Month: January 2020

Group and leadership

In the outdoor activity, I feel that there was a team leader. One of my team-mates had a history of camping and working outdoors and therefore had many ideas in which we could complete the task successfully. We made the decision of the team leader through a group-decisions on our strengths and people volunteering for roles. The action that marked them as the leader was how they instructed the rest of the group on what to do. They explained how they wanted the den to look and how we were going to accomplish this, while also following the correct criteria. They took lead on building the den while telling others on further materials we would need. They also informed us of what materials we could trade. In result of this, I feel that the team worked well together, and we all participated. I do think that we should have swapped roles at some point during the exercise to allow each other to get the opportunity to try different roles rather than just one. This would have allowed us to explore more variety of communication skills. I feel the most challenging part of working within this group was communicating with different people as the groups were mixed.

 

Explaining

I feel the group explained everything very well as they described everything clearly and concisely. They talked at a good pace with a loud voice to ensure we heard anything. They also pointed at each thing they were describing to allow us to add visuals to their explanation. When listening to the other group and how they built their dens, they missed out on describing how they had planned their dens and how they chose theirs and based their explanation on the final piece.

 

Environment

I believe my communication changed due to being outdoors. As I was communicating in an open space and there were other groups in the surrounding area, in order to communicate successfully I had to use a higher volume for my group to be able to hear me. I also had to have a closer proximity to whoever I was talking in order for them to hear successful and so I did not need to shout. If far away from my teammates I would also use gestures like a thumbs up or down when finding different materials and checking if we needed them or not. I felt at times it was difficult to speak above the sounds in the environment. To overcome this, we used gestures and signals to each other rather than words. To make communicating in this environment easier I believe that huddling together allows everyone to be heard better if they are within closer proximity. I think the speaker should gathering everyone together in a place in which nothing is happening in the background to allow everyone to focus on what you are saying rather than what’s going on behind them. I also think using a louder volume is a necessity to allow everyone to hear over the background noise of the outdoors. Through our decision at the end, I felt it was difficult hear the speaker due to the noisy environment. I also feel people were still talking through the decisions as they were still hyped up from the activity. To overcome this, we could do pre-discussions and reflecting indoors in which will help to keep concentrating and focus on the speaker as well as allowing listeners to clearly hear anything being said with no confusion. It will also allow people to calm and settled down after the excitement.

 

Negotiating

 

Our negotiations were successful. After planning how we were going to build the den and the materials we would need in order to do so, we gathered all the materials we did not need. We then analysis each group and guess what materials they needed we did this through communicated with each other and agreeing on decisions. We then used these objects to trade for ones we needed. While trading we had to use our persuading skills to help the trade take place. We did this by telling them what they could use it for and how helpful it would be for them to have. Therefore, our negotiations were successful due to our ability to agree on decisions and debating skills. The most challenging part of our negotiations was when people did not want the item we wanted to trade. To overcome this, we explained to them how they could use the material to trade with another group for something they had that they wanted. This was successfully. In order to complete this stage, we had to have confidence in what we were saying, and this allowed us to communicate well. We had to approach others in a way that was friendly and made them want to negotiate with us. Another challenging part was when people would not agree with the trade and we had to give up. This meant we had to go back to our group and discuss or next tactic.

The chapter “Finding About Others: The Skill of Questioning” has a main aim of explaining the number of different types of questions that can be used and how it contributes to communication. It identifies that questioning can be looked as a simple process by many, however it is quite complex and a powerful way of communicating.

The chapter has allowed me to think more about how I interpret questions and also how to ask questions as a student teacher. There are a lot more types of questions than I was previously aware of such as process, probing and leading questions.

Process questions allows the respondent to think intensively about the question being asked such as having time to think about their own opinion, making a judgement on the question and predicting. Research suggests that these types of questions are most efficient in developing the participation and achievement of individuals of high intellectual ability, however I disagree with this. I believe everyone is capable to think to intensively and bring their own opinion to what is being asked, certain individual’s may need extra support to do so.

The chapter emphasised that the lack of questions being asked in a classroom environment is due to pupils being concerned about the negative reaction from the class. I can agree with this research due to my own personal experience. I have learned that it can be common for individuals to judge or laugh at certain questions being asked in a classroom environment and this leads me to lack confidence to speak out within a large group of people. However, I am learning to overcome this as a developing student teacher.

Waterman (2001) has argued that both asking questions and answering is a vital part to communication and is essential to everyday life. Questioning is an ability that is constantly used, and it is a powerful tool to find out about someone.

Reference: ‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. 5th ed. London: Routledge.

