Team Building

As an educator, I go through the adjourning stage at the end of every school year. The other staff members, while I am hugging and crying over the children, look at me like I am crazy. I even cry and snot all over the ones who gave me the biggest headache! One year, I had a teacher ask me" Are you going to miss him"?! Oh my goodness, this student gave us a run for our money, but I was able to see how much he had grown throughout the school year; and I was proud of his accomplishments. In the adjourning stage, the team( our class), celebrate the success of the project; and in this case, the academic success of the students. The group also captures best practices for the future(Learning Center, 2011, p. 1).  Because our class becomes a school family bonds are built. We all experience a sense of sadness. I am especially upset, if they are not returning  the next school year. My desire, is to keep in touch with the students and staff at Walden. Each of us bring special qualities and talents to  the team; which makes our team productive and effective. Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork, because it represents the ending of a project;, team members are able to reflect on the successes and the weaknesses in the project ,and make appropriate changes for future purposes. Members are able to go forth and build more productive and successful teams.

 

Conflict Resolution

According to our text, " Real Communication An Introduction", " Conflict that is managed effectively is called "Productive Conflict"( O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). REAL COMMUNICATION AN INTRODUCTION (2ND ed.).  I am currently in a conflict with my co-teacher. Some of the strategies he uses, to change the behaviors of the class clowns, or those students who refuse to obey the class rules, are not fairly distributed. When one or more students do something inappropriately( ex. yell out or throw paper), he makes the entire class pay the price( loose recess or write). I approached him about this, and he responded by saying " I let the entire class, get mad at the people who is getting them into trouble". I do not feel like his approach is effective. The students have not stopped the negative behaviors. Using the NVC model, I have attempted to use empathetic listening as a way to open up a positive line of communication. One of NVC's concepts, is to emphasize compassion as a motivation for action rather than fear, guilt, shame and blame. We are not seeing a real change, because the teacher is not using compassion to motivate. My co-teacher and I are still in what the text describe as productive communication. We are definitely not In agreement with one another, but we are compromising. On Friday, the children were given free time in the computer lab. Prior to going to the lab, the same disruptive children began to act out. He( co-teacher) threatened the entire class. After I spoke with him, about the students who caused the confusion, he allowed all of the students except those who caused the ruckus, to proceed to the lab for free time.  

Updated Communication Strategies

This past week, I have learned so much about the communication process, and how my communication style has developed over the years. I have never thought on the significance of past experiences, and how those experiences have a direct effect on the way we see or perceive others. In our text," Real Communication An Introduction", the authors correlated our past experiences( schemas), with how we perceive others. After reading some examples( in the text), of how our thoughts about ourselves shape our opinions of others, I came to the realization that all of my interactions with others, left deposits, and with each encounter, my communication style was altered.  After evaluating myself in all three areas, I have found that I am for the most part a pretty effective communicator. My husband use to tell me; especially if he was attempting to avoid a subject," I think you enjoy hearing  yourself". The people I chose to evaluate me, were people who knew me quite well: my sister, and my friend ( over twenty year friendship). I tried my best to choose people who would be completely honest with me about me. Both people's scores, fell almost in the exact range as mine. They both felt I am a person who tries very hard to positively communicate. I do not believe in attacking others in order to prove my point of view. I was a little surprised to see that on the verbal communication section, I have the tendency, if a person is acting foolishly, to be a little aggressive in my attempt to change their behavior. Professionally, I am able to suppress behaviors that may come off as intimidating; but people I am very close too, may get to see a different side of me. Because I understand, that when I interact with others, I am using my schemas to evaluate the people I'm communicating with, they( people ) too are evaluating me based on their schemas; it is important that we as educators fight hard, to eliminate schemas that may hinder fair evaluations of others  

 

Communication Strategies

This week, I learned my impression of myself, verses others impressions of me, are not that different; however some of the results of the communication assessments, were quite surprising and disturbing. Based on the answers of my self assessment, and the assessments others took on me, I have the ability to be verbally aggressive,  if I feel like I am not being heard or respected. I specifically remember answering no to questions insinuating my potential to be a verbally aggressive person. I learned that my past experiences has shaped my self-concept and my views of others.