Reflective Essay On Group Work

As I sit here to this day group work is still not my favorite thing it makes me angry when professors mention it. I feel as if we are now in college not in high school. We should be treated as one person when doing an assignment. So you could see each potential of each

“Alright,” the teacher says to the students, “I’m going to number all of you off into groups. Each group will read a section from the textbook and become experts on that section. Then, each group will teach the rest of the class what they learned from their reading.” This is an instruction common to the classrooms in the United States. More and more is the pedagogy of public education leaning in favor of team-based activities, projects, and learning. Group work is generally seen as an ultimately beneficial way to teach students, but this may be somewhat of a fallacy. The emphasis on group-based learning in public schools causes a multitude of problems.

To further understand Belbin Team Role Theory, I, together with four students formed a team and simulated as being authorized by the Songjiang Government Bureau to investigate into the current situation and the prospect of the higher education industry in Songjiang District. Through unremitting team efforts, we successfully demonstrated our findings and recommended several ideas via a formal presentation. Reviewing the three-months-long process of cooperation, I really found this experience of learning meaningful and fruitful. This reflective essay is a conclusion of my sympathetic introspection of the

If I could summarize my group proposal experience in three works it would be patient, organized, and accomplished. My group proposal experience was not that bad. However, I did have to be patient and wait for other members to submit their work. I also had to be patient and see when we could meet because some of my group members did not show up for group meetings. I also felt like the majority of my group was not participating and getting work done. My group was some what organized because we had a checklist of the materials we had to submit and complete. My group was also able to accomplish our binder on time because we had to pull each other's weight. The only good thing I can say about my group is that they are nice

During high school, my credibility was challenged during group projects. I tend to take charge and not consider the thoughts and opinions of others. A specific example of this issue can be seen during a project I had to complete for AP United States Government and Politics.

Generally, everyone has their own way of doing assignments and projects. Some students prefer working in groups and others prefer to work independently. In my opinion, I am against group work. I would rather work by myself, for reasons like; people that do not do their work, there are distractions, and scheduling problem with other people. Group work is a form of collaborative learning, but it does not often work in some cases.

In the past few weeks, Cristina, Oscar and I worked together on our group presentation – Should HIV positive workers have to tell their employers of their status? Our task for this group assignment was to create a collaborative presentation on a controversial issue. In the process of creating the presentation, there were some problematic situations, which caused a moment of alarm. Also, there was a lack of leadership or guidance within the group, making it harder to have the work done. Last, I believe there were some aspects of the group collaboration that could have gone better.

Overall, our group dynamic was good. We were able to collaborate and critique openly, without any real arguing or tension. Everyone’s opinions were heard and when there were disagreements they were resolved by civil discussion. The only conflicts that we experienced, which were fairly minor, were due to lack of communication or the presence of miscommunications, which were easily resolved with further conversations and clarifications. The workload during the pre-production phase of our film was most evenly distributed. We assigned duties during class and we all did our fair share. Originally our workload during production was broken down into our shooting schedule, which organized who would film what and when. However, we did not stick to the schedule as much as I wish we had, especially since I spent a lot of time creating the schedule. Instead we divided the workload based on our original sequences, which Liam outlined and emailed to us, with each of us filming an equal share of the planned shots. As our film evolved, we maintained this workload distribution, in which we all filmed even shares of certain portions of the films, even as we restructured the film into three acts instead of episodes. Each of us also took on a specific focus in the production as well. Liam and I collected interviews, while Brielle, picked up the exterior shots that became a larger focus of our film. Brielle and Liam, also picked up specific shots of students working, while I focused on getting

The previous interactions of the group influenced the dynamics of the meeting in numerous ways. Each member of the group had previous experience with each other and had established roles and norms. In addition, the timing and significance of the meeting impacted the reactions and response of the participants, including mine. Each person behaved in ways that were influenced by past experience and feelings about the future. Based on theories and studies, many of the reactions are normal behavior for this type of situation.

To further understand Belbin Team Role Theory, I, together with four students formed a team and simulated as being authorized by the Songjiang Government Bureau to investigate into the current situation and the prospect of the higher education industry in Songjiang District. Through unremitting team efforts, we successfully demonstrated our findings and recommended several ideas via a formal presentation. Reviewing the three-months-long process of cooperation, I really found this experience of learning meaningful and fruitful. This reflective essay is a conclusion of my sympathetic introspection of the mistakes I

Overall our group is working fairly well on this project. We used the end of class on the 15th to divide up our tasks. In setting out our timelines, Chris had the idea that we should work backwards from our first deadline, the in-class presentation, to allow us to figure out the rest of out group deadlines. In order to have the presentations ready for a run through on the 29th, we all had to make notes that will allow us to populate the slides with information that, while not necessarily our final draft, at least allows the presenters to begin preparing.

Another experience I really would like to discuss is how to act and react to diversity in the workplace. I was so impressed by some points Miya Ju shared upon her study and working experience in New Zealand, the guest speaker invited by Professor Orgad. One is always taking initiatives and another is being open-minded. In the workplace, doing so will help you stand out from your co-workers, make your organization more successful in the market. Moreover, it will help you build self-confidence and spot more opportunities and potential improvements. For instance, in my group, I take initiative several times even though sometimes I encourage other members to do so but not always succeed. Like in the Lego play exercise, after several minutes’ discussion when we got the assigned toy bricks, others were confused and expressed no idea, so I took the initiative to structure and present the story about an alumnus graduated from the University of Waikato. I demonstrated my concept to other group members and encouraged them to cooperate in subgroups to build up all bricks as what the story demanded. Ultimately, Professor Orgad commented our group story was interesting and creative. For me, the important issue was we all contributed to the group, for the reason that we have same goals to fulfil every task and achieve good results. Moreover, every time I take initiative is not only for my group but also for myself progress as a team player and even as a team leader. Therefore, in future,

During group, I was nervous because I still have no idea what topic I should bring up. I wonder if I should begin talking, but I am also a bit nervous to share something that I might be judged for. I find it very relaxing when Dr. U has us take deep breaths before starting group. Either way when Dr. U was mentioned that we did not have a specific topic to talk about, I really wanted to just share a random story, but something stopped me. I appreciated when Lucy shared how she feels that she is a very emotional person. I connected with her, because people always know how I am feeling based on my facial expressions.

Knowing how to facilitate a group is a vital skill for social workers to have, as there are very few branches of social work that will not require the skills to be used at some point. Throughout the course of the semester, Social Work With Groups has taught us how to lead groups through the use of theory and practice. For the practical element of the class, we were given the opportunity to facilitate a group on the topic of stress for university students. My partners, Ashley and Megan, and I decided that we wanted to focus our specific group on healthy living and its relationship with stress. We all chose different aspects of healthy living for each of us to facilitate. We led our group on Monday, November 13th. While I feel that my facilitation did not go as well as I had hoped, I learned a lot from my experience of facilitating, participating and observing, from the material provided in the course, and now I am able to understand the implications of what I have learned on my future as a social worker.

The work that we have done so far has been great experience for all of us. And I think that it will give us an advantage when we are looking for jobs, because experience will take you farther than any number of classes or research when looking for a job. There is no doubt that we will face similar situations after we graduate, and we need to be prepared to handle them. Because of the way that the projects are structured we are all able to take turns managing the group, something that many of us have no experience doing. However I think that there are communication issues between the editorial and advertising sides, more specifically the lack of communication that is taking place.