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On my first day of placement, I was put into a P3 class with varying levels of ability.  The helpful class teacher and I reviewed the documentation I need to complete and established a plan to enable me to complete the tasks whilst observing, learning and taking part in lessons when appropriate.  In the numeracy lesson, it was good to see what we have been learning at University put into practice, and today it was word problem solving which was a coincidence as we only had a lecture on this this week.  It really helped me seeing what strategies she was using so that all the children understood using ‘our skills’.  The children were asked to create their own word problems for their peers to complete at the next lesson.  In Literacy, the lesson was on poetry writing and the teacher reinforced previous learning in terms of structure, theme of the poem and the features the children should use.  The class wrote some wonderful poems with great use of alliteration and similes and rhyming.  The class were taken outside for ‘muddy movers’ which involved construction of something they had to go over, go under and balance on with the crates and wooden planks available.  Great team building took place with a lot of chatter and exchanging of ideas, there were also lots of muddy knees and hands by the end too! I’m really looking forward to returning next week.

Kimberley-Anne McLeish B00369297 Tuesday 21/1/2020
Communication in Other Environments – Louise

Group and Leadership
A group leader wasn’t chosen, and the question wasn’t asked if anyone wanted to be a group leader. We all had an input as to where we wanted to build our den and what materials we wanted to use. I feel that everyone felt included and had an equal say.

Explaining
The group were very clear in explaining what they wanted to do and where. The explaining was really happening whilst building the den and demonstrating it. So, therefore, on reflection, we could have had more input in the planning stage, and it could have been explained at this point how the structure of the den was going to look.

Environment
The outdoors environment made you feel more relaxed and you didn’t feel as though there was pressure on you whilst doing the given task. At some points, you had to change the tone and pitch of your voice for people to hear and pay attention to you. The reason for this was because everyone was further apart as opposed to sitting next to one another in a classroom. The only challenges I felt was because no one was close and everyone was off in different directions getting materials, so therefore, if you wanted to communicate something you weren’t always doing it to the whole group. The environment didn’t really have a huge impact with regards to communication and listening because we had chosen an area which was quite secluded away from lots of people, and there wasn’t any noise from busy roads either.

Negotiation
Our negotiation tactics were successful because we were explaining the benefits of what we were trying to swap with and giving different ideas for uses of our materials. The challenges were that people became attached to their own materials and really didn’t want to part with them.

Broad themes from the reading.
What is the main aim of the chapter?
– Develop a wider understand of the need for questioning
– Understand the various types of questioning and why it is used
– How questions can be influenced
– Understand how questions are presented and the impact this has
Identify three or four key themes within the chapter.
– Questioning Importance
– Questioning Structure
– Types of Questions

Claims and evidence
Can you identify any claims made in the chapter? What evidence is used to substantiate the claims – discuss one example.
– The chapter claimed that children do not answer questions in class due to the fear that their classmates will react negatively. This was followed by an example and US Study. This showed that as children grow older they feel less comfortable to ask or answer questions in the classroom. However males, whites, higher-income groups, those with higher self-esteem and those who felt accepted by their peers all felt more at ease to do so.

Analysis and evaluation
Pick one thing you might disagree with; what evidence can you use to defend this stance?
– I personally disagree with questions always being more important than the answer. I understand and agree that the question asked will help to guide the answer, however the answer can tell a lot about the individual. The chapter quotes Voltaire who states, “Judge a man not by his answers, but by his questions”. Questions can help to guide however an individual can still manipulate an answer to suit them, therefore telling us a lot about them and their morals. For example, within a court room with a suspect, they are likely to avoid the truth, showing they were guilty.

Knowledge and understanding
Identify words you are unsure of and find out what they mean
– Inapposite
– Meaning out of place or inappropriate
What theories or concepts are mentioned in the chapter?
“Funnel Sequence”
The Funnel Sequence is when questions asked are open: “What do you do at the weekends”. This allows the response to have many possible answers, then allowing questioner to gain understanding of the subject’s interests, needs and wants. As the conversation goes on, it gradually progresses to closed questions: “Where were you at 8pm last night”. The answer should then have only one real answer. This then looks like a funnel as it starts of wide, then gradually becomes more narrow.

 

‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. 5th ed. London: Routledge.

The Skill of Questioning – Hargie O.

The main aim of this passage is to stress the importance and relevance of questioning (in all forms) in our lives and communication skills.
It discusses the purpose of questioning, different types of questioning (closed, open, leading and recall to name a few) and when we might use them, and that asking questions can relate to having power i.e. if you’re a doctor or teacher as in the classroom it is the teacher who is asking the majority of the questions and doctors must ask questions to conclude a diagnosis.
The author uses lots of evidence to back up their statements, this was shown when they talked about how children with disabilities are subject to giving untrue and wrong answers when presented with leading questions. The author backed up this statement by having three other texts being referenced too. This means that what they are saying has been looked into and hypothesised by others. They have also backed up their evidence with diagrams of conversations, to emphasise the points they are making.
Waterman et al. (2001) claims that children become less accurate when they are asked closed questions, this is because when asked opened questions they will keep talking with all details they can remember with the odd prompt, whereas closed questions result in children responding with less detailed answers as they respond with what they have interpreted from the question. They also can get confused with yes or no questions because they may respond with no if they don’t understand the question or disagree rather than that being their actual response.

‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. 5th ed. London: Routledge.