[edit] My Comm 352
It's been interesting - to say the least.
I joined the class late. I remember walking into the classroom that first day. It's actually one of my most vivid memories of the class even though it was forever ago. Steph wasn't there yet, so I started asking the students who were there already about the class. They laughed at my questions. I didn't really get it. I felt like I was asking totally normal questions about class structure, workload, and content - and they were laughing. I figured out why soon enough...
The class structure has been unlike any other course I’ve been in. A lot of people have made comments about becoming close with members of the class. I don’t feel that I have done that more than in my other classes, but I definitely have a lot of respect for the people I’ve worked with this semester. There is a sense of having experienced something together. It’s been a strange experience going through the wiki, my blogs, and my memories to think about what this journey has consisted of.
I feel that my blog persona and in-class persona were sort of similar. At different times I played different roles. For as long as I remember I’ve felt the need to jump into roles which I perceived to be lacking. For example, in a group with opinionated and organized leaders I’m more than happy to go with the flow and avoid taking on extra decisions and responsibilities, but I’m also quick to fill in anything I see as being lacking. The problem sometimes is that I fill the role of what I see to be lacking – not necessarily some objective missing function. So, if there’s a discrepancy between my view and that of others, I think I can be seen as overly aggressive and outspoken as opposed to just assertive and opinionated. I openly displayed these concerns during the semester. I wrote about this in my peer feedback reflection:
“Keeps putting own ideas to the project, even if others want to add different ideas.”
This one kind of stung. The tone is so terse that I read a harshness and dislike in it. I read it with a degree of disdain.
I don’t know what to make of this comment in the light of comments that directly contradict it:
“I think it is great that even though the Umass wiki was her idea - it wasn’t set in stone for her. To her it was just an idea and was willing to hear different ideas and possible elaborations on hers. She acts as a mediator much of the time which is nice.”
“I respect that she has great ideas but does not get defensive when people offer negative feedback to them.”
“Excellent ideas, listened to others, def. a catalyst for the rest of the group”
“She did a good job trying to get a consensus. She seemed to keep other people’s feelings and opinions in mind.”
“good organization & really stated her points and tried to get everyone’s ideas involved.”
Yet despite the ratio of good to bad comments, I still worry about what the negative commenter thinks of me and what these potentially negative feelings are based around. Maybe it’s true, as one comment said, that I’m “very scared to step on people’s toes.” I’m not sure if that is negative or positive feedback.
Despite these concerns I think I found a functional role to play in the group almost all of the time.
[edit] PROBLEMS
Like most groups, we have not been without our problems.
My concerns were expressed mostly through our wordpress.com blogs, but I also discussed them during class on occasion. My main concern was with the structure of the class – or lack thereof. I’m a second semester senior and this class is fulfilling a major requirement for me which means that passing it is vital to my graduating. Early on I became frustrated not knowing what was expected of us. I felt like we were frequently not meeting steph’s expectations which infuriated me because I didn’t know how we were supposed to meet expectations that were not made clear to us. Here is some stuff I wrote out of this frustration:
Steph, I wonder why you would post an seemingly important concept and a link at the very bottom of a post that already has several comments (as opposed to, for instance, as an actual blog post). Because we have no means of being updated to new comments I think it would be cruel of you to expect us to have read this (say by asking about it on a test). Is that what you expect of us - to be aware of every single thing going on in each of our blogs, your blog, and the course wiki. As all of these things grow exponentially this seems like a more and more ridiculous expectation. I’m already feeling overwhelmed – do you think you could somehow address your specific expectations of us in a clear way during class? (I mean in addition to the more specific assignments.)
Sunday February 24, 2008 at 4:40 pm
We’re supposed to address our concerns here, right? I’m most concerned about the course organization. I’m having trouble understanding what to do and when. I also feel like there is not a clear method for seeking clarification, information, and help. More than that I don’t know what questions to ask to feel more secure and informed. I don’t understand exactly what is meant by all the terms we’re supposed to use so freely. Right now this course’s definition of “framing” is totally over my head. All this confusion is leading to frustration. I like certain things about the class, including what I consider to be the concept: study the dynamics of group interaction by using our own class as a case study. But I wish everything were clearer. I would hate to fail a class just because I don’t know how to pass it.
Other bloggers responded well to my comments. One of my peers said it was a “brave thing to do.”
My specific concerns were never directly addressed. We continued to flounder, yet, despite that, we also continued to make progress as a group. We started to get to work on our journey towards production.
