancement of the group. This stage is very important and cannot be skipped. We needed to work out the kinks and really get to know each other to move on. During this stage you really get a sense of people and you learn alot about yourself and how you participate in groups.
[edit] Course Readings
Instead of traditional expensive course textbooks, Group Dynamics chooses to use readings that challenge the students to make connections with what we read to what is happening in class in an abstrat way. The two books that were read this year were
[edit] Blogs
This class is very computer and online orientated. For homeworks we had to navigate Stef's homepage and write our own blogs. Our blogs were technically anonymous so you were free to write what you really thought about things. This was my first time writing blogs. I did find it hard having so much work being online. I tend to like things in front of me that I can ready on paper.
Check out Word Press. This is the website that we used to write out blogs.
[edit] Johari Window
The Johari Window is used to examine our behavior in relations to people we are working with. We used the Johari window to pick words about ourselves that we thought reflected our personalities. Our classmates were also invited to visit our page and choose the words that they thought best represented us. You get to compare how you think you reveal yourself to others and how other people perceive you. You might be surprised how you people view you!
[edit] Class Project
For my part of the umasswiki page, my partner and I chose to do a guide/review to shopping in Pioneer Valley. We thought this was a good idea for people who might not know the area. We included Amherst, Hadley, Northampton and Holyoke. We wrote about the typical things such as malls and shopping Plazas. The one thing we really wanted to accomplish was to give a shout-out to all the great local shops. In our analysis we wrote what type of merchandize they sell, the price range, their website, and info.
Feel Free to Visit our Site! Pioneer Valley Shopping
[edit] Wrapping it all up!
Overall this class is great if you want something unusual and different from a typical Umass Amherst class. I had missed a few classes due to interviews for after graduation and felt that I missed out on a lot. I reccomend taking this class early on in your Umass career. You truly learn a lot about yourself and you peers.
[edit] Training
Here is a paper where I talked in detail about my experience:
Communication 352 Group Dynamics has taught me a great deal about being a member of small and large groups. A decision making group goes through phases and has to assess the qualities of each group member. Perviosuly I did not fully understand the dynamics that create a group. I have learned what it takes to be apart of an effective group that works together and deals directly with issues that may arise.
I have never heard about the phases a group goes through before this class. The article "The Group: A Cycle from Birth to Death" By Richard C. Weber has opened my eyes. Through the time we spent using these categories to go by I have been trained in what to expect when going into a group atmosphere.
When first forming a group, there is the initial "infancy" stage where group members feel each other out. I definitely felt the confusiona nd anxiety in the classroom and in myselg regarding the class. I looked to the people who are natural born leaders to see what qualities they possess that I wish I had.
I learned that a group may stay in the "forming" stage for quite some time. In our class's case, the teacher did not take on such a strong role, allowing us the students to determine our fate as a group. This was completely new to me. After a while in the "forming" stage our group moved into the adolescence stage. Here I think I was trained in how to process group member's attitudes, values, and beliefs.
There were numerous occasions where group members did not agree with each other. I believe this to be normal since we have all different "frames" that we see the world through. I learned how to asses these differences in a way to identify the issue and work with it in a professional manner. We do not always have to agree with each other, but we do need to respect our classmate's thoughts.
The "storming" phase taught me how to resolve problems as well as stand up to the leaders that have been formed and question their reasoning. The part that I found most useful about the article is that a group cannot skip this stage. It must go through all the arguments and un-pleasantries in they ever want to succeed. If the group tries to move on without addressing problems, they will fail. The problems will soon arise again.
Our group was in the "storming" stage for a long time. I feel that with the lack of a teacher's rules and having us decide on our own what to do added to this. We were all still trying to come to terms with this class being our responsibility.
There were a few occasions where it felt like we had been discussing the same topic forever and not really reaching a conclusion. The fishbowls about the content of our class wiki page seemed to go on the longest. With different group members in the fishbowl it was hard to reach a consensus. Again we all have different "frames" of seeing things so it was hard when only one fish bowl at a time got to talk about what we should be doing with the course wiki page.
There were a lot of great ideas out there and we toyed with some for a while but ultimately changed the content to whatever we would like the page to be on. I think maybe this happened because we could not agree on a set theme of a page. I found this to be the hardest part of the "storming" phase. I felt like a lot of us just wanted to move along and get started and have people agree on something. However I have learned that we cannot skip this phase and move on. I think we ended up on doing whatever interested us because it allowed us to get into smaller groups that shared an interest.
The third stage "adulthood" trained me that after a long storming phase a group can come out the situation the better. I found that now group members have a clear sense of whom we are working with and what we can get accomplished together. I found myself feeling a "togetherness" of the group. We as a class have formed a unique identity.
Having smaller sub-groups worked well with our class. It was much easier to get things accomplished because there were fewer personalities bumping heads. It was more convenient to meet with these group members because there were fewer schedules to revolve around.
The adulthood stage allowed group members to engage more personally. Therefore we got to know each other better and form personal relations. This added to the success of the group. We felt more freely to express our ideas and concerns.
These phases came along with certain group roles. The article "Functional Roles of Group Members" by Kenneth Benne and Paul Sheats gave an indepth analysis of what it means to be a group member. I feel that this class has trained me in all aspects of these roles. I now have knowledge of group tast roles, group building and maintenance roles, and individual roles. I feel that I have been trained in most of these roles.
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