Negative Group Process

The biggest dysfunction I have had with a team was during a research project for my SRA 211 class. The group consisted of four members. We managed to complete our project proposal without incident, but afterwards problems began to appear.

There are many problems that hinder good group dynamics. We don’t usually have the luxury of picking who we are going to work with on a team; dealing with different personalities and personal agendas are common challenges in working within a team. Other commons challenges like, poor leadership, bad communications, and lack of focus can be helped or eliminated by establishing team roles.

Working in a group to achieve a high quality group project can be one of people’s most difficult school experiences. Working in a group is tough because there is often someone who does not pull their own weight. “There are five stages to group development, adjourning, forming, storming, performing, and norming” (John & Wiley pg 166). Christine’s group from the Case Study the Forgotten Group Member is in between the Storming and Norming Stages. The Storming Stage “is dealing with tensions and defining group tasks,” while the Norming Stage is dealing with high emotionality and tension among the group members” (John & Wiley pg. 166). Christine and her group could have had better

The biggest example would be my Inquiry Project. My group and I struggled throughout the year to come up with a project and a final presentation idea. Throughout the entire time, I ensured that I shared my ideas professionally, in the hopes that we could eventually figure it out together. I think that this ties into peer collaboration, since we then had to effectively work together in a group in order to gather signals, research, and come up with a final project. One of the first things that my group and I did, in response to advice from Adina, was discuss our individual strengths and weaknesses. Then, throughout the year, we would constantly identify our group strengths and weaknesses, and work on improving our weaknesses, while also using our strengths for our final presentation.

During my college life on campus in my major, I normally get a lot of group assignment to complete. In my second semester, I have been engaged with some hard working group members who willing to achieve their goals. In this case, all of us were on the same pace to complete the assignment and get it done on time to the best of our ability. In my communication class called editing and film, One of the projects was to film some athletes performing and write an article about the sport. There were five members in my group and we all work together and each individual gets a sign task to do and complete it without an issue. We get one week to perform the task and the follow Monday we would have to present it to the class, we have complete the work on time because we all work hard together as a team to get the job done

If you have a very negative environment or intense environment in our classroom kids don't learn as well as they do in a positive environment. Group projects allow students to work together with their peers and talk amongst themselves as one but do it while getting the knowledge and materials they need to learn. This causes the students to be less nervous when working with other and that makes the classroom they are in a more positive setting for them. I can speak from experience and I would rather work on a project with more than one person rather

Our group consists of Asmaa, Kelly, Sasha, and me, and our project is entitled, "Mental Health for Male Prisoners in the United States." It took several weeks to work on this research, and the project went very smoothly. As a group, we worked together well. Everyone was on time for our scheduled meetings, and we divided tasks so that each person had a clearly defined role within the group. There were no issues or problems during the times that we worked together. Although we were not personal friends at the time we began the project, we developed strong working relationships that highlight some of the positive aspects and outcomes of teamwork.

My initial response to our group project is that I thought we did well, especially given the fact that all four of us are very different people. Not only did we have very diverse interests and ideas, but we also had a slight language barrier in our group. I ultimately do not believe that this caused any harm to our group. The hardest part of the project may have been choosing a topic. Initially our choice was to do a response to the Koran. Although I would have enjoyed something that is intellectually stimulating and will continue to be debated, especially recently in the media, it was important that I took that off the table and suggested Cars instead.

I always thought that working in groups meant one or two people doing all the work and the rest just goofing off. But in our group each individual had a specific task that they had to perform to make sure the group assignment got done. The group consisted of 9 people who are as followed; Christian Clark, Reilyenne Nahulu, Michel Rivera, Hunter Salavea-Timoteo, Kashalynn Vergara, Paola Guadalupe Gonzalez, Kobee Ledward, Bryje Ahia, and Jeremie Saludares. The analysis covers the importance of an interesting topic, preparation needed, roles I played, things that went well in our group, could've done better, and the two important things about group communication.

Something that we learned as a group was that cooperation helps a lot. Certain tasks were accomplished faster and this showed us that one person does not have to do the entire project on their own. Procrastination is also detrimental, causing cramming on days before deadlines. This can be stressful and force meetings to be postponed. Our group has also learned to follow a set schedule. Following a schedule allows us to complete all of our work on time.

Our team comprised of four members; Emily, Cileena, Chelsea and I. We were all delegated with an individual role each term and I was designated team leader for the first term for our group. I felt at the time that this role did not suit me as I am the type of person who is more on the shy side. In addition, the course had just begun so I was relatively unsure of how the course was handled which also affected my ability to serve as the team leader to the best of my capabilities. During the first term, our team responsibility was the evaluation team. We created a well planned and carefully executed evaluation rubric to assess each group’s performance. The start of this term was when the phases of group development initiated. The first stage of any group is forming (Harris and Sherblom, 2010, p. 58). At this time, we were all still getting to know each other and were uncertain upon one another

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

A cornerstone for facilitators is to understand what happens to people in groups. To do this, we need to look both at what people set out to achieve, the task, as well as how they get along – the processes of group activity. People often behave quite differently in groups and teams from one-to-one settings. Some people become quiet, others turn into bullies or tormentors, some become jokers. For the facilitator who has to rely on others for getting the job done, this can be daunting. Why is it that a meeting feels electric one moment and awkward the next? Why do some people refuse to communicate while others do all the talking? It becomes easier to understand the process level if we take a practical example.

The things I will have done differently in the group was to use my time wisely. I believe because we were on a time frame, I tended to rush things just to say okay where done. Also, more support and trust at a point of time I was kind of second guessing another idea. I feel that you have to have trust in your group member to make it effective.

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