Sophia Bahamonde - Group Presentation 1,000 Word Essay

Each presentation reviewed selected chapters and all had wonderful insights of real life rather than just what was in the book. The three groups had chapters three, nine and ten. Each of these chapters had something to do with group work, which will always be beneficial to the real world.

Starting with Group 1, they had chapter three. This chapter was about intercultural communication. The group made sure to follow along with the learning objectives of the chapter such as what culture is and how the role of communication is important. They also made sure to explain the the different culutres based on their dominance, if there are co-cultures, and how cultures can differ. They used videos and graphics to better demonstrate and allow easier understanding of these concepts as well. Not only that, but they made sure to input a world perspective, not just the United States. Even though the U.S. has a multitude of different groups that they could have based on, it's good to include the hundreds of countries we have. The U.S. is not the only country in the world and sometimes people tend to forget that. The members also did an exceptional job in explaining their designated topic. They elaborated on religion, sex and gender, disability and so forth. This is important to define and elaborate on how there are a variety of aspects to each of these topics. Usually not a lot of it gets spoken about because it can cause arguments or it's considered taboo, but the group made note that it's important to consider just how diverse people can be. Till this day, people of all shapes and colors still suffer from discrimination because they are considered "different". Everyone is different and instead of bashing or hating one another, we should learn to unite to make the world a better place, no matter how cheesy that sounds. Overall the presentation was organized and well done. I especially liked how at the end, they made a recap of the important points of the presentation. This was definetly a helpful part and even made better with how the group member explained each point and even gave their own opinion.

Going on to the next presentation which was conducted by Group 2, which was on chapter 9. This chapter consisted of communicating in groups. The group's presentation did a great job in defining the different type of groups, emphasizing what healthy groups look like, development of groups and how to manage group conflict. They started off with the different groups people tend to be a part of. The most basic one being families. Other groups can be: social, support, service, interest, work, and even virtual groups. I didn't even think that there were so many categories of groups that even I can potentially be a part of. These groups can all have different benefits both individualistically and collectively. However, to be effective, these groups would need to have the aspects or characteristics of healthy groups. Majority of the time, groups need to be united and have agreements on the functionality of the group. Members need to have the same goals. Groups need to be able to have trust on one another and their skills so that the fufillment of the goal can be achieved more easily. There is more teamwork involved so the workload is not dumped on one person. Each member should have different skills and expertise that can make meeting all goals possible. For instance, say a group is planning a fundraiser, there should be members who are knowledgable on finances, another memeber with connections for sponsors, and so forth. This group who made the presentation must have done the same thing in ways of spliting workload and giving advice to their members since their end goal, the powerpoint, came together all smoothly. The presenation then went on to how groups go through stages of development which are: forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning and transforming. These stages play an important part in how to group works together and fufill their goals effectively. It was good to know that conflict in groups is normal to happen and can even encourgae for stronger commuincation and constructive disagreement. Lastly, the presentation ended with how conflicts in groups will always happen and could happen for a variety of reasons. Yet there are ways to manage and overcome these conflicts. The group used videos to explain all these concepts as well as charts and overall was a insightful presentation.

Lastly was Group 3. This was and is the group I am a part of. Our topic was on chapter 10 which focused on group leadership and problem solving. We had the idea that our project would have a light theme from the show, "The Office", which I beleive did an excellent job in sparking creativity amongst the members for designing the slides. I think our presentation overall was a good job, but being a bit of a perfectionist, I feel there are some parts that could have been worked on. I believe my group members did a wonderful job with the information they gave. They were detailed and had showed videos that further explained the concept of chapter 10. We worked pretty well together for being our first presentation and I am glad that these are my group members. However, I wish we had communicated more, especailly some members who never really spoke out. When working on this chapter I learned to make sure that everyone is heard and encouraged to speak out their opinions. But I felt that not everyone did so. If we had stronger communication, our presentation would have done better than it did and more smoother. Another thing was my own part of the presentation. I'm the tech person of the group and it was my first time presenting a presentation through blackboard so there were some hiccups along the way. I wish to have redone my part because I couldn't fully present my slides, or at least one of the videos that I had included. I now know that next time we should rerun and practice our presentations before doing the actual thing. I think this project was a good starter for this communication class as well because we can take this new found knowledge and implement it on future group prjects and to improve oursleves.

Even though I wasn't able to show one of my videos, I'll include it with this blog at least. I think the video explains the desicion making process as whole.