EDUC6165 Week6 Adjourning Stage

The adjourning phase of team development is the fifth and final stage.  In this stage, the end project should be reviewed and evaluated.  Projects that turned out well can be remembered for the future.  Projects that did not turn out well can be dissected, and the results saved and learned for the future.  This is also a time for the team to celebrate the various successes of the project.  Often, close knit group members will feel sad that the project has ended, and will want to keep in touch.

High performing groups are very difficult to leave.  In a high performing group, members become close knit, they become almost like a family.  Groups with a strong norming stage have members which trust, value and respect each other.  There is a strong level of peer support among group members with a strong norming stage.  When the group disbands, there is a feeling of loss, a feeling of sadness.  Persons you have become close to, trust, and respect are no longer available for group work.

Low performing groups are easy to leave.  There is not a high level of trust formed.  Neither is there a high level of commitment.  Members are not connected and feel little or no responsibility for each other.  A low performing group often never reaches the norming stage, never learns to work toward a common goal as a team.

I have experienced a variety of adjourning rituals.  Project reflection is a common ritual, which can be enlightening and educational.  Parties are often thrown at the end of a project, a place to celebrate the project, a place to say good-byes, a place to exchange personal contact information.  Parties are a very common ritual!  Sometimes, a project just ends with an event.  This is common when planning an event, such as a scout banquet.  Often, when the event ends, the team is thanked, and no further adjourning takes place.

When I graduated from high school, I felt sad to leave my group of friends.  We worked toward a common goal.  Graduation.  When I graduate from this master’s degree program, I will again feel sad to loose contact with my fellow students.  The online environment allows for a lower level of team work than a course taught in a classroom, and is not as difficult to leave.  However, I will still feel sad to no longer communicate with my classmates.  I hope to keep in touch as I begin a career in the teaching field, beginning a new team challenge, a project defined as a peer support group for those of us entering the job market in the early childhood field, another online team project.  I do not want to say goodbye, I want to start another project!       

Adjourning is an essential portion of team work, as every beginning needs an ending.  Proper adjourning sets the stage for further team work.  Team members are able to celebrate successes and learn from choices and decisions that were less than perfect.  Proper adjourning practices also give participants an opportunity to socialize, reinforcing new friendships and planning future contact.  

EDUC6165 - Week 5 - Conflict Resolution

HELP!  I am currently experiencing a conflict in my group childcare home, and I am open to any suggestions!  Here is the background:

·       One ten year old boy is enrolled part time for the summer, attending one week on, one week off.  During the off weeks he is with his father, during his childcare weeks he is with his mother.

·       Mother of this boy admits she has no control at home, states the boy has ADHD but is off medication for the summer, and also admits she is afraid to cross the child because of the joint custody.  Mother is living near poverty level.

·       Father of the boy does not have any interaction with the child care.  He comes from a financially well off family, and spoils the boy with cruises, cell phones, etc.

·       Staff wants the boy removed from the childcare.  They are refusing to work with him, and are becoming very stressed within his presence.  One male staff member admits that he is close to physically harming the child, and is having a hard time holding back.  He has asked to be assigned away from the boy.

·       The ten year old boy has been using inappropriate language, teaching younger children to fight, showing disrespect to adults in front of the other children, talking back to staff, and in general acting as if he were better than everyone else at the childcare. At mealtime he grabs a plate and eats before other children are called to the table, uses poor table manners, and complains about our “slop”, as he eats three to four servings.

·       As the director, I have observed the boy.  I do not notice any signs of ADHD.  I do notice signs of lack of adequate parental control.  He seems to be using his parent’s divorce as a way to control his mother, threatening to go live with his father when she does not meet his demands.  I do not know if he does the same with his father.

As the director, my first step was to assign the male staff person to an area away from this child.  This staff person has worked with me for over ten years, and has never touched a child.  I support his request to work away from this child, due to his admission of possible lack of control in the future.  I hope to work with the child, and as I make progress, explain to the male staff person my non-violent techniques.  I can walk the staff person through the process, taking baby steps, showing by example how to help this child in a non-violent way.   I may also consider future training for this staff person in the area of non-violent conflict resolutions.  I will also compliment the male staff person for his honesty in this situation. 

