Lorely Orbe - Blog 2

 Blog Post 1 

Lorenzo Rodriguez 

Summary: Over the past couple of days we've been presenting about Chapters: 3,9, and 10. These chapters cover topics such as Internal Communication, which consists of Culture and Communication and includes information on dominant cultures and how they differ and Identities within those cultures. Chapter 3, we talk all things culture so basically race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, age, and disabilities. To be specific in this chapter they evaluate how cultures differ and how they could ultimately work together or conflict with each other. 

 However, in Chapter 9 we go into more extroverted topics such as: Communicating in groups and their natures and different types of groups. Also the characteristics of healthy groups and the stages of group development and their conflicts. So, by the nature of groups, we look specifically at families, social groups, support groups, interest groups, service groups, and work groups and teams. While also diving into stages of group development which consists of the processes of forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning, and transforming. Then, we tap into conflicts in groups and certain examples that go into greater detail such as pseudo-conflict, issue-related group conflict, personality-related group conflict, and cultural conflicts.

 Finally, in Chapter 10, we explore subjects such as Leadership, tackling roles in groups, and meeting with your members to do things such as brainstorming, problem-solving, communicating, and evaluating their effectiveness while presenting. Among the leadership topics, we go into detail about their task roles, maintenance roles, procedural roles, and shared leadership responsibilities. After that, we dive into Effective meetings and their guidelines for group communication. After that, the next step is discussing systematic problem-solving for groups, identifying problems in your group, how to analyze said problems, judging solutions, and deciding upon a solution and assessing it. 

Now as for the presentation provided by my peers in SPC1017. For the first presentation, the students started off by presenting their respective chapters and as they were executing this presentation. I couldn't help but notice the difference in presentational skills. What I mean by that is confidence, tone of voice, body mannerisms/language, and eye contact. Although there were some members who didn't perform all those skills in a general sense I still understood their presentation about Chapter 3 clearly. As for the information in their presentation, I could tell that all members did their research and were knowledgeable about each topic/subtopics in their chapter presentation. There were multiple pictures and graphs also some evidence that backed up their facts. The photos assisted in making the information they were presenting easily digestible, making for a smooth learning experience about Chapter 3. 

Now, I cannot tell you exactly how well Chapter 9 was from the perspective of the audience as I was presenting this chapter with my group members. However, I can go into detail about the approach we took while making our presentation. So first, our group decided to meet in a study room in the learning resources (library) on campus. Once we met we started assigning roles trying to determine who wanted to present which area of the chapter. For example, I decided to present about the stages of group development because it was what resonated with me best. So in that instance, I divided my work with another classmate, researched my topic, and provided only key details in my slides paired with related images that were easy to comprehend. Obviously, all other members in our group followed the same routine (Atleast I think they did). Once it was time to present we stood up and displayed our presentation on the projector in order for the rest of the class to be able to observe what information we were relaying to them. Once that was complete it was time to present each member spoke about their respective topic and after that we concluded our presentation. 

Finally, for the last Chapter presentation, we patiently waited until the next class. This presentation was based on group leadership and problem-solving. As this group was presenting I learned various new drops of knowledge such as leadership skills, and how different leaders or shared leadership methods affect the outcome of group cohesiveness. I also learned about different roles in groups such as individuals with certain task roles. That means they are set to complete a specific task that is assigned to them. Not to mention other roles such as supporters, interpreters, harmonizers, seekers, expediters, gatekeepers, recorders, and analyzers. However, these roles were tackled in an easily digestible manner by the group presenting. I learned all of this and more due to their presentational and well-organized presentation.