Workshop: Communication in Other Environments
Reflective Questions
- Group and leadership
- Was there a group leader? And How was this chosen?
Yes and no, we were put into groups by our lecturer, Louise, and the first person in the group took on the responsibility of collecting the information sheets we needed to complete this task. That person initially took on the role of the leader in the group. However, the further into the task we got the more the role of leader was shared out between a number of people instead of one leader.
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- If informal, how did you know? What were the actions that marked them as a leader?
-They collected the information sheets.
-Took control of the group when assembling the dens.
-Were there to ask questions if need be.
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- How did this impact on the rest of the group e.g. was there some underlying resentment/ did anyone feel excluded?
As the role of leader became shared out, it meant that everyone in the group felt that they played an important part in the group and that the project was equally split with everyone having a responsibility in the group.
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- What was most challenging for you about working in this group? (personal reflection)
Personally, I felt that the most challenging thing about working in the group was making sure that everyone’s ideas were listened to and that they were well considered. I tried to take role in this and talk to other people and listen to their ideas whilst weighing up the different ideas and coming to a group consensus.
- Explaining
- How clearly did you think the group explained to you?
I feel that the I was clearly given all the information I needed to complete this task in sufficient time and be done to a good standard.
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- What made this clear or unclear?
Clear. All the information we needed was on information sheets given to each group-which was good to refer back to and to have in general. If we needed more information we could ask other group members or our lecturer, Louise.
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- What stage of the 5Ps might have been missed out?
Pre-assessment, Planning, Preparation, Presentation and Postmortem. I feel that our group possibly left out the ‘plan’ as we didn’t make an initial plan, however, we planned it as we went along. I feel that ‘Presentation’ also wasn’t visited as much is the other ‘P’s’ as we didn’t discuss the overall process to all groups only 1 other group and our lecturer, Louise.
- Environment
- What was the impact of the environment on your communication?
Members of the group would get distracted by the bugs surrounding our den area as they didn’t like them or had a genuine fear of them. Additionally, the area we selected was slightly sloped so we had ensure we balanced out our den well.
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- What changes did you make when explaining to others that you might not have considered in a typical classroom?
Holding a prop/material which related to what I was talking about (where we could use it in our den) as this helped give a good visual aid and helped incorporate my ideas into the project. This also helped the whole group get their ideas into the den.
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- How challenging was it so speak above the sounds in the environment?
Personally, I don’t feel that the sounds of the environment was challenging or distracting in any way as where we were was fairly quiet and hidden.
The only distraction I found was the bugs including wasps and spiders which distracted a majority of our group.
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- How can we make this communication easier on both speaker and listener?
I feel that if we met as a group in a classroom or personal space where we would be able to make sure we were well informed and make an initial plan before going out to build the den, would be effective. I feel this would make the communication easier for the speaker and the listener as it means that everyone has an initial plan so that if the listener is unable to hear the speaker for any reason or is distracted they would still be able to continue with the initial plan agreed by the group.
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- When listening, did the environment distract you? How can we overcome this?
Personally, I don’t feel that the environment was distracting in terms of listening due to the well selected building space.
- Negotiation
- Were your negotiations successful? Why/Why not? And
- What was most challenging about these?
I feel that some of the negotiations were successful. My group was given the task to try and recruit another member from a different group. This was rather hard to do as the other people from other groups wanted to stay and help their own group. However, typically, negotiating items including scissors, tape, string etc. was fairly easy to do.
