So this weeks workshop was a little different to sitting in the MacLab or a lecture theatre, but its purpose was to build on the ‘effective communicator’ aspect but in other environments. Your role as a primary school teacher isn’t only about engaging with children but also having a good rapport with adults too.

Den Building Activity

Using the natural resources around us and minimal resources we had the task of creating a den in 45 minutes.

This is our creation River Shack…

Group and Leadership

• Was there a group leader?

Although we did not appoint a group leader i felt that a couple of our team members took that role upon themselves.

• If informal how did you know? What are the actions that marked them as a leader?

They directed everyone different tasks to get on with, and seemed to take control of how we were building this den, however they did also listen to everyone’s ideas.

• How did this impact on the rest of the group e.g. was there some underlying resentment/ did anyone feel excluded?

I feel like they were more involved than others, however nobody was excluded and everyone’s ideas were listened to.

• What was the most challenging thing for you about working in this group?

It was hard to keep 100% focus on the task as i was trying to get to know the people I was working with.

 

Explaining

• How clearly did you think the group explained to you?

I think that all was explained well and clearly and we all knew what had to be done to create our den.

• What made this clear?

At the start we collected all of our resources we wanted to use and stood looking at everything deciding what was the best idea as we had to consider the size we had to make it and the best structure to hold everyone inside.

• What stage of the 5P’s may have been missed out?

I feel that all stages of the 5p’s were met, however I felt the presentation part could have been communicated better.

 

Environment

• What was the impact of the environment on your communication?

I felt that everyone in our group shared and listened to everyone’s ideas, so nobody was excluded, we also all had to help physically build the den. Apart from the odd screams when a wasp or spider appeared by our den we communicated well as a team.

• What changes did you make when explaining to others that you might not have considered in a typical classroom?

As everyone was not all together due to some members of our team dealing with negotiating side of the task it was harder to get everyone together to share ideas and things had to be repeated more than once.

• How challenging was it so speak above the sounds in the environment? How can we make this communication easier on both speaker and listener?

As everyone was off doing their own thing it was difficult to gather everyone together and get people to listen as things had to be repeated more than once on some occasions. It was not very difficult as the area we decided to build the den was quite excluded, far away from the other dens.

• When listening, did the environment distract you? How can we overcome this?

I think yes as there was dog walkers close by and wasps flying around so made it hard to not get distracted and keep focused. I think that a way to overcome this is to keep eye contact with the speaker as you are solely focused on them and not your surroundings.

 

Negotiation 

Our negotiation was to swap one of our team members for another groups, and we were unfortunately unsuccessful. I believe this was due to everyone being so focused on building the dens and getting to know their own team members and the fact that no-one from our team really wanted to leave.