small group communications
Jamie Church SCOM ___ Zeuschner March 18, 2004 Small Group Communications Term Paper Small groups contain many elements, some obvious some not. Through this last quarter as a student in Small Group Communication, I have learned many interesting and useful characteristics of small groups, leaving me to feel better prepared for my future work in such an area. Small groups can range from three to an ideal size of five to seven. This makes small groups an inescapable part of life and understanding their subject matter has made me feel more competent in my work and social life. ... ” Through being in these work groups I was able to study group development, listening, conflict, and leadership. Group Development Tuckman has four stages of development: forming, storming, norming, and performing, which are centered on task and maintenance functions. I feel that our first group project helps to exemplify this. ... ” This really aggravated the group and led us to become more argumentative towards her and the rest of the group. ... Even though there was the particular member that continued to shoot down ideas, the group was able to overcome their frustration and ignore her comments. ... It was only a matter of actually giving our presentation, and all of the group members were confident in what we decided to do. Aubrey Fisher also had four phases of group development, but her stages are focused on decision-making. ... Next, in the emergence phase, the group finally started to justify what they wanted to bring and other members would listen constructively and start to agree and compromise. ... Soon enough, everyone started to agree more than disagreeing and the group was able to move into the reinforcement stage. ... These four types of listening: empathic, analytical, appreciative, and comprehensive, became available for me to observe in the group projects for the video and Fisher’s essay presentations. The video that my group watched was “Stand By Me,” a perfect movie exemplifying small group relationships. When my group met, I found that there was a lot of controversy with how to carry out our presentation. ... When it was coming down to the last of our meetings and the rest of my group wanted to change our presentation, I spoke out against it. ... I felt that the members of my group really listened empathetically. ... My group read Aubrey Fisher’s essay and found it to be quite difficult.