I have observed the boy, and am wondering if he is acting out at the childcare because he feels as if he does not fit in.  Perhaps he does not know how to fit in.  He is around younger children, which is a new environment for him.  I have also noticed that he does not seem to understand when he is disrespecting others.  It is almost as if he were never taught to respect others.  Therefore, I am planning on working closely with him the next week he attends childcare, helping him to fit in, and teaching him how to respect others.  His mother says he has no interests or hobbies other than video games.  He packs a large number of stuffed animals with him daily, and all of them are related to video game characters.  I am thinking that this boy may need a close friend, perhaps an adult, who he can talk to and confide in.  Therefore, I hope to use the three R’s by talking with him, actively listening, respecting him, and promoting responsive interactions with him.

I am definitely open to any suggestions!

Mary L.  

EDUC6165 Week 4 - Communication Quiz!

For class this week, I took three online communication quizzes.  The topics were Communication Anxiety, Verbal Aggressiveness, and Listening Style.  I realized that the way I evaluated myself and the way others evaluated me were similar but different.  I asked two employees to take the quizzes to rate my communication skills, and then asked my husband and daughter to take the same tests for me.  My employees saw me differently than my family did.

The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that my daughter rated my communication skills very closely to my own ratings.  She rated them much more closely than my husband did!  My daughter seems to be closer to me, to understand me better than my husband does!  

Another surprise is the way my staff at work sees me.  They seem to feel that I am not verbally aggressive at the workplace, that I am too trusting and afraid to speak up when necessary.  I will have to learn to display a business persona separate from my home life characteristics.  I have always treated my staff like family, assuming that the childcare should be family-like.  However, my staff seems to feel that I should be more business-like at the work place.  This observation may cause me to change my communication behavior at my group childcare home.  I still want the children to feel like they are at their second home.  However, I will have to treat the staff as employees, and the parents more like clients.  I will have to be more professional.

EDUC6165 - Week 2 - Non-Verbal Communication

iCarly, I Sell Penny Tees

with NO sound!

            I watched the iCarly, I Sell Penny Tees” show with the sound turned off to notice nonverbal communication.  I have never seen an episode of iCarly, and therefore only knew what I could surmise from the title.  The characters seemed to be a family consisting of a male in his late teens and his blond girlfriend, a girl and a boy in their mid-teens, and a boy about 12 years old.  A blond girl in her mid-teens befriended the family.  The group seems to be a combination of family and friends in and out of school.

            We know that the episode is about selling Tees by the title.  The show begins with a filming session.  The mid-teen group is evidently planning to sell Tees.  The brother films the sister and her blonde friend as they display non-verbal communications of happiness and laughter for an apparent commercial.  Eventually, the blonde girl walks in with three cases of Tees, and the sister and brother are apparently not happy with her.  They look disturbed.  Later, the blonde girl shows off where she obtained the tees, in a child labor sweat shop she had set up in a basement.  The children in the sweat shop were sweating, hungry, and displaying signs of despair.  The brother and sister were visibly shocked!  The brother took control, angering the friend, but shutting down the sweat shop.  Brother and sister still want the tees, and resume the sweat shop under better conditions, but cannot reap the same output on tees.  The blonde returns, I assume to help run the new sweat shop with increased output, but the children revolt.  In the end, two representatives from the child labor sweat shop, the friend, and the sister and brother have a group meeting to discuss the sweatshop, only to notice that the children turned the business over to another group of young children.

            During the scenes about the sweat shop, the oldest brother receives a DVD in the mail, which he shows non-verbally that he is very excited about.  Later, he shows the DVD to a girlfriend, and both are visually excited.  They show their love for each other with a kiss.  Later, a younger brother angers his older brother, with the result of a girlfriend being lost.

            If I had seen iCarly before, I would have been able to relate to the characters more accurately.  At this point, I am guessing as to their character roles within the television show.

iCarly, I Sell Penny Tees

WITH sound!

            The assumptions I made about the characters and the plot were fairly accurate.  Some of the finer details, such as names, were missing.  The non-verbal communication I witnessed was also fairly accurate.  I did miss some of the major plots in the show.  One major omission was the fact that the oldest boy’s girlfriend did not speak English; he had to communicate with her non-verbally.  The DVD he was so excited to receive in the mail was in her native language.  In the end, she left with another person that spoke her native language.

            I do not think a familiarity with the show would have made a major difference in the way I understood the non-verbal communication.  The show was filled with non-verbal communication, with the level being much higher than one would experience in a real life situation.  Very little was said without physical or emotional communication added.  I wonder if this unnatural addition of non-verbal communication is a planned addition by the producer to increase watcher understanding.  The producer may understand that the listening environment, skills and/or abilities of his audience may often be reduced.  

Reference

The iCarly show[Video Podcast]. (2012, June 23) Retrieved from  http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/isell-penny-tees-full-episode.html