We started talking about what we were going to put on our class wiki. I was pretty opinionated from early on. I joined the “content” group on that day way back when. I observed the group for a while, asked questions, and then made a suggestion that I wasn’t actually expecting to have such a large impact on the trajectory of the course. Having reached consensus within our group, I think we were all eager to share with the rest of the class. I posted this shortly after that:
”I understand the desire to do something epic - global etc. But I wonder if that adage “Think global, act local” might not have some significance here. I don’t mean to downplay the effect that any individual (or any class) could have on the world. I’m sure some of you will go on to cure world hunger or whatever, but as for the task at hand, I think we might be better off looking to our own community (umass). First of all – we’re all a part of it – so I assume (perhaps not a super safe assumption…) we all care about it to a certain extent. Finding a global issue, cause, project, etc. that truly interests and engages the entire group might be more challenging. A second point, is that doing something on the local scale, might mean we could see the effects of our work faster.
I feel pretty strongly in favor of the idea the content group came up with in the last class. The idea, which I think we will probably discuss in more detail in class, is to make a “Students’ Guide to Surviving UMASS” which we could post on the wiki.
The reason I like this idea is that I think it gives each member of the class a chance to focus on the specific topics they care about, we could also learn about our community from each other, and create a resource that could be indispensable to other students. For example: Steph could write a page like, “Getting Active on Campus.” And gather information about social action on campus and in the valley and how students (and faculty) can get involved and do good.”
Having proposed the idea that took such a strong hold within the content group, I found myself in a defacto leadership position. This role was different for me than taking a leadership role when I felt no one else would, this was based on an idea I had. I was pretty uncomfortable. This was heightened when I became convinced that Steph hated the idea. I got the feeling that Steph would have preferred us to do something socially conscious and blamed me for steering the class in an erroneous direction. The concern of a personal dislike combined with my pre-existing anxieties about the course made me extremely tense. I think we all felt a little tense during this period – which was definitely STORMING.
These are things I wrote during that time:
” It’s funny because while I was reading the Webber article, I actually laughed out loud at some lines within his descriptions of group stages. I’ve been in plenty of groups and none of them ever looked like the ones Webber describes. The thing I found most amusing was how emotionally he described things… well, who would have guessed how emotionally our class would get in class 6? People were actually yelling. Personally I was nervous – which is seriously not my style. So I guess Weber was right (or is this a bizare case of class imitating class reading? I highly doubt that, somehow). I agree with the assessments of other students that we are in the Storming/adolescent phaze of our group. And just like real adolescence – it isn’t very much fun. It’s stressful. But maybe last class was some sort of fluke – a full moon was out maybe – and class today will be calm, friendly, and satisfying. We can hope, and also each do our best to keep our emotions in check and our minds open.”
“Class six was intense and people were emotionally charged (steph among them). I also had an emotional response to class. As a proponent of both the wiki concept and the voting process, I felt attacked by steph’s response to them both. She mentioned her frustration with the resistance/reluctance she saw as being “so clear” not being addressed. Personally, I saw this comment as a personal attack. I don’t think it’s that people were not acknowledging concerns, but that class was so chaotic that no one knew “how” to address them. The process, if you will, for addressing these concerns was extremely unclear (as were the concerns themselves). I also disagreed with steph’s assertion that the voting process was a direct challenge to her authority as the teacher. The students initiating the vote weren’t trying to “blow her off” (in fact I think they asked for permission - and viewed her silence as permissive) but rather the vote was intended to evaluate the climate surrounding the proposed wiki concept. I don’t think a simple majority vote was assumed to decide on the concept with certainty (at least that wasn’t my assumption) but rather to evaluate the level of resistance and to open a dialog in order to address concerns. At the time I felt that steph’s frustration was with her inability to “manipulate the outcome in the direction that [she] want[ed]” I was very concerned that, as a proponent of an idea she wasn’t fond of, she would take a personal dislike to me. Now that the metaphorical dust has settled I see that this was probably an irrational fear, I don’t think steph would dislike me just for my role in her frustration. I think the “rush” we are feeling is not actually to make a decision, but rather to get some clarity and order back in the class (by making a decision about the content and process of the wiki, we will again have formal structure in our class). I think that most groups crave structure (especially when there are stakes: grades). In groups where the structure is not obviously imposed, it makes sense that the members would seek out structure. Anyway, I’m glad we’re making progress and people seem less tense. I think we can still have a bright future as a group.”
[edit] OUR CLASS WIKI
From there, it was a matter of synthesizing our ideas, striving for consensus, and actually getting to work producing the thing.
I think we all had concerns about the idea:
“I think people have been making some really constructive suggestions. I think having a steering committee could be a good idea. It seems obvious now that we’re all craving infrastructure. Subcommitees based on our talents and skills I think is also a good idea. Maybe we can devote some class soon to deciding how this process should go - and then actually doing it.
One concern I have it this: I wouldn’t want us to produce anything redundant. I spent some time looking at the umass wiki today. I did some searches for things we were interested in writing about and they were missing from the wiki, but other things were there. There is a section about local restaurants, bars/clubs, greek life, etc. I think we should all take some time to see if what we’re interested in hasn’t already been tackled in the umass wiki. And then, even if it has - many of those articles are “stubs” - would a member of our class feel satisfied adding to pre-existing articles? How affiliated with the rest of the umass wiki do we want to be? In some way integrating our ideas into that wiki might help us overcome some of our problems: audience for example. Does what we produce have to be a separate entity? I think it might be really cool to put our ideas into a preexisting resource that already has some sort of audience and frame. Anyway… just an idea.”
A little while later, I went through everyone’s wiki proposals and tried to synthesize all of our ideas into something cohesive:
“I’m into both art and knowledge (don’t they often overlap?) In my most recent post I had read through all of the blogs about the wiki project that I could find and commented on them in what I thought would be a productive way. You can see it here: http://vertebralsilence.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/an-attempt-to-synthesize/
Some possible themes that stand out are: music, on campus clubs/activities, sports, personal pages, our class specifically, film/video etc. There were more themes that overlapped in our individual posts, but you get the idea. Maybe we should split up into groups based on these content themes and then in those groups talk about process. So the people interested in music could figure out what they want to talk about specifically and HOW to that (imbedding music, etc) This seems like a logical next step and these smaller groups (it’s looking like 2-4 ppl have shared interest in any given topic) would be more manageable. Maybe I’m way off base – it’s just an idea.
I also am interested in the general wiki technology we’ll be using – because this will affect all of us. I mean we all know Wikipedia. I’ve also seem wikis here: http://www.wikispaces.com/
But I feel a little confused – is our “project” wiki going to be in the same place as our class page on the umass wiki? And, if so, can we look at the technology of the umass wiki? Because I have no clue…”
We did divide up into subgroups based on our skills and interests. Even though our wiki may not be totally polished, I’m really proud of it. The tech/format group, which I was in, learned some mark-up in order to create a homepage for us.
[edit] WHAT I'VE LEARNED
I’ve always seen our class as a study of group dynamics using our own class as a case-study of a group. I think that this is a fascinating idea. One problem with it is that we’re in no way a typical group. Our meta-awareness of our “groupness” prevents us from being one. Still there were plenty of opportunities to learn.
There were three main things that I think I learned about. The first is wikis. I became really interested in wikis in the hopes of making ours great. I learned some mark-up (mostly html). I talked to my roommates all the time about it (they’re both way computer savvy) and I did a lot of independent research. I had lofty ideas about a mixed media wiki complete with imbedded music, video, pictures, etc. My wordpress blog is filled with html tests – most of them failures. A lot of what I learned will stay with me and I think come in handy. I’m really appreciative for this opportunity because I don’t think I would have ever been motivated to learn this stuff for myself.
Another, arguably more important, subject of learning was about group dynamics. Schein’s “What to Observe in a Group,” Webber’s group stages, and the article we read about functioning group roles I think will all stick with me. Also “gist” “frames” “process.” And a lot more. I’ve been in many groups, but this group gave me a lexicon for all those other groups I have been in and will be in for the rest of my life. It’s provided me with tools I will be able to use to critically and reflexively think about group dynamics. Though I do think these provisions could have taken place through a less frustrating method some of the time.
Those frustrations bring me to the other main thing I got from the class, which is the ability to hold my own in a confusing, and often frustrating environment. It often felt like we were fish out of water – aimlessly groping for structure that refused to show itself. Though I didn’t always handle my frustrations ideally, I learned some methods for coping. I learned effective ways to voice my concerns, ways of injecting my own structure into situations, and an ability, at times, to let go and just go with things.
I’m not going to say the class was enjoyable, and it certainly wasn’t easy. But I learned a lot and I think I also gave a lot. Now all that’s left is to see if that is reflected in my grade, hopefully it is, and I can graduate and get the heck out of here.
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