Group Reflection

The first group situation I will discuss is a multi-professional meeting. The meeting was one I observed which gave me the opportunity to identify group challenges and skills. The meeting was an Adoption

The group process broke down because there was never a group. This group began with a group of five individuals who had strong opinionated views as of the relevancy of their professions and experience. Instead of getting together as a group and mutually deciding how

It correlates because we utilized many of the key terms mentioned in the unit. My group was a public group. This means that we gathered to discuss something for the benefit of the public. There was some primary tension especially after we decided on a topic for our first discussion. When we first grouped up, Rachael was extremely polite to everyone, Caralee remained quiet mostly throughout our first interaction, instead of directly telling people why their idea may or may not be a good ideas we danced around the subject in attempts to try and spare the person some injury to their feelings and we were overall very awkward around one another.This tension however quickly decapitated after the first discussion and we were more comfortable with one another. Our communication type was also interpersonal. There was a continuous face to face exchange of ideas, information, verbal and nonverbal amongst all group members. Our nonverbals also played a significant role in our first discussion. Though I did not speak with an aggressive tone my hands were crossed throughout the discussion. Crossing one's hands usually means that the person is not open to arguments and therefore is creating a barrier between themselves and the rest of the group. My group most likely noticed the unwilling nature of my nonverbals and this may have emphasized and added to the tension that already existed in the group. Also, Brandi refused to make eye contact with anyone during the first discussion and instead spoke down towards her desk during our first group discussion. This made it hard for us to read her facial expression and cage how she reacted to what others were saying. Our listening skills also played a role in our discussion. We had to both actively and critically listen to what other group member said. We were listening to understand what the words they were saying meant, and also for whether to not

Throughout the module I was part of group including eight other health professions including student midwives, mental health nurses, physiotherapist’s, radiologists and paediatric nurses. According to Tuckman and Jensen (1977) there are five stages of group development; forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. I was a little anxious about meeting the group and during the forming stage was apprehensive about trusting individuals within the group; maybe because of the lack of a clear

The theoretical model of group development has changes that involves forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. At the forming stage, the girls were able to the social worker, they learned about each other, and learned about the purpose of the group sessions. They understood the reasons for being there. During the storming or transition stage, the girls challenged each other physically, verbally, and mentally. They communicated aggressively, but they were very respectful to the social workers and other leaders. During the norming stage, the conflicts between the girls were less intense, and they were able to understand that there were other ways to communicate with one another besides

I felt like due to most of us not knowing each other and ever really interacting with each other, there was tension. We did not know how to start a conversation over some very intense issues that this activity bought upon us. I definitely was anxious at the beginning because I was nervous about how such a a large group was going to interact with each other. Other times that I felt some tension was when people started disagreeing on ideas. When people thought their idea was better than another persons. I felt some tension when people started using their job title as being superior to voice their opinion over

I facilitated the third session as the group entered into the middle phase of the group process. In the middle phase the group focused on getting the work done (Shulman, 2012). All of the group members, both have things in

When individuals are initially acquainting with the group process, many may be unsure of how they are going to be perceived by the group. Specifically, they may have some apprehension surrounding regarding their presenting issues and concerns in relation to the rest of the group. Two specific phenomena result from this dynamic: ambiguity and conflict. Corey, Corey, and Corey (2010) emphatically contend that during the beginning stages of a group, it is a group leader’s responsibility to facilitate the enhancement of trust within the group. In a trusting environment, and through the use of Yalom and Leszcz’s (2005) twelve therapeutic factors, the group can begin to identify

In my undergraduate work, almost all of my classes that were directly related to my major required at the least one group project. In the beginning this was not something I was very fond of mostly because I had some bad experiences when it came to working with others on projects. Usually it was the problem of people not pulling their own weight, and doing their parts to help with the tasks. When it came time to have the assignment complete it was even harder to give a grade to those people. I did not want to be the guy who caused someone to throw someone under the bus. However, after I thought about it, I did want to be that guy because in the real world on a work project if there was someone who did not pull their weight in the job projects would not be successful. So, when it came time for grades, I was always honest, and usually if a person did not do their part I told it how it was.

The group did I learn the most about is group identification. Some of my group mates pointed how some positive outcomes from it and some were negative. People who had the positive outcomes was stating how they will like to people to know more about their racial/ethnic group because it is very important to get to know someone that’s different from who you are. The negative outcomes are basically describing how they feel when the world looks at them differently. In the discussion one of my group mates stated that she her religious affiliation is that she is a Muslim who practices the Islamic faith. Just because she is a Muslim some people automatically thinks that she’s a terrorist. I truly understood where she was coming from because I feel

Personally, I felt that this first group was a tough experience for me today. I felt like I could really relate to everyone, but that it was too painful at this time for me to go deeper into the first topic, which was related to father relationships, estrangement, and alcoholism. I believe that since this is my first group it is relatively normal to have some reservations and fears related to this. I wanted to be able to be more open and jump into the conversation more, but I felt like in this session it was better to be a listener. I will try harder next week to open up and give some of my own insights because I believe deep down that I can help others in the group if I do so. I am not usually a person who likes to have attention or the spotlight on me, but in the group I think it is important to put my ideas out there for all members and myself. I was holding back this week and next week I want to try harder to let myself speak up.

Tuckman proposes that groups develop via five stages; forming, storming, norming, performing and finally adjourning (Archee, Gurney, & Mohan, 2013a). The first stage, known as forming, involves clarifying the task and purpose of the group, and identifying boundaries of both the task and interpersonal behaviour (Archee et al., 2013a). For the presentation task we were randomly allocated into groups. This worried me greatly as I have struggled in the past with group members who do not contribute equally or see the task as important as other group members. To avoid this problem, the group collectively determined and agreed upon a number of ground rules. For example, we decided that all group members were expected to contribute equally to the presentation, all group members were expected to attend and contribute at all group meetings, and all group members would adhere to agreed upon deadlines. Having failed to do this in previous group assignments, this clarification stage

It was clear from that point forward there were large personalities in the group, which caused friction between the group members. By the third group meeting on Moodle, one of the group members decided to leave as they felt that no conflicts should be occurring during the planning stage. The remaining four group members were confused by the departure, as many group projects will often experience conflicts, as it is part of the process (Liu & Tsai, 2008). On reflection, during the beginning stages of the group’s decision-making process our group had similar ideas and opinions and within the first online group chat; a target group was agreed

My feelings about the group process was a little mix at first but, at the end I felt like we actually brought it together. Beginning of the group member were all over the place and had no direction, when we were able to take a breather in just think ideas started to flow. I felt like that took the communicator to make it happen. By reinsuring the other group members that everything will go smoothly if we just don’t overthink everything.

In conclusion, this class has changed my perspective about working in a group. Since my prior experience with groups was so unsettling, I believed that all groups were going to be the same. However, this class has made it possible to believe that there are groups that respect and take into consideration other members’