Reflecting on the group assignment so far…

I am trying to be optimistc and positive about this group assignment as being negative doesn’t achieve anything except increase stress.

What is working (at the moment)…

1. The design of the PowerPoint is fantastic- I am very proud of it.

2. The two missing group members are back online and trying to contribute.

What needs to be worked on to make it better:

1. We need a logical structure to focus our writing.

2. We need to assign Jobs to everyone so that the work is broken up once we have a structure. (We should have done this at the very beginning.)

3. We need clearer guidelines from the lecturer about what our PowerPoint should look like ie structure, word count etc.

In my reading and research I did come across Lencioni’s 5 dysfunctions of a team. Our group is experiencing every one of the dysfunctions.

Here is a summary

 
I have just been reading an interesting article on conflict resolution which might come in handy : Mackay, H. (1998). Resolving conflict through listening. In The good listener: better relationships through better communication (pp.189-199). Sydney : Pan Macmillan.

It is 5 days to the next Skype conference. Here’s hoping that we can get it all together….

I still want this assignment to be over….

 

Miss H.

When 4 becomes 2…

This is the original image for the presentation's background

The last few days have been very frustrating. Since our Skype meeting 2 of the members of my group have stopped contributing anything to the group wiki. One has been sick but she promised to upload her contribution before the end of the weekend and the other is not responding via emails at all. I will have to try and ring him from work tomorrow. If there have been problems then, in my opinion the considerate thing to do is ring or email and say I have a sick child, so that the rest of the group is aware that the person will be offline for a few days.

Now all the work has been left to the 2 of us. Fortunately I have been teamed with someone who is very gifted at reading copious amounts of information, making sense of it and is very generous in sharing his analysis with me. I have been trying to contribute my readings as well as designing a fabulous powerpoint template for the assignment. If I do say so myself- it is the best one I have ever created. I bought a photo of an exploding brick wall and manipulated it in Photoshop. Between the 2 of us remaining members of the group, we have chosen the colours of red, white and black as the key colours of the presentation.

At this point- I don’t care about our missing group members. I am working to get the best possible mark for my pair and I. My pair and I have decided that when we get to the next Skype meeting and the other 2 show up- they can’t make changes unless they contribute this week.

To make matters worse- the lecture has failed to provide standards referenced frameworks for this assignment. In class, all teachers are expected to demonstrate examples of each marking band ie what does an A look like? If this was an assignment in high school- it would be challenged by the assessment committees for the contradictory instructions and lack of standards referenced frameworks.

I so want this assignment to be over… NOW!

 

